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Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products

wsj.com

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Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products

#591

Post by kube-system »

ceejayoz wrote: post #589
kube-system wrote: post #587

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"exceeding authorized access" is not enough to violate the CFAA. You have to "exceed authorized access to a protected computer " The CFAA is not a data protection law. It is a computer protection law.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act > In practice, any ordinary computer has come under the jurisdiction of the law, including cellphones, due to the interstate nature of most Internet communication.

Sure. The question I am alluding to is: can someone defraud their own computer?

Maybe it is possible, but the consequences to answering 'yes' to this is pretty scary.

Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products

#592

Post by xtreme »

ethbro wrote: post #443
nwallin wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a bank were to seize your money, you'd notice, because you wouldn't have that money anymore. And it would be very well documented, leaving a clear paper trail to a criminal conviction and a civil suit. If your bodyguard did you physical harm, you'd notice, because your knees would hurt. And there would be ample evidence for a criminal case. If amazon copied all your proprietary data, you would almost certainly nev…

> If amazon copied all your proprietary data, you would almost certainly never notice, no criminal law would apply, and you'd have a hell of a time proving it in a civil suit. For a thought exercise, let's play this out. Amazon copies data running through VMs (or grabs it from storage). Let's assume it isn't on hardware certified for capital-letter processing [1], most of which require regular third party audits. So…

Sometimes you can learn a lot from the metadata without actually looking into the actual data stream. For example, if B&H was hosted on AWS, Amazon could deduce the effectiveness of their holiday sale tactics by looking at the overall page traffic, DB writes, etc. These metrics are already recorded by Amazon for billing purposes and someone stealing a glance at them would likely leave zero evidence.

Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products

#593

Post by movedx »

throwaway_aws wrote: post #573
throwaway_aws wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Throwaway account for obvious reasons. In the past, AWS has used the data from third party hosted services on AWS to build a similar service and in fact start poaching their customers. Source: I used to be at AWS and know the PM & his manager who built a service this way. I was hired on that team.

As for talking to journalists, I didn't leave with any ill will and don't want to complicate my life. I personally know a friend who got involved with journalists... his past employer came to know about it, sued him... and he became almost unemployable in the valley. Edit: fixed a typo

> ... his past employer came to know about it, sued him... and he became almost unemployable in the valley.

You might have a family to protect. A home to maintain, etc. I understand. It's scary. But the world doesn't and cannot change for the better if we let corporations bully us into silence. The world will and does change when brave individuals, with the support of society, stand up and blow the whistle.

Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products

#595

Post by [deleted] »

toasterlovin wrote: post #184
ProAm wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except Amazon disallows and punishes you for selling your product cheaper on a different platform.

This is common practice in the retail industry. Large retailers want to ensure that they can offer their customers the lowest price on all of the products they sell.

[deleted]

Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products

#596

Post by diebeforei485 »

snowwrestler wrote: post #436
entee wrote: post #324

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The major question I don’t have a good answer to is, “Why is this different than brick and mortar store brands like Safeway signature?” Surely a part of is is placement, but Safeway could put own brand ketchup at the same level (and I think sometimes does) as Heinz and still wouldn’t sell the same volume. Amazon is clearly getting a big advantage here, I’m just curious about what the underlying dynamics are that allo…

The difference is that Safeway does not have any other sellers on their shelves. Safeway buys inventory at wholesale and sells it at retail. Everything that is sold in Safeway was intentionally selected by Safeway to be there. If you see a product on a Safeway shelf, the company that makes that product already got paid--by Safeway. If Safeway puts a generic ibuprofen bottle next to a bottle of Advil, that's fine with…

> If you see a product on a Safeway shelf, the company that makes that product already got paid--by Safeway.

This is not necessarily true. It's typical to not be paid for anywhere between 30 and 90 days. Additionally, some deals are more complex and depend on actual purchase volume.

Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products

#597

Post by rglover »

throwaway_aws wrote: post #521
nateburke wrote: post #266

About 10 years ago I met the head of IT for B&H cameras in NYC. Among many things, he was in charge of the hosting for their online store. After he complained about dealing with physical servers, I asked him if he had ever considered using AWS ec2 for the website, and he replied that his boss refused because he believed that Amazon would pull data on B&H products and use it to compete more effectively. I'm not sure t…

Throwaway account for obvious reasons. In the past, AWS has used the data from third party hosted services on AWS to build a similar service and in fact start poaching their customers. Source: I used to be at AWS and know the PM & his manager who built a service this way. I was hired on that team.

Cynical curiosity: did the services they poached from have such abysmal UX/DX or is that an Amazon touch?

Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products

#598

Post by dang »

saadalem wrote: post #440

Those were the dirtiest business tactics of Amazon Nobody can beat Amazon’s margin. Amazon “invites” you to sell on their marketplace. You hustle. You innovate. You test the market. You risk your time and money. Until FINALLY you nail it! After weeks or months of hard work you finally find the right product at the right price… SUCCESS! You start making money! Everything is amazing… But “someone” has been watching you…

Would you please not use allcaps for emphasis? This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products

#599

Post by [deleted] »

throwaway888abc wrote: post #528
saadalem wrote: post #440

Those were the dirtiest business tactics of Amazon Nobody can beat Amazon’s margin. Amazon “invites” you to sell on their marketplace. You hustle. You innovate. You test the market. You risk your time and money. Until FINALLY you nail it! After weeks or months of hard work you finally find the right product at the right price… SUCCESS! You start making money! Everything is amazing… But “someone” has been watching you…

Surprised ? Also, you choose to give the data by using the platform. Terms and condition apply.

[deleted]

Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products

#600

Post by homero »

alaskamiller wrote: post #497
theturtletalks wrote: post #455

This is the exact reason why Shopify grew rapidly. Sellers knew they needed a platform where they own the data and could abstract the operations outside of Amazon seller dashboard. People also forget that Amazon doesn't have to pay to advertise its own products, but 3rd party sellers do. This immediately puts you at a disadvantage if you want your product at the top since you pay seller commission and advertising fee…

With Shopify you don't pay ~20% sales commission to Amazon per se, but you sure as heck will end up paying for that if not more to Facebook. Where by FB has no direct incentive, yet. It could be a FB Marketplace PM team someone has already copied Shopify outright and is just waiting for the right time to roll that out to all FB user worldwide. With Amazon Marketplace the strategy has always been to convert customers…

Facebook and Instagram do have their own checkout and are testing it
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