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Amazon cancels my account after exposing account lockout for “racist doorbell” [video]

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Re: Amazon cancels my account after exposing account lockout for “racist doorbell” [video]

#261

Post by 7sidedmarble »

toldyouso2022 wrote: post #207
Lutger wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Chinese point system is exactly what this reminds me of. It is ironic that unrestrained capitalism actually ends in a variant of communism where it are the corporations, rather than the party, that rule society.

There is no unrestrained capitalism. This is the doing of the managerial class, and they managed to get so much power because of central banks. Especially after 2008 the major central banks have bought assets on the stock market and financed all kinds of projects without a second thought. They print money and make companies like amazon huge. This is 100% government 's doing. Total fake economy. In a free market there…

>There is no unrestrained capitalism. This is the doing of the managerial class

Who precisely do you think has 90% of the power in 90% of businesses? And before you say 'the shareholders, duh', the venn diagram of the PMC and shareholders of these massive corporations is a circle. The ruling class is the PMC. They run the corporations. How could it be any other way?

Re: Amazon cancels my account after exposing account lockout for “racist doorbell” [video]

#262

Post by lotsofpulp »

permo-w wrote: post #225
mysterydip wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> not only has Google given themselves the right to scan your documents You agreed to it: "We may review content to determine whether it is illegal or violates our Program Policies, and we may remove or refuse to display content that we reasonably believe violates our policies or the law." https://www.google.com/drive/terms-of-service/?hl=en Their list of policy violations is quite long: https://support.google.com/do…

yes that's why I phrased it as "given themselves the right". they don't need to put that in their content policy

mysterydip’s point is that you gave google the right to do that to your document.

Re: Amazon cancels my account after exposing account lockout for “racist doorbell” [video]

#263

Post by mcherm »

croes wrote: post #110
anywhichway wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It still not even close to the majority of Americans no matter your definition. The vast majority of the stock market isn't held by billionaires either. The total net worth of all US billionaires is ~5 trillion and the stock market is worth ~40 trillion. Even if you start counting anyone that works for a company even partially owned by a billionaire, about half of us employees work for small businesses: https://www.f…

You are still working for them, just not 100%

You COULD say that, if you define "working for" in a particular way.

But if define it that way, then "working for" becomes a phrase that has no real use. "X is working for Y" just means "Y has a lot of influence in the world" and says nothing about the relationship between X and Y. So I don't recommend using that definition.

Re: Amazon cancels my account after exposing account lockout for “racist doorbell” [video]

#264

Post by pasc1878 »

smcl wrote: post #123
unreal37 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you attempt to use a credit card that you haven't used in years, the bank will similarly ask you to verify your identity. I don't think it's weird that unused valuable accounts need re-identification when you start to use them again. I don't mind anti-spam measures in cases which are common spam techniques. Hijacking unused accounts is common enough to warrant an approach like this.

Wait so if you have a "backup" card in case of emergency, the chances are it'll fail anyway? I kinda hate this stuff where we have to guess at how some company's internal mystery processes work to actually use their service :-/

Yes but it is not hard to get it back - you have to contact the bank

In emergency you need to contact your bank.

I have had my card declined several times Once on travel to USA - I probably should have told them before - in this case I had to phone them an international call and it was immediately reinstated. They also denied a payment when it was in a place accross the country from my normal use, which wa good as it was not me trying to use it.

Basically if your spending is abnormal - e.g. in a different place or for a large amount then you might have to confirm the payment. The benefit is the bank is able to stop more fraud.

Re: Amazon cancels my account after exposing account lockout for “racist doorbell” [video]

#265

Post by jansommer »

InTheArena wrote: post #239
mrcartmeneses wrote: post #136

The anger in these videos is palpable. He’s doing us a great service by championing right to repair and consumer tech rights. But he needs a three-week holiday to Thailand before he snaps

With all due respect to Louis - he always sounds angry.

Didn't get that vibe at all. He seems to be very direct and to the point.

