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Amazon knew seller data was used to boost company sales

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Re: Amazon knew seller data was used to boost company sales

#151

Post by rualca »

batty_alex wrote: post #73
rualca wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We should not allow a company to have a share over around 10% of any market. If a company was already at said 10% limit and you wanted to buy something out of them because to you their offer is by far so much better than any of the alternatives, in your opinion what should happen?

It's not a math equation you run through a computer and get a legal result out the other end. Congress (or whatever) could use this measurement as a tool to drive investigations so you can stomp out anti-competitive behavior before it becomes a problem

> It's not a math equation you run through a computer and get a legal result out the other end.

Not really. This has zero to do with math. At all. We have a buyer and we have a seller, both the buyer and the seller wish to perform a transaction, but then we have a regulator which arbitrarily wants to force them not to execute said transaction because of reasons.

And my question is terribly simple: to those who want to force someone like me from buying what I like from a seller I chose but they arbitrarily reject, how exactly do they wish to force me from buying what I'd like from who I chose to buy from?

No math, no numbers. I'm asking a very simple question: what then?

Re: Amazon knew seller data was used to boost company sales

#152

Post by Workaccount2 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #91
whoknew1122 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon != AWS. As someone who has access to customer data in AWS, I'm very limited in what information I can access (to the point where it actively makes my job in Premium Support harder than it would be otherwise). I also have to provide a legitimate business reason for access to data. Not only is there an audit trail for what I do internally, but any calls I make to review customer data is published in the customer…

> This report has 0 to do with AWS Same company, leadership and culture. If you compete with Amazon, or could compete, it would be pretty stupid to put your jewels on AWS.

On the other hand Apple competes hard against Samsung, yet relies heavily on Samsung to build a large part of it's competing products.

Although I admit that this might not be as true anymore as it was a few years ago.

Re: Amazon knew seller data was used to boost company sales

#153

Post by ch4s3 »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #131
ch4s3 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most answers are likely exploitative in some way On what basis are you making a claim like that? Toyota sells roughly as may vehicles in the US a Ford and more than the other manufacturers. Their cars are in many ways better than their competitors qualitatively and often cheaper. Do you think they are exploiting people? I could keep listing examples of market leaders that offer better products that are more aligned…

>Do you think they are exploiting people? Yes, part of how they achieved this was by violating emissions standards for a decade, something that they've been fined for. I'd be willing to wager they engage in similar practices too. >I could keep listing examples of market leaders that offer better products that are more aligned with consumer preferences, Their existence alone won't convince me. You need to answer why t…

> violating emissions standards for a decade

This began well after they entered the market and upset the dominance of established players.

> You need to answer why the competition is unable to produce similar products at similar prices.

The same way some people are better at given task. Many older firms are complacent, and operating on an understanding of the market as it existed in the past. Technology, consumer preferences, commodity prices, and other market conditions are constantly changing. If you see something you competitors don't you can offer better cheaper services. The bigger your competitors are, the slower they are to change course.

At bottom, firms are made up of people who are uniquely skilled and qualified. Better people in better systems will perform better. It can be dead simple sometimes. Firms with happier employees are often more productive.

If you don't understand the basics of competitive advantage, then of course you think companies can only gain an edge by doing something immoral. But this is ultimately sophomoric economic thinking.

Re: Amazon knew seller data was used to boost company sales

#154

Post by spaceribs »

dahfizz wrote: post #136
spaceribs wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the meme is "Amazon pays no federal taxes on it's profits", and that is a correct statement.

Even that is not really true. They paid no federal income tax in 2017 and 2018, but have before and since. I'm no fan of Amazon, but you have to admit there is a pretty large distance between "Amazon pays no tax" and "Amazon pays billions in tax, but they didn't pay this one specific kind of tax a couple years ago". https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/04/amazon-had-to-pay-federal-in...

I think income tax is the most impactful and expensive tax we have in the US, it's the one everyone thinks of when someone says "doing your taxes".

The fact that Amazon just this year after not paying for 2 years had to pay a measly 1.6% in taxes does not really negate the argument.

Edit: 4 years -> 2 years

Re: Amazon knew seller data was used to boost company sales

#156

Post by swiley »

ch4s3 wrote: post #133
swiley wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"too big to fail" means that a business has friends in the legislature and can keep on acting like the local affluent drunk teenager who somehow manages to crash all their parents cars without getting a DUI. If we have businesses that are "too big to fail" then why bother having a market economy?

That's not what people meant in 2008 when the phrase "too big to fail" came into the lexicon. The phrase meant that there was systemic risk. You're moving the goal posts to mean "big companies are behaving badly," which is different.

That's certainly how it was sold but I think even then it meant what I said.

Re: Amazon knew seller data was used to boost company sales

#157

Post by Black101 »

spaceribs wrote: post #2

Amazon should be nationalized. All these 3rd party companies want is a "farmers market", a stall to sell their wares. Give them the municipal software infrastructure they need to do so and maintain it as a public good.

should they also nationalize their cloud services?

Re: Amazon knew seller data was used to boost company sales

#158

Post by sct202 »

sumedh wrote: post #6

Cant Costco, Walmart also do the same thing, why is Amazon being singled out here?

The difference is that Amazon said they don't use third party data to boost their own sales.

In traditional retailers like Costco, if you are a product maker and supply Costco, you don't own any data from the sale of the product--Costco owns that data. In fact, you will have to pay for that data from data brokers (Retail Solutions Inc for example) if you want it.

Re: Amazon knew seller data was used to boost company sales

#159

Post by vishnugupta »

Railsify wrote: post #127
whoknew1122 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Different leadership and largely different culture. Or are you just making assumptions? Being on AWS works for Netflix, Disney+, and a lot of other streaming services I won't mention. ESPN and Fox Sports both use AWS. A lot of incredibly visible companies that offer cloud storage white-label S3. Tons of game studios use AWS. A lot of successful companies are pretty stupid I guess. But I'm not going to spend my time t…

AWS profits appear in Amazon's annual report, AWS is an Amazon business unit. The CEO of AWS reports to the CEO of Amazon.

Interestingly enough Andy Jassy, who is taking over the reins from Bezos, is the CEO of AWS.

Re: Amazon knew seller data was used to boost company sales

#160

Post by helsinkiandrew »

mk89 wrote: post #21

Well, it's something that is slowly backfiring. It's under the eyes of everyone, and not enforcing such policy will only make it even worse for Amazon itself that eventually will end up selling only non-branded products. Finally it will be only another e-commerce like "ebay" used to be, and something else will replace it. Just enjoy the ride until you can. PS: speaking out of experience, I had one time a talk to a di…

> "this sort of things" was exactly the reason why they chose to use MS Azure instead of AWS.

Unless I've grossly misread these articles, Amazon were using third-party seller data from sales on the Amazon.* websites.

The data was on their (Amazon.com) sales database (who sold how much of what, for how much). They weren't accessing (hacking) data hosted on AWS (a database hosted for an online shop not related to AWS)

Those two things are very different.

EDIT: To put this into perspective. Any store (online and offline) that has its own branded products, probably looks at sales of the existing non shop branded products and makes an own branded version when it looks like it will be successful ("Panasonic SD cards are selling well, and look like they have good margins so let's bring out our own version"). What Amazon is being accused of is using sales data from 3rd party sellers on Amazon.*

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