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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

#271

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

astura wrote: post #256
pwdisswordfish2 wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

"How is Amazon going to pay sellers their money if Amazon has no data on what is bought and sold?"

I might agree with you if this sentence used a generic term instead of "Amazon". However it specifically refers to Amazon.

I think people forget that Amazon did not operate as a middleman when they first appeared in the early 1990's.

Amazon was originally a bookseller, not a middleman for other sellers.

Not only does the sentence above from GP assume the existence of Amazon, it assumes that Amazon must act as a middleman for other sellers.

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

#272

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

astura wrote: post #257
didibus wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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)

True, however those payment processors are not in competition with the sellers in terms of the goods/services being sold.

The facts are that Amazon does not sell only payment processing, order fulfillment or customer services.

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

#273

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

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.

As to the question, I would guess the answer is "Not easily." Otherwise, we would not be having these problems with overgrown websites acting as middlemen for large swaths of the web. The rest of your statements are all true, but that does not change the truth of "They simply lack the web traffic". Amazon has an amount of traffic that gives them leverage as a middleman.

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

#274

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

dahfizz wrote: post #159
pwdisswordfish2 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would the same principle apply to a tech company "privacy policy"? "We can't guarantee that policy has never been violated." Perhaps there is a way to make this guarantee: Do not collect the data to begin with.

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…

Amazon only needs third party sales data if it is acting as a middleman for third party sellers. There is no requirement that Amazon act as a middleman. The company was founded as an online bookstore.

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

#275

Post by WalterBright »

ashtonkem wrote: post #270
WalterBright wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Of course, but that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying that some organizations explicitly create the incentive for criminal or unethical behavior, fail to setup the safeguards to prevent it, and then use the line level workers as scapegoats if they get caught. This is significantly different than a good faith organization having some members engage in criminal behavior.

The problem with safeguards is none of them are impermeable, and so how far is it worth going with them? Safeguards aren't free.

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

#276

Post by AnthonyMouse »

francisofascii wrote: post #249
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, now people don't trust them and their stock is below where it was in 2007, compared to the market index which is at more than double that.

All bank stocks are down right now. When comparing Goldman, it would be better to use a bank index ETF fund like XLF rather than the overall market.

You could argue that it's because Goldman destroyed the public trust in the entire industry. How many people who used to just blindly give their money to investment banks are now paying enough attention to their performance relative to index ETFs to find them lacking?

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

#277

Post by roenxi »

salawat wrote: post #268
roenxi wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Congresspeople are not fishing for soundbites. They have a legitimate interest in knowing what are the current practices being engaged in by major economic players. They need information pertinent to building consensus amongst their numbers to fulfill legislative mandate. I don't completely disagree; political subcommittees do tend to be more practical than politics at large. But the committee a hostile environment…

>But the committee a hostile environment for the people bought before it; if the politicians just wanted information they'd do it in writing or chat to Zuckerberg at a party or something. Generally speaking, committee's don't happen if there is no reason to believe that any of the alternate means you brought up as examples would be sufficient to resolve the problem. In fact, many of those may have already been addres…

> That behavior of manipulating the response you give in response to interrogation by Congress is analogous to anti-debugger code; obfuscation being an act of perjury.

The parallel between debugging and political committee hearings is pretty weak. Code tends to be repeatable and fairly easy to build consensus on (eg, a group of developers will have a fairly clear and reasonable band of opinions on whether networking code is succeeding or failing). In politics, even basic questions like what the question is are subject to uncertainty and there is no consensus on even basic points.

> I don't accept the right of a Corporation or an Executive to evade or deceive official legislative apparata

So if the official legislative apparata asked you to "explain, in detail, how your activity has broken the law?" how would you answer that if you don't believe you've broken the law? That sort of question is a little uncommon but entirely plausible in a committee hearing. It is impossible to answer directly; the person in the hot seat has to push back on the premise and answer a different question.

What you are saying there is implicitly supporting the idea that the people in front of the committee should agree with the agenda of the committee. That isn't reasonable.

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

#278

Post by thaumasiotes »

michaelt wrote: post #219
thaumasiotes wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Congresspeople are not fishing for soundbites. I mean, if you watch the questioning, it's very clear that they are. Look at e.g. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez' questioning of Mark Zuckerberg.

Are you sure that impression doesn't come from the fact things that aren't soundbites don't end up in front of you? As I only spend 1 minute a day on political news, there's a lot of scope for politicians to do non-soundbite things and me not to hear about it.

> Are you sure that impression doesn't come from the fact things that aren't soundbites don't end up in front of you?

Yes. This has been discussed before. (See e.g. the 3 comments here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16807245 )

In particular:

> By the time you hear a pointed question in the committee hearing room or a speech in a floor "debate" from a Senator, they've been over it with staff, decided on a position, and calculated the optimal move to present to the cameras. That you enjoy or agree with the thrust of this particular show has no bearing on the theatricality of committee hearings as a tactic. They wouldn't do it if no one enjoyed it.

> It's not that politicians don't debate things in good faith. It's that they do it with and through staff (who are more like the people you find in high school debate than televised election debate), behind closed doors, and not on the floor.

The official questioning time is entirely staged. If a Congressman wants to know something, there are many ways for them to learn, but none of those ways involve televised oral questioning under tight time limits. That just isn't the purpose the formal questioning serves.

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

#279

Post by User23 »

Talanes wrote: post #207
User23 wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What leads you to believe the difference is in the quality of the employee and not the quality of the manager?

Nothing. Relationships are by definition bidirectional. Being able to have a good relationship with a manager implies that that manager is at least not awful, and most likely also good. The person I refer to would never have delayed starting his new job as long as he did if he didn't have professional respect for his manager.

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

#280

Post by themeiguoren »

aka1234 wrote: post #260
run414 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If someone was going to steal company info for a competitor, they’d do it before they gave notice that they were leaving. And they wouldn’t tell their current employer where they were going.

This might catch extraordinarily stupid people from conducting industrial espionage, but really I see it as the company encouraging people to not give any notice at all (which, remember, is just a courtesy) when they quit. It’s shortsighted on the company’s part.

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