Corporate Gun Control: Salesforce to cut off customers who sell legal semi-automatic firearms
“Multibillion-dollar business software provider Salesforce announced on Thursday that it would no longer do business with anyone who legally sells certain firearms or ammunition magazines.”
Business software provider Salesforce is flexing its anti-Second Amendment muscles as it bans sellers who use its software from legally selling a selection of (legal) guns, (legal) magazines, and an array of (legal) firearm accessories.
The Washington Free Beacon reports:
Multibillion-dollar business software provider Salesforce announced on Thursday that it would no longer do business with anyone who legally sells certain firearms or ammunition magazines.
The corporation, worth around $120 billion, updated its Acceptable Use and External Facing Services Policy to ban anyone using their software from selling nearly all modern semiautomatic rifles and many other semiautomatic firearms. The policy outlines the kind of legal firearms and firearms accessories that cannot be sold using the company’s software. Those include any semiautomatic firearm that can accept a detachable magazine and any of the following features: “thumbhole stock, folding or telescoping stock, grenade launcher or flare launcher, flash or sound suppressor, forward pistol grip, pistol grip (in the case of a rifle) or second pistol grip (in the case of a pistol), barrel shroud.”
That criteria would preclude any retailer who works with Salesforce from selling AR-15s, the country’s most popular rifle, and nearly all modern rifles readily available in most states. The policy, however, goes further than banning just AR-15s and similar rifles. It also bans the sale of ammunition magazines capable of holding more than 10 rounds—magazines of that capacity or greater come standard with most handguns and rifles for sale in the United States.
The policy further bans the sale of flash suppressors—which also come standard on most modern rifles—threaded barrels capable of accepting flash or sound suppressors, thumbhole stocks, blueprints for so-called ghost guns, and a number of other firearm accessories or parts.
If you’re not sure what Salesforce is, here’s an introductory video:
Apparently, the company’s CEO is an avid proponent of gun control, and from what I can see on his Twitter feed, a typical SJW.
The AR-15 is the most popular rifle in America. Ban it. pic.twitter.com/WSueCvR2iJ
— Marc Benioff (@Benioff) February 15, 2018
Crucial to the UN assessment was finding that San Francisco’s resistance to providing help & basic necessities in the encampments qualified as “cruel and inhuman treatment,” which was in line with violations of international standards of human rights. https://t.co/jCGK7ZLurQ
— Marc Benioff (@Benioff) June 2, 2019
Salesforce Tower appears to be sending us a message again today to send light to everyone we Love and even those we don’t. pic.twitter.com/ZZzSJSj7DR
— Marc Benioff (@Benioff) June 1, 2019
Salesforce’s chief executive Marc Benioff frequently weighs in on political issues. Benioff was a brazen supporter of a measure in San Francisco meant to fund solutions to the homelessness crisis by taxing local companies with more than $50 million in annual revenue — including Salesforce. He’s been quick to lash out at other tech leaders, like Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, for fueling tech addiction and has repeatedly compared Facebook to cigarettes.
When it comes to guns, Benioff tweeted support of banning the AR-15 rifle following the deadly shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida last year.
Salesforce said it hired a chief ethical and humane use officer late last year to “develop a strategic framework for the ethical and humane use of technology across Salesforce,” according to a press release from the announcement.
Needless to say, Second Amendment proponents are not happy with Salesforce’s heavy-handed corporate gun control.
The Washington Free Beacon continues:
Gun-rights groups decried Salesforce’s decision to try and ban their customers from engaging in legal commerce in firearms the corporation doesn’t like.
“This is outrageous,” Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, said in a statement. “Here are companies selling perfectly legal products according to the requirements of federal law, and just because those products happen to be a certain class of firearms and accessories, the companies are essentially facing being black-balled. Our friends at the National Shooting Sports Foundation, an industry umbrella group, rightly call this ‘corporate policy virtue signaling.'”
The National Shooting Sports Foundation, the gun industry’s trade group, said Salesforce’s decision could have a serious impact on the industry.
“It is a very chilling effect when a company as large as Salesforce puts out a policy like this,” Mark Oliva told the Washington Post. “A policy like this is not surprising from a company based in that part of the country.”
Gottlieb took things a step further and suggested looking at federal legislation to counter the actions of Salesforce and other large corporations.
It’s not just obvious right-leaning groups who object to this move. Retailers like Camping World are also put in a difficult position.
On its website, Salesforce.com touts retailer Camping World as a leading customer of its business software, highlighting its use of products to help sales staff move product. A Camping World executive is even quoted calling Salesforce’s software “magic.”
But behind the scenes in recent weeks, the Silicon Valley tech giant has delivered a different message to gun-selling retailers such as Camping World: Stop selling military-style rifles, or stop using our software.
