NetEase

Through its subsidiary Youdao, NetEase provides flexible work arrangements for employees with disabilities.

Since 2017, NetEase’s subsidiary Youdao has been providing coding courses to kids and teens. The company also has a One Screen programme, which provides hardware and online learning platforms and content to rural schools in China. Since its inception four years ago, the programme has expanded its outreach, benefitting nearly 13,000 students.

NetEase demonstrates best practice by having information security management certification and a committee in place to oversee cybersecurity. The company also considers data privacy a key topic in its materiality analysis. The company partners with third parties on initiatives for child online safety. It also provides content control for parents – its Parents Caring Platform and parent escort functions enable parents to monitor and manage children’s gaming behaviour. Furthermore, NetEase Games was among the first to create an anti-addiction system aiming to better protect minors, and in 2021, it set up a dedicated protection centre to create a safe gaming environment for minors.

NetEase participates in open source and standards projects. The company also demonstrates efforts in sustainable innovation, disclosing its emissions data and working to reduce emissions and conserve energy in its buildings, as well as greening its courier services. It also discloses the percentage of women employed in tech roles at the company.

NetEase can demonstrate how it supports digital opportunities for women and girls. The company can also demonstrate how it distributes the direct economic value it generates among stakeholders.

The company should consider carrying out a third-party assessment of the impact of its existing programmes on advancing digital skills. Additionally, it can report information on its specific contribution to these programmes.

Compared to industry peers, NetEase is less transparent about how it assigns senior-level oversight of and accountability for cybersecurity and how it monitors, remedies and reports cybersecurity incidents. Given that NetEase’s gaming products are used by children, the company should make a high-level commitment to ensuring child online safety.

NetEase has an opportunity to contribute to the tech start-up ecosystem through venture capital investments and organising accelerators and incubators. Additionally, NetEase can consider incorporating ethical artificial intelligence (AI) considerations in its research and development (R&D) activities.

NetEase does not have a public commitment for respecting human rights or the ILO core labour rights, and it does not place expectations on its business relationships to commit to upholding the ILO core labour rights. The company does have a grievance mechanism that is accessible to workers and external stakeholders to raise human rights concerns and complaints. However, it does not disclose if it engages with stakeholders whose human rights could be impacted by its operations. NetEase also does not disclose a process to identify, assess and take action on salient human rights risks in its own operations and in its business relationships

NetEase does not publicly commit to respecting worker health and safety, nor does it place this expectation on its business relationships. The company also does not disclose a policy commitment stating that it does not require workers to work more than regular and overtime hours, and it does not explicitly state that it requires its business relationships to do the same. NetEase does not have a public commitment or time-bound targets on gender equality and women’s empowerment. However, it has more than 30% female representation on its board. In relation to workforce diversity, the company provides a breakdown of employees in different employee categories by age group. However, it does not disclose against any other indicators of diversity, such as gender.

NetEase has a policy prohibiting bribery and corruption. No other company information related to key ethical business topics, such as tax, lobbying and political engagement, were found in the public domain.