Evil Amazon

[JimC]

We are all seduced by evil Amazon...

[pErvinalia]

We are all seduced by evil Amazonian women...

[Scot Dutchy]

We are all seduced by evil Amazon...

Maybe you are.

[Svartalf]

Its arguments are strong

[Tero]

California has passed a landmark bill taking aim at Amazon and the controversial, algorithm-driven rules that govern the lives of its warehouse workers.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... use-quotas

[Scot Dutchy]

FFS. The fucking middle ages in a new coat.

[Scot Dutchy]

Well Amazon's mate is just as evil:

Revealed: Google illegally underpaid thousands of workers across dozens of countries

Documents show company dragged feet to correct disparity after learning it was failing to comply with laws in UK, Europe and Asia

Google has been illegally underpaying thousands of temporary workers in dozens of countries and delayed correcting the pay rates for more than two years as it attempted to cover up the problem, the Guardian can reveal.

Google executives have been aware since at least May 2019 that the company was failing to comply with local laws in the UK, Europe and Asia that mandate temporary workers be paid equal rates to full-time employees performing similar work, internal Google documents and emails reviewed by the Guardian show.

But rather than immediately correct the errors, the company dragged its feet for more than two years, the documents show, citing concern about the increased cost to departments that rely heavily on temporary workers, potential exposure to legal claims, and fear of negative press attention.

Google executives and attorneys at one point pursued a plan to come into compliance slowly and at the least possible cost to itself, despite acknowledging that such a move was not “the correct outcome from a compliance perspective” and could place the staffing companies it contracts with “in a difficult position, legally and ethically”.

Google admitted the failures and said it would conduct an investigation after being contacted by the Guardian.

If you believe that when did you see flying pigs last? To think millions trust this mob with their personal details.

[Scot Dutchy]

Priti Patel pressed to explain award of spy agencies cloud contract to Amazon

Priti Patel is under pressure to disclose whether the UK’s most sensitive national security secrets could be at risk after the disclosure that its spy agencies signed a cloud contract with Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Labour is demanding that the home secretary explain why GCHQ, MI5 and MI6 will use a high-security system provided by the US-based firm, and whether any risk assessment was undertaken before the deal was signed.

The agreement, estimated by industry experts to be worth £500m to £1bn over the next decade, was signed this year, the Financial Times first reported, citing people familiar with the discussions.

Other government departments such as the Ministry of Defence will also use the system during joint operations.

Conor McGinn, the shadow security minister, wrote to his counterpart in government, Damian Hinds, on Tuesday demanding a parliamentary statement from Patel to explain the possible security implications and the contingencies in place if Amazon’s systems fail.


Gus Hosein, the executive director of Privacy International, told the FT there were many things parliament, regulators and the public needed to know about the deal. “This is yet another worrying public-private partnership, agreed in secret,” he said. “If this contract goes through, Amazon will be positioned as the go-to cloud provider for the world’s intelligence agencies. Amazon has to answer for itself which countries’ security services it would be prepared to work for.”

Chumocracy at work.

[Tero]

America in 20 years: all retail is owned by Amazon and Wal Mart
Amazon swallowing up California
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... ble-humans

[Tero]

I just can't follow Crystal, but her guests slowed down the pace enough for me to follow. Jeez, 150 million Amazon prime folks. It's alike a religion.



The "free" shipping is in fact paid by 3rd party sellers, not so much consumers (though the price will be higher than eBay). The commission they pay is more than 40%. See the guy at 9minutes.

[Brian Peacock]

The Rise of ‘Luxury Surveillance’

Surveillance isn’t just imposed on people: Many of us buy into it willingly.

Imagine, for a moment, the near future Amazon dreams of.

Every morning, you are gently awakened by the Amazon Halo Rise. From its perch on your nightstand, the round device has spent the night monitoring the movements of your body, the light in your room, and the space’s temperature and humidity. At the optimal moment in your sleep cycle, as calculated by a proprietary algorithm, the device’s light gradually brightens to mimic the natural warm hue of sunrise. Your Amazon Echo, plugged in somewhere nearby, automatically starts playing your favorite music as part of your wake-up routine. You ask the device about the day’s weather; it tells you to expect rain. Then it informs you that your next “Subscribe & Save” shipment of Amazon Elements Super Omega-3 softgels is out for delivery. On your way to the bathroom, a notification bubbles up on your phone from Amazon’s Neighbors app, which is populated with video footage from the area’s Amazon Ring cameras: Someone has been overturning garbage cans, leaving the community’s yards a total wreck. (Maybe it’s just raccoons.)

