A publicly traded corporation must, by its structure, take advantage of every legal opportunity.

As I understand it, a publicly traded corporation has a duty to maximize shareholder value. If taking advantage of an legal opportunity damages the corporation’s reputation and causes it to lose business, that action could represent a management failure.

Note that (some) corporations spend lots of money on charities and environment-oriented programs that, in their face, remove money from the bottom line, but foster the image of that company as a good corporate citizen.

A good example is Apple’s recent announcement of a recycling program for old computers. That’s going to cost Apple lots of money in the short term, but (Apple hopes) will increase profit in the long term by improving Apple’s reputation.

Blackboard has managed to piss off a sizeable proportion of its core customers. That can’t be good for business.