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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

#251

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

WalterBright wrote: post #228
ashtonkem wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Companies regularly use this trick to get away with crimes. They might explicitly forbid something illegal, not setup the actual guard rails that would prevent it, and then give employees every single possible incentive to break the rules. The moment they're caught they can act shocked, shocked, to discover that gambling was going on in this establishment, and then throw the line level workers under the bus. This is…

Any large organization (that includes government organizations) is going to have some level of crime in it. "Guaranteeing" there isn't any hanky-panky going on somewhere in it is an absurd requirement.

But you can categorically state that it's against the aims and culture of the company, and there are formal processes in place to deal with transgressions, and that you'll be happy to go through those processes in detail, with examples of why and how they were followed.

That's a rather different category of response to "Well I just can't guarantee this doesn't happen."

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

#252

Post by rapind »

renewiltord wrote: post #124
rapind wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes it far more effort and appears at least to be discouraged. That alone will eliminate most employees considering it. It also leaves a trail when Bob has a great new product idea... if there's ever an independent investigator of course.

You do all this. Then someone asks you whether you can promise that Amazon employees don't access the data. You are unable to promise it. The newspaper headline reads: "Jeff Bezos can’t promise Amazon employees don’t access independent seller data".

Yes it's a pretty bullshit article title. I am concerned over the access to aggregated sales data though by people who will be involved in product development. It's similar to insider trading, and requires real enforcement of "policy" with 3rd party review IMO.

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

#253

Post by tw04 »

kinkrtyavimoodh wrote: post #220
tw04 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate doing this, but just want to point out the humor of people downvoting the comment without a SINGLE example to counter my point. Either you've never shopped at Costco or you're just pissed that Amazon is 100% NOT equivalent to Costco despite the really poor analogy. And how could they be? Costco makes their money off membership fees - Amazon is attempting to make their money on driving their competitors out of…

Because the point they are making is irrelevant. It doesn't matter to the discussion whether or not Kirkland brand items have other name brands next to them

It absolutely does, the claim was that Kirkland does what Amazon does and it's patently false. Kirkland doesn't stock name brand items, figure out what customers are buying the most of, then build a competitor while giving priority to their own brand which was the accusation.

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

#254

Post by ctvo »

manquer wrote: post #204
ctvo wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how do you legislate for this? After a certain threshold of data collected you fall into a category that needs to be broken up? It's not a binary offline / online business. Retailers are a mix of both, with some, like Walmart, quickly expanding their online presence as well.

Same way we legislate privacy ? Our shopping data should be just as anonymous as browsing and PII perhaps more so . This is not much different from GDPR type regulation ?. How do we make companies follow it is different issue altogether . First step is the make liability exposure high for violating (like COPA ?) and provide consumes right to access what they have on you. There is no technical way privacy of this or a…

Individual shopping data from the consumer to the retailer. That should be PII and treated like any other sensitive data.

Aggregate data on what consumers bought from the retailer. This is the retailer's data.

Individual sales data from sellers of the retailer's platform. This should be PII and treated like any other sensitive data.

Aggregate data on what consumers bought from all sellers on the retailer's platform. This is the retailer's data.

Individual data on consumer actions on the retailer's platform prior to purchasing an item. This can / should be PII. This includes search history, shopping cart, listings visited, etc.

Aggregate data on consumer actions on the retailer's platform prior to purchasing an item. This is the retailer's data.

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My position is it's unreasonable to ask retailers to limit their use of aggregated, anonymized data. And unless you limit that use, it doesn't materially change the current situation. The major difference between Walmart, Costco and Amazon is Amazon has a lot more aggregate data.

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

#255

Post by xyzzy_plugh »

Lio wrote: post #245
KptMarchewa wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the difference between this and gardening leave? Does Amazon not pay for those two weeks or what?

Apart from whether Amazon are paying the two weeks notice that they morally owe, one obvious difference would be if your next employer asks have you ever been terminated from a previous position. Who would want to be placed in the position of saying yes I was fired because I was suspected of being a security risk?

Does anyone ever answer this question truthfully? I generally assume not. The only way to verify this is through a back channel (AIUI corps generally won't disclose the reason due to libel liability), unless the employee really screwed up and didn't sign a separation agreement, which (again AIUI) you'd only decline if you plan on pursuing legal action against your employer.

And if you're already on a back channel, then you don't care about playing fair.

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

#256

Post by astura »

pwdisswordfish2 wrote: post #162
dahfizz wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't collect any sales data? That would mean no reviews or Q/A section because engagement there is a good proxy for sales. Search would also be completely broken because Amazon wouldn't know what products were good. Not to mention payment processing. How is Amazon going to pay sellers their money if Amazon has no data on what is bought and sold? Dealing with payments cannot be stateless for a number of technical and…

Your assumption is that Amazon, the middleman, must exist. If Best Buy, a brick and mortar, were anything like Amazon, they would be under investigation as well. Nonsense comparison.

The GP made no such assumption

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

#257

Post by astura »

didibus wrote: post #181
pwdisswordfish2 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many sellers on Amazon have their own stores, be they brick and mortar and/or website. Amazon in these cases is just a middleman processing sales that the third parties are already capable of making themselves. They simply lack the web traffic. This is not true of all the brands carried by Best Buy. Many do not do direct-to-consumer sales. There are less obvious differences such as the contract terms agreed between b…

> They simply lack the web traffic How would they acquire it? Amazon is normally their answer to "I'm trying to sell, but don't have the web traffic". Seems like if they could get the traffic without Amazon, they'd leave the platform, like Nike did.

Beyond that, even when you order directly from the manufacturer's website, that doesn't mean they, personally, are handling the sale. All the logistics that go with fulfilling orders and customer service around that I'm sure is outsourced frequently (to Amazon or someone else)

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

#258

Post by Lio »

Aeolun wrote: post #247
Lio wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apart from whether Amazon are paying the two weeks notice that they morally owe, one obvious difference would be if your next employer asks have you ever been terminated from a previous position. Who would want to be placed in the position of saying yes I was fired because I was suspected of being a security risk?

You can just say that you were terminated because your manager at Amazon was insecure and didn’t trust you to not fuck things up?

Well you can of course but interviewers often discount candidates that slag off their old employers on the grounds that they’ll be difficult to manage.

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

#259

Post by astura »

sethherr wrote: post #27
tuna-piano wrote: post #14

First of all, people like to complain about Amazon owned brands. But this is just retailing 101, nothing new here. Walk around a Costco and try and find a non Costco branded product in a variety of categories. People seem to love Costco's Kirkland brand and (personally) I also enjoy the AmazonBasics brand. Why have I never heard a peep about Costco? You can make an argument that Amazon's market power has enabled it t…

Kirkland products are actually white label versions of the products they copy, produced by the company they are copying - so it’s an entirely different situation - ie Costco is paying brands for their products (albeit at a lower price), not stealing. Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23912991

This is common with many white label products and not at all unique to Costco. For example, I know which craft brewery white labels one of Trader Joe's brand beers (each type of beer might be made by a different brewery). Same production line, just different bottles.

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

#260

Post by aka1234 »

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.

Must depend on the org and how you do it. My personal experience is that if you are open and up-front with going to a competitor, they'll cut your access and pay you for the remaining time left on your resignation letter/month.

If you go to a competitor and aren't open about it? You might find yourself terminated with no additional pay.

And it makes sense. At Amazon, most people have varying levels of customer data and/or confidential company data. Amazon has to protect itself from data exfiltration/data theft.

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