From < The blog in the corporate¹ machine > 摘自《经济学人》 Feb 9th 2006

They have always had their critics, but corporations are having an especially hard time making friends of late. Scandals at Enron and WorldCom destroyed thousands of employees' livelihoods², raised hackles about bosses' pay and cast doubt on the reliability³ of companies' accounts; labour groups and environmental activists⁴ are finding new ways to co-ordinate their attacks on business; and big companies such as McDonald's and Wal-Mart have found themselves the targets of scathing⁵ films. But those are just the enemies that companies can see.（1）Even more troubling for many managers is dealing⁶ with their critics online—because, in the ether, they have little idea who the attackers are.
……
Mike Kaltschnee's site, HackingNetflix.com, became a force to be reckoned with for Netflix, a video-rental outfit⁷ that delivers to people's homes. When Netflix said it was not interested in Mr Kaltschnee passing on questions from consumers, he posted the exchange online, hurting the firm's reputation among loyal customers. The company now treats him much more respectfully and his site has gained a large following.
（2） Increasingly, companies are learning that the best defence against these attacks is to take blogs seriously and fix rapidly whatever problems they turn up.

new words

ether    n 以太网
以太网是当今现有局域网采用的最通用的通信协议标准。该标准定义了在局域网（LAN）中采用的电缆类型和信号处理方法。