As Bahrain F1 Protests Continue, Tech Sponsors Go Along For The Ride

As the newer crop of Internet and mobile technology companies gradually become the big industries of tomorrow, they are slowly entering the world of corporate sponsorship, previously the province of older giants like IBM and Cisco. It's an area not for the faint-hearted. We've already seen IBM come under fire for backing the US Masters, run by a golf club that refused membership to IBM's CEO based simply on her body parts, when people with other kinds of parts normally get let in. Interesting choice there guys. Now we have a new issue altogether. The Formula One circus is staging a Grand Prix in Bahrain right now, a nation not normally associated with the most fabulous human rights record, exactly. Admittedly there are few such things as untarnished countries, but right now - as we you read this in fact - citizens in Bahrain are actively demonstrating for greater democratic reforms, along the lines of the Arab Spring movement, in the very city the F1 action is taking place. Meanwhile, the cuddly image of a Rovio Angry Birds character is currently doing laps on the Bahrain circuit and a major tech VC is sponsoring one of the teams.

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