Standing at the sink, you glance at the Amazon Halo app, which is connected to your Amazon Halo fitness tracker. You feel awful, which is probably why the wearable is analyzing your tone of voice as “low energy” and “low positivity.” Your sleep score is dismal. After your morning rinse, you hear the Amazon Astro robot chasing your dog, Fred, down the hallway; you see on the Astro’s video feed that Fred is gnawing on your Amazon Essentials athletic sneaker. Your Ring doorbell sounds. The pills have arrived.

It would be a bit glib—and more than a little clichéd—to call this some kind of technological dystopia. Actually, dystopia wouldn’t be right, exactly: Dystopian fiction is generally speculative, whereas all of these items and services are real. At the end of September, Amazon announced a suite of tech products in its move toward “ambient intelligence,” which Amazon’s hardware chief, Dave Limp, described as technology and devices that slip into the background but are “always there,” collecting information and taking action against it.

This intense devotion to tracking and quantifying all aspects of our waking and non-waking hours is nothing new—see the Apple Watch, the Fitbit, social media writ large, and the smartphone in your pocket—but Amazon has been unusually explicit about its plans. The Everything Store is becoming an Everything Tracker, collecting and leveraging large amounts of personal data related to entertainment, fitness, health, and, it claims, security. It’s surveillance that millions of customers are opting in to.

...

What does it mean when one’s life becomes completely legible to tech companies? Taken as a whole, Amazon’s suite of consumer products threatens to turn every home into a fun-house-mirror version of a fulfillment center. Ultimately, we may be managed as consumers the way the company currently manages its workers—the only difference being that customers will pay for the privilege.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/ ... te/671772/

I think Alexa is doing an excellent job in very difficult circumstances.

[JimC]

I for one etc. etc...

[Tero]

I still buy a few electronic items from Amazon. If Best Buy has it, and it is in the local store, I'll just drive there.

Ended up getting a book to get the free shipping. I am now reading a band biography that has a bit too much stuff. But since it is nothing related to a class I will give, this is just fun stuff to read. My next class to give is in March. Three sessions. I read as much as I need, as this class will be about 90% videos and 10% break time and me talking.

I buy used books from Amazon or eBay. Books on music tend to be in bad shape used, so I shop for used labeled "good as new." Or new books. This one was 20 bucks either way. My bookstore locally had the part I that I'm reading.

[macdoc]

Best Buy are a plague.

I'm quite content how Amazon/ ALexa works in Australia getting more integrated with my electronics and my life.

Amazon is hardly alone - Apple, Samsung and Google

What Matters about Matter, the new smart home standard
How Matter works, when it’s coming, what you’ll need to use it, and how it integrates with Alexa, Apple Home, Google Home, and Samsung SmartThings.
By JENNIFER PATTISON TUOHY / @jp2e
Updated Jan 28, 2023, 7:41 AM GMT+100 Comments / 0 New

https://www.theverge.com/22832127/matte ... -explainer

of course there are always luddites about.

[L'Emmerdeur]

Maybe there should be an 'Internet of Things' thread, but meanwhile...

'Amazon Ring, Alexa accused of every nightmare IoT security fail you can imagine'

America's Federal Trade Commission has made Amazon a case study for every cautionary tale about how sloppily designed internet-of-things devices and associated services represent a risk to privacy – and made the cost of those actions, as alleged, a mere $30.8 million.

The regulator on Wednesday charged, via the US Dept of Justice, two Amazon outfits with various privacy snafus.

The e-tail giant’s Ring home security cam subsidiary was accused of “compromising its customers’ privacy by allowing any employee or contractor to access consumers’ private videos and by failing to implement basic privacy and security protections, enabling hackers to take control of consumers’ accounts, cameras, and videos.”

“Not only could every Ring employee and Ukraine-based third-party contractor access every customer’s videos (all of which were stored unencrypted on Ring’s network), but they could also readily download any customer’s videos and then view, share, or disclose those videos at will,” reads the FTC's complaint [PDF].

The document goes on to describe how “a customer service agent might need access to the video data of a particular customer to troubleshoot a problem, that same customer service agent had unfettered access to videos belonging to thousands of customers who never contacted customer service.”

Another nightmare: “Although an engineer working on Ring’s floodlight camera might need access to some video data from outdoor devices, that engineer had unrestricted access to footage of the inside of customers’ bedrooms.”

Ring staff weren’t trained on how to handle private data. And some abused it, horribly, according to the consumer watchdog.