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Amazon offers $10 to Prime Day shoppers who hand over their data

reuters.com

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Re: Amazon offers $10 to Prime Day shoppers who hand over their data

#21

Post by electrograv »

nl wrote: post #11
kylesellas wrote: post #2

This is honestly frustrating to see whenever massive corporations are responsible for creating a deal in which users will be given away data in order to receive a small compensation. Data, especially personal data should not be a means in which anyone can make any sort of financial compensation from. personal data is stolen every day and used against individuals - and by creating a means in which more people will giv…

Data, especially personal data should not be a means in which anyone can make any sort of financial compensation from. Why? That seems a pretty extreme position.

Yeah, I thought this was a popular idea around here: ”We should have to explicitly opt-in to data collection, and when we do we should be compensated for our data!” Then Amazon actually does it and people are angry?

If anything, this is a great move in the right direction for both privacy and fair compensation: It’s opt-in (you’re opted out by default), AND you get monetary compensation!

What more could you want? More money? Yeah, but that could actually start to happen if a competitive market of such things grew (though I doubt that will happen so long as it’s legal to collect data without compensation or permission; for that we probably need regulation).

Regardless, $10 is far better than the $0 from others who take (and sell) your data without even asking first.

IMO the creepy and dangerous privacy violations come from the always-on tracking systems pervasive throughout the web from Google, Facebook, and others. With those, not only are they on by default without your permission, but you can’t opt out, and you receive no compensation!

Re: Amazon offers $10 to Prime Day shoppers who hand over their data

#22

Post by r3bl »

peaktechisnow wrote: post #14
r3bl wrote: post #4

Just a casual reminder that a portion of Amazon workers are on a strike during the Prime Days. Support them by not visiting any Amazon property for the next two days. No Amazon purchases, no Audible, no Goodreads, no Twitch. AWS is kinda unavoidable, but the rest is not. We can do without them for two days, and show our support for the workers that are protesting inhumane conditions.

this worked great for autoworkers! h a h a ha

There's precisely two ways of increasing the profit: 1) raise the prices, or 2) reduce the costs.

Amazon took the second route. They still can't automate everything. If they could, they'd do so already. Workers are what keeps Amazon alive today, even if that might not be the case in the future.

Re: Amazon offers $10 to Prime Day shoppers who hand over their data

#23

Post by moate »

benj111 wrote: post #15
r3bl wrote: post #4

Just a casual reminder that a portion of Amazon workers are on a strike during the Prime Days. Support them by not visiting any Amazon property for the next two days. No Amazon purchases, no Audible, no Goodreads, no Twitch. AWS is kinda unavoidable, but the rest is not. We can do without them for two days, and show our support for the workers that are protesting inhumane conditions.

Does it help them? Theres only any point in withdrawing labour, if that labour was required. Surely it would be better to concentrate your purchases so that the labour loss will be keenly felt, then not buy the week before or after.

Or you could just not use Amazon at all until you feel that they're in line with what you expect of a company.

Consumer activism is a difficult set of choices. If you stop supporting by purchasing from a company, you run the risk of that company failing/struggling and things getting worse. If you do support them, you run the risk of allowing their behavior to get worse.

There's no objectively moral choice in a vacuum and points to be made for both actions. Be as informed a consumer as you can be and purchase mindfully. Speak with others about the issues you feel are important and try to improve things. That's really the best you can do.

Re: Amazon offers $10 to Prime Day shoppers who hand over their data

#24

Post by sailfast »

kylesellas wrote: post #20
nl wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Data, especially personal data should not be a means in which anyone can make any sort of financial compensation from. Why? That seems a pretty extreme position.

Let me clarify - I think massive companies should not have the ability to sell data, i think data has already taken such a massive role on our lives that it is bound to lead to some major incident.

Thanks for this clarification. My original read on your comment was "an individual should not be able to sell their data" which is clearly well within their rights. I wouldn't do it for $10, but if someone offered me enough to retire on they could probably have it. :)

Re: Amazon offers $10 to Prime Day shoppers who hand over their data

#25

Post by peteretep »

kylesellas wrote: post #2

This is honestly frustrating to see whenever massive corporations are responsible for creating a deal in which users will be given away data in order to receive a small compensation. Data, especially personal data should not be a means in which anyone can make any sort of financial compensation from. personal data is stolen every day and used against individuals - and by creating a means in which more people will giv…

I am A-OK with this. I don't want random companies using my data for whatever nefarious purpose they want, silently, without my consent. However, given a price, a user (of the data), and a choice, works for me.

Re: Amazon offers $10 to Prime Day shoppers who hand over their data

#26

Post by bostik »

What a sneaky wording.

> fetches Amazon’s price for products that users see on Walmart.com, Target.com and elsewhere.

To me that reads: "we will turn your computer to a node in our scraping botnet". I would guess the internal documents they have will refer to this as market research, but the fact remains that this sounds like a botnet under construction.

Re: Amazon offers $10 to Prime Day shoppers who hand over their data

#27

Post by Permit »

kylesellas wrote: post #8
0xDEFC0DE wrote: post #3

At least they're transparent about it and you're getting paid for your data.

Thats true but I still think it is ridiculous how loosely data is given

Yes, but you should acknowledge that you don't get to make that decision for me.

Re: Amazon offers $10 to Prime Day shoppers who hand over their data

#28

Post by r3bl »

dahdum wrote: post #17
r3bl wrote: post #4

Just a casual reminder that a portion of Amazon workers are on a strike during the Prime Days. Support them by not visiting any Amazon property for the next two days. No Amazon purchases, no Audible, no Goodreads, no Twitch. AWS is kinda unavoidable, but the rest is not. We can do without them for two days, and show our support for the workers that are protesting inhumane conditions.

Heads up, the union organizing behind the UK strike doesn't want a boycott. > Still, the GMB isn’t calling on customers to boycott the online retailer during Prime Day. “We’re not calling for economic damage for Amazon,” Mick Rix, a union officer told the BBC. “What we’re asking for is for people to be aware. Leave feedback on Amazon.” https://qz.com/1666429/amazon-prime-day-2019-sees-workers-st...

As a rebuttal:

> We are not anti-union, but we are not neutral either.

https://youtu.be/AQeGBHxIyHw

Of course they're gonna say that. All of the other countries listed in that article didn't, so quite a cherry pick you got there.

Re: Amazon offers $10 to Prime Day shoppers who hand over their data

#29

Post by kylesellas »

Permit wrote: post #27
kylesellas wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thats true but I still think it is ridiculous how loosely data is given

Yes, but you should acknowledge that you don't get to make that decision for me.

I am not, just shared my perspective on the matter

Re: Amazon offers $10 to Prime Day shoppers who hand over their data

#30

Post by zwaps »

I think it is a step forward to pay users for data. Of course, amazon still collects everything it can anyway, for free. But in principle, this is good. But two things.

1. What is the correct price? Amazon is doing this to better discriminate customers on offerings, price and quality. It's essentially the sophisticated version of what econ 101 calls "siphoning off the consumer surplus by price discrimination". At this stage, it is highly doubtful that the fixed 10 bucks actually represents the true value that the consumer's data.

2. Externalities. Especially considering that amazon can classify you by other means, people that are like you getting these 10 bucks means that amazon increases its discriminatory power toward you - whether you have gotten the money or not. This is a negative externality - one that the market simply can not solve because we fundamentally lack information and this behavior essentially induces a prisoners dilemma among consumers. Amazon is going to know everything anyway, so I might as well take the 10 bucks.

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