Zynga Tries To Do The Right Thing, Gets Whipped Anyway

Social games company Zynga, long the favored whipping boy of the chattering tech classes, is under fire again for having raised donations for Haiti.

This sordid lets go after Zynga tale again starts in of all places Brazil, where a local publication claimed that Zygna had withheld 50% of the money it had raised in a Haiti Earthquake relief fundraising drive. Oh no went the chattering classes, Zygna has been evil again, so lets go in for the kill.

One small problem: the story isn’t true.

Turns out the “evil” Zygna was doing fundraising to help the people of Haiti BEFORE the earthquake in a “seeds for Haiti” program. 50% of money spent on virtual seeds in Farmville were donated to “organizations in Haiti for the welfare of women and children” and managed to raise $1.2 million. The split was also noted clearly in the promotional material for the drive.

Of note, that’s 50% of income under the program going direct to Haiti, which is a high figure given how many companies offer 5 cents or 10c for every item purchased in donations to various causes.

For the actual Haiti Earthquake relief fund, 100% of all donations went to Haiti: $1.5 million in 5 days.

I’m no particularly huge fan of Zynga, but this is a company that has done extremely well in the space they operate. Instead of being held up as a great example of how startups can make money and succeed, they continue to be targeted, seemingly by those jealous of their success. Lets hope for the chattering classes that Zynga doesn’t use some of their profit on defamation lawyers ?