In response to Liz's question

Do you think that the Ohio Department of Economic Development would be willing to work something out with John Smith or they would just take back their offer and go to another company who would just take the money and give them customer names?

I dont think that the Ohio Department of Economic Development would try to work something out with John Smith unless they really needed in the information. The information that John Smith has is pretty valuable for the Ohio Department because Smith has names and numbers to those who are going to buy a new car in the next year. The department may be willing to work something out with Smith, it's more of what John Smith is going to do with the information. He may be able to ask his customers before he sells the information if it is okay. If they say no then he wont give away their information but if they say yes then he can. This way he is staying ethical to his customers because if he went ahead and did it anyways, then he'd lose most of his current customers and probably the future ones as well. If the department cant cant the information they are looking for from John Smith they will just go to another company and find a boss or owner that doesn't care about the privacy of their customers information.

If you owned a business and were asked to sell your customers information, could you do it? Knowing that is wrong but will save laying off peoples jobs, would you sell the information anyways?