The pressure Salesforce is exerting on those retailers – barring them from using its technology to market products, manage customer service operations and fulfill orders – puts them in a difficult position. Camping World, for example, spends more than $1 million a year on Salesforce’s e-commerce software, according to one analyst estimate. Switching to another provider now could cost the company double that to migrate data, reconfigure systems and retrain employees.
[Featured image via Salesforce Twitter profile . . . add your own qualification to their laughable tagline]
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Comments
Conspiracy theory. Salesforce isn’t doing this simply out of the goodness of their heart, but as a deflection move to draw attention away from the fact they are being sued for allegedly helping to aid sex-trafficking: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/27/lawsuit-claims-salesforce-worked-with-sex-trafficking-site-backpage.html
Completely off topic, but this is too cute not to publicize.
Back on topic, here’s Eric Raymond’s post about this.
The dangerous folly of “Software as a Service”
Only one of the reasons I run Linux, and keep nothing in the cloud that I can’t live without.
Nobody with half a brain keeps anything of any value in the “cloud”. If it’s off your server, it’s public information – and if you’re not careful, so’s everything on your server.
It seems that the left is determined to create two economies. One for liberal customers and another for Conservative customers (or customers Conservatives might like).
In the long run this is deeply destructive. In the short run it’s a terrific opportunity for the competition. If I ran a gun company, I would seriously consider starting my own alternative to Salesforce, just to spite them.
Might actually get a lot of smaller gun businesses to open as they wouldn’t have any use for that piece of shiff software in their operation.
There is a lot of open source software out there and a great start for someone to start a company. Remember that Microsoft’s DOS was originally “open soured” UNIX based and the code was changed to be copyrighted.
DOS was originally QDOS created by Seattle Computer as a knock off of the CP/M operating system created by Gary Kildall. This wasn’t open source. IBM traveled to CPM’s creators but Gary wasn’t home and wife refused to sign NDA. So IBM went to Gates and Microsoft bought QDOS for 50k and off we go. Linux is the posix language that runs like UNIX…thank Linus Torvalds for that. Great series “Triumph of the Nerds” traces story of early computer days…you will like it.
#GetWokeGoBroke
So what happens when a mega-corporation decides not to do business with individuals or corporations who do business with or support Israel?
They will have to deal with an Israeli Start-up that can out preform them and in a few years will be sold to their competition for Billions of Dollars. Just look at where all the R&D is done for Apple, Ford, Google and others; Israel.
I’m waiting for the shareholder lawsuit
Salesforce has a quarterly report coming and analysts think they won’t out do their last quarter.
QED. a diversion
Sfdc is a crappy old pig with lots of lipstick on it. But still a crappy old pig. Nobody with half a brain needs that shit. Stand up your own instance of sugar crm which is open source. Screw Benioff, he’s perpetually butthurt from all those years he spent on his knees working for Ellison.
I work with small to medium sized businesses. Many grew their companies using Salesforce as the customer requirements software, getting more frustrated as Salesforce grew into a Microsoft-like behemoth where everything is done now by THEIR rules. They have the most complicated CRM out there.
There are so many competitors that are more modern, entrepreneurial, and not bloated like Salesforce (not bloated in the software sense). Moving away from virtue-signalling Salesforce will not only be easy for many, but most likely result in greater product satisfaction, too. I could name 10 or a dozen right off the top of my head.
Dumb move by a company that already alienates customers just due to performance.
I remember getting pitched by Salesforce when it was still a startup and the big turn off was how much control they had over your data. A couple of guys in our trade group looked at what they were doing and set up a similar program for pennies, customized it to each companies business model and put their kids through college and everyone’s data stayed confidential.
Thus isnt a diversion simply because a stunt like this actually draws even more attention to a company.
This is nothing more than a vaine attempt at virtue signalling and is something that happens when a CEO loses sight of who they are actually responsible to (hint: shareholders and staff).
This guy is quite literally happy to put his business on the line to support his activism regardless of the impact this may have on the companies share holders (share price devaluation) and staff (layoffs).
In fact I guarantee you that this guy is utterly clueless that his actions may have a negative consequence for his business because he is convinced he is right and everyone else is wrong.
Switching to another provider now could cost the company double that to migrate data, reconfigure systems and retrain employees.
It will cost even more to do it later.
Never leave yourself vulnerable to the vagaries of a single source. You learn that in Manufacturing 101. Maybe they don’t teach it nowadays.
This is enterprise level software, so that’s hard to do. Imagine for example having to maintain two databases of your inventory.
However I have to wonder if competitors are not offering some sort of migration tools to releave the pain of migration.
Marc Benioff: A nice Jewish boy from San Francisco who holds an attitude toward the Bill of Rights that a Nazi could love.
Go figure.