Re: Amazon cancels my account after exposing account lockout for “racist doorbell” [video]

#266

Post by commandlinefan »

permo-w wrote: post #160
Yeri wrote: post #28

Summary: The YouTuber had his Amazon affiliate account canceled after 7 years without warning or evidence of wrongdoing. The reason given was that purchases made through his links were for personal use or made by friends and family, which he denies. He finds the timing suspicious as it came a week after he made a video criticizing Amazon for canceling a customer's account for a racist doorbell claim. He argues that t…

similarly, a few days ago I was working on a project with a couple of people and I had our meeting notes in a Google Doc. I went to share the doc with the people and was told that it wouldn't be possible due to "inappropriate content". after a quick scan of the text I realised that it was because the notes contained the word "imagery" - in relation to a logo. once removed, the problem went away, but it's disgusting t…

> the right to scan your documents

Don't they have legal liability here? There is stuff that they can actually get into actual legal trouble for facilitating the sharing and hosting of.

Re: Amazon cancels my account after exposing account lockout for “racist doorbell” [video]

#267

Post by prepend »

CSMastermind wrote: post #221
prepend wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How would a scammer bring in a steady stream of new customers? Spam email campaigns. Or google ad campaigns. Twitter bot spam. There’s lots of ways to get people to click on Amazon links and make money. Especially because I think Amazon gives you the 4% of anything they buy in the next 24 hours or some period. Since a large percent of humans have Amazon accounts and buy stuff pretty recently if you can just get you…

Why not show a box to users on the website saying, "It looks like you came from xyz, we'll pay them 4% of this sale. Is it wrong? Click here to report it."

Because that has a non-zero chance of customers exiting out of the sale. I’m guessing they measured the lost sales against fraudulent affiliates and chose fraud affiliates.

People are funny and the slightest distraction might skunk the sale. Not for most, but for a few percent.

I watched my grandmother purchase something online and it was revealing how much time it took and how much she struggled. Something that took 10 seconds for me took her 15 minutes. Amazon wants those sales too.

Re: Amazon cancels my account after exposing account lockout for “racist doorbell” [video]

#268

Post by prepend »

TekMol wrote: post #217
prepend wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How would a scammer bring in a steady stream of new customers? Spam email campaigns. Or google ad campaigns. Twitter bot spam. There’s lots of ways to get people to click on Amazon links and make money. Especially because I think Amazon gives you the 4% of anything they buy in the next 24 hours or some period. Since a large percent of humans have Amazon accounts and buy stuff pretty recently if you can just get you…

That would create exactly the obvious patterns I mentioned. Low conversion ratio and many repeat customers. With new customers I mean customers who have not bought before.

There are very few new customers for Amazon. Everyone has an account.

The affiliate program is trying to drive increased purchases.

Re: Amazon cancels my account after exposing account lockout for “racist doorbell” [video]

#269

Post by danaris »

phpisthebest wrote: post #153
smcl wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait so if you have a "backup" card in case of emergency, the chances are it'll fail anyway? I kinda hate this stuff where we have to guess at how some company's internal mystery processes work to actually use their service :-/

I have this problem all the time with the HSA card (or did until i changed providers) I would rarely use it, but then I would try to pay for something with it and it would be declined, when I called they always said it was "suspended due to inactivity"

That's particularly egregious—what percentage of people with an HSA or similar is likely to be spending money from it more than once every few months??

Re: Amazon cancels my account after exposing account lockout for “racist doorbell” [video]

#270

Post by pasc1878 »

bell-cot wrote: post #162
rvba wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst are banks and payment processors who sttaight out censor legal businesses. If porn/weed/crypto or other stuff is legal, then the bank should not be moral police and close their account. Banks are not police, or judicary system and one cannot run a company without a bank account. If they explain this with risk, then there should be some special state run bank that handles higher risk customers - and for exam…

> If they explain this with risk, then there should be some special state run bank... Reasonable...but could you describe the elected politicians who will vote to establish that special state-run bank, and keep it going?

The risk here is that someone against porn etc will 9and have) sued them for helping bad activities. TYhe cost is too high for the credit card companies.

In this case the pressure on a government payment system would be even higher as no politician could afford to support something helping porn.

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