SAN FRANCISCO — Salesforce, the Bay Area tech giant that provides cloud-based software to companies, says it will no longer allow customers that sell guns to use its products.
Salesforce's new policy bars customers that sell a range of firearms, including automatic and semi-automatic weapons, from the company's E-commerce technology.
Only a small number of customers will actually be affected when their contracts expire by Salesforce's new stance on guns, a company spokesperson said.
One such company, however, is Camping World, which spends more than $1 million on software from the company founded by Marc Benioff.
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Despite Salesforce's argument that only a small number of customers will be affected, the move to ban gun dealers could have repercussions with businesses in other divisive industries, according to Eric Gordon, a business professor at the University of Michigan.
"It’s not just the backlash of the NRA and some conservative supporters of the NRA. If you operate a company and you run a large portion of your company on Salesforce, you have to wonder what's next?" Gordon said.
Perhaps makers of genetically modified foods expect similar treatment "or whatever Marc decides he doesn't like," Gordon said.