There are a surprising number of what are effectively secular Jews on the left.
n.n: I was raised in a secular, Reform Jewish household. I never really liked what I saw around me at the (alleged) synagogue I was compelled to attend. My walk away from it all began at age 13 when I refused to do bar mitzvah, and was completely divorced from it all by the time i was in my early 30s.
I don’t remember what entertainer said it, but Reform Judaism is “the Democratic party with holidays.”. I also found secular and Reform Jews to be among the most bigoted people I’ve ever met in my 70 years.
“Worldwide, customers may not use a Service to transact online sales of any of the following firearms …”
This sounds to me like retail point of sale, and I’m not sure Salesforce ‘services’ do that. Now I’m as concerned about how woke business is trying to drive conservatives out of existence but without further evidence that PoS involves Salesforce, I don’t see this as anything one would have to worry about. Just Benioff flexing his muscles uselessly in a way that can only hurt his business.
So, Salesforce is a Pro-Choice business in league with political parties that support disarming people. Another warlock trial in progress to deny civil rights.
Gun control is not now, or ever has been, about guns. It’s about control.
Salesforce has a lot of problems. It has come under fire for its affiliation with Backpage as well as its service contract with CBP. So, this action looks a lot like virtue signalling in order to polish its image among liberal factions. After all, no one really needs Salesforce and the firearms industry is small portion of the Salesforce customer base.
If I were in Camping World my answer to Salesforce would be “see you in court”; I’m pretty sure that there was a contract signed a few years back when Camping World decided to use Salesforce and I would be surprised if the world “guns” appeared on it. I know that software vendors change their usage policies all the time, and Salesforce might be able to say that they decide who they do business with and under what circumstances.
But Camping World and other customers entered in a relationship with Salesforce in good faith, have invested millions in training and would be on the hook for millions more if forced to select another vendor. They would also lose millions more in sales if they were to comply with Salesforce “requirement”.
So if I’m going to spend/lose millions of dollars anyway I would spend it in a good team of lawyers and sue Salesforce for breach of contract.
An inferior product by a company that’s out of touch on many levels….I predict it will soon go the way of many other large companies that thought they were indestructible because of size and past successes….
One phrase, and many hear will not lie it, butg it is legal doctrine and for good reason.
“Restraint of trade”
Do they do business with China? Russia? Turkey? Iran? If they do then they should STFU!
Why don’t they have to bake the cake?
What kind of business model is it to turn away potential customers and profits? If I was a shareholder I would be throwing a fit because turning away customers is not a way to build the business and create a return on my investment. he arrogance and stupidity of these people simply boggles the mind.
work with open source programmers and build application that works
This sounds like a business opportunity for smaller America loving businesses. Just ask Dick’s how this worked out for them!
Who cares what the Trump hating Marcus Lemonis thinks, I hope it hurts him like no one else. Remember Lemonis doesn’t want anyone who voted for Trump to shop at his businesses.
I’m gladly honoring that request!
Could this be “tortious interference”?
There is “Stupid” and then there is “Real Stupid.” Salesforce obviously belongs in “Real Stupid.”
It’s not like there are NOT abundant examples of companies (Dick’s Sporting Goods, Star Bucks, Target Stores) and organizations (NBA, NFL) attempting to politicize themselves with PC garbage and thus, alienating 50%+ of their patrons with obvious disastrous consequences of falling sales, falling profits, empty Stadium/Bleacher Seats, and declining viewership (e.g., ESPN) from which even “Real Stupid” could refer to know that these moves are just “Real Stupid.”
And, it’s not like Salesforce is the only game in town so that entites with near monopolistic presence (e.g., Comcast) can force patrons to “Eat Their Bunkum and Like It” because their patrons have no choice, e.g., https://fitsmallbusiness.com/salesforce-alternatives/
So, let them do what they are going to do because as evolution has taught, “Real Stupid” goes extinct.
What’s next? Certify that your company supports the radical leftists? Denounce Christians? Promote moslims?
Benioff is going to find himself on the pointy end of a big fat lawsuit brought by his so to be ex-clients. What an idiot – extorting large businesses that have legal departments?
One of the things that the “build yer own” types overlook is that there are multiple layers to this onion we call the internet, and each of those layers is both necessary, and is built using software that is licensed. Note that this includes so-called “open source”; that’s what the GPL is. If any of those license holders decide to withdraw permission on the grounds of “fighting white privilege”, the whole thing downstream collapses.
Unless you are prepared to build your own internet down to the microcode in the chipsets, someone can withdraw your license unless you refuse to sell to the wrong people.
Oh, and something for any gun owner to consider: Is your gun store on Salesforce? Then even if you paid with cash, law enforcement can know what you bought.
re last ¶
even paranoids have enemies