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Jeff Bezos can’t promise Amazon employees don’t access independent seller data

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Re: Jeff Bezos can’t promise Amazon employees don’t access independent seller data

#171

Post by ozten »

deeblering4 wrote: post #160
granzymes wrote: post #48

"Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said Wednesday he can't guarantee employees have never used sales data from individual third-party sellers to develop the company's own products" There's no way he could make that guarantee. How can you prove a negative? The best Amazon can do is have policies, logs and access controls and punish employees if they break those policies. And Bezos committed to doing that.

> How can you prove a negative? Answering “no” while under oath would be a good start.

Zuckerberg did what you are implying. He said what Congress wants to hear by saying Facebook's business model isn't based on Cookies. He is banking on Congress' poor track record of proving perjury and the law enforcement acting on it.

Other CEOs gave truthful answers, which is ... out of 10s of thousands of data points, I can't give you a blanket yes or no without commiting perjury.

Re: Jeff Bezos can’t promise Amazon employees don’t access independent seller data

#172

Post by Waterluvian »

Larrikin wrote: post #165
knolax wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In certain parts of the world supermarkets are built to be two stories or more so that the ground floor may be rented out to small vendors. I don't see anybody object to that.

Most people prefer to pay a fixed fair price instead of potentially being ripped off because they don't personally know the seller. Haggling constantly is an awful waste of time

I think haggling is a big sign of an immature market. But I’m not sure that really touches on parent’s point that there can be both.

And I’m not sure parent really touches on my point that the bazaar part of amazon is just noise.

It’s worse than unreliable junk. A vendor is showing up and dropping their orange painted lemons onto amazon’s orange display.

Re: Jeff Bezos can’t promise Amazon employees don’t access independent seller data

#173

Post by cthalupa »

eat_veggies wrote: post #167
bpodgursky wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd rather that CEOs perjure themselves?

I'd rather that them saying "no" didn't mean they were perjuring themselves

You think anyone of any company that employs more than a small handful of people can guarantee that a company policy has never been broken?

I don't see how you can guarantee this without also scrutinizing and monitoring employees to a level that would feel incredibly invasive.

Re: Jeff Bezos can’t promise Amazon employees don’t access independent seller data

#174

Post by _acco »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #139
_acco wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key is "access controls." The best Amazon can do is ensure brand managers don't have access to this data. Rep. Jayapal was pressing on this, and Bezos mentioned policy but never access control.

> The best Amazon can do is ensure brand managers don't have access to this data This is easier said than done. Data exists in multiple places. It transforms in the form of reports and presentations. Policing this is expensive, which is why it almost only happens under regulatory pressure.

Hence why we are here.

Re: Jeff Bezos can’t promise Amazon employees don’t access independent seller data

#175

Post by ozten »

This was a waste of time.

A 1 year study produced concrete details that can be investigated. Then the most senior congress people get 2 minutes of sounds bites and no progress is made. It is a farce. There may well be real violations of public trust or illegal activity, but this is not the way to effectively examine those reports.

They don't even let the CEOs talk long enough to commit perjury. It is a dog and pony show for congress and the CEOs.

Re: Jeff Bezos can’t promise Amazon employees don’t access independent seller data

#176

Post by didibus »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #128
wiredone wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know of many ex amazon employee anecdotes where people were “taken in the night” (didn’t have a job in the morning), and had their credentials and their teams credentials rotated due to a customer or seller data access overstep. As with most conspiracies the facts don’t add up super well in this case for Amazon - their whole company is based on trust. The cost of losing it would be huge, so they’d be super driven t…

Co-mingling inventory does not inspire trust

What's important to know is that the seller chooses if they want their inventory comingled or not. And that comingling allows for faster delivery.

That said, I would really like it if it could be a choice given to the buyer as well. Or at least make it clear when you're buying and getting something comingled.

Re: Jeff Bezos can’t promise Amazon employees don’t access independent seller data

#177

Post by User23 »

run414 wrote: post #145
wiredone wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know of many ex amazon employee anecdotes where people were “taken in the night” (didn’t have a job in the morning), and had their credentials and their teams credentials rotated due to a customer or seller data access overstep. As with most conspiracies the facts don’t add up super well in this case for Amazon - their whole company is based on trust. The cost of losing it would be huge, so they’d be super driven t…

When I worked at Amazon, I personally knew someone who put in their two-weeks notice, and the next day they found out they were fired when their badge didn't work. From anecdotes I've heard, this happens if Amazon suspects a person is leaving to join a competitor. Amazon is very serious about protecting their data.

I personally know someone who gave a two week notice at Amazon and had his manager ask him to stay out the quarter. It's all about relationships and reputation. People with a proven track record of quality work and strong ethics are valued there.

Re: Jeff Bezos can’t promise Amazon employees don’t access independent seller data

#178

Post by newleaf »

spaced-out wrote: post #144
rrix2 wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Even outside of the ethics of it, anyone else that wants to can offer a competing product on Amazon even if Amazon doesn't (and this happens like a dozen times a day). this is not the problem that people are grappling with, though! the problem is that amazon can see that your product is doing well by looking at "their own" platform data and then competing with you based on your own sales data. I would hope that any…

>I would hope that anyone entering in to a market that Amazon, or any big player, is in would already be aware of their competition. Who isn't aware of it though? Every major retailer has their own store brand, and it's been like that since before any of us were born. At least Amazon clearly marks their brand, unlike some companies create brands like "Open Nature" which is clearly meant to disguise their origin.

I don’t really have a problem with this (as you mention, stores have had their own brands forever), but you may be interested to know that not all Amazon brands are clearly marked and there are a lot of them: https://qz.com/1039381/amazon-owns-a-whole-collection-of-sec...

Re: Jeff Bezos can’t promise Amazon employees don’t access independent seller data

#179

Post by kube-system »

Barrin92 wrote: post #115
scarface74 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disclaimer: I also work at AWS. As a consumer, would you really trust a merchant that opted out of Amazon’s return policy? It’s already to the point where I filter on Amazon Prime eligible and if possible sold and shipped by Amazon.

>As a consumer, would you really trust a merchant that opted out of Amazon’s return policy? On some purchases I would, I mean this is basically like an ebay purchase with no return policy. Point being, is there a technical argument against giving the vendor/consumer control over this, as long as the nature of the sale is transparent? I don't think so. And even if you're saying that's too free-wheeling there's point t…

>> As a consumer, would you really trust a merchant that opted out of Amazon’s return policy?

> On some purchases I would, I mean this is basically like an ebay purchase with no return policy.

Not at all. eBay’s money back guarantee overrides any seller policies. You can definitely return eBay items that are sold as “no returns”, if they are defective, counterfeit, etc.

Re: Jeff Bezos can’t promise Amazon employees don’t access independent seller data

#180

Post by User23 »

_acco wrote: post #174
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The best Amazon can do is ensure brand managers don't have access to this data This is easier said than done. Data exists in multiple places. It transforms in the form of reports and presentations. Policing this is expensive, which is why it almost only happens under regulatory pressure.

Hence why we are here.

There's a reason basically every SDE is subject to the trading window: its impossible to give them the permissions necessary to do their jobs without also giving them access to highly sensitive information.
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