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Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products

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Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products

#451

Post by magnetic »

mulmen wrote: post #403
hammock wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banks mightn't seize your money. They certainly take the data from your bank accounts and monetize/resell it. This is a dirty secret, and pervasive. How else do you think "closed-loop" measurement of marketing effectiveness, and retargeting based on purchase behavior are done? How else do you think suppliers can pull a D&B report on your company showing your bank account balances?

Banks definitely seize your money. When I was a young teenager my parents encouraged me to put my lawn mowing money in a bank account. I had a total of $100.00! We went over to Bank of America and I opened up an account and deposited my hard earned cash. A month or two later I tried to withdraw some cash and was told I had no money. My full $100.00 had been consumed by insufficient balance fees. A valuable if painful…

> A month or two later I tried to withdraw some cash and was told I had no money. My full $100.00 had been consumed by insufficient balance fees.

Is that an exaggeration? It amounts to $100 or $50 a month in "low balance fee"!

All the banks I've looked at had a fee under $10.

Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products

#452

Post by TimSchumann »

deliriouspuppet wrote: post #435
TimSchumann wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The is absolutely no veil between the hypervisor and the guest virtual machines. Not in the EBS either. This is 100% true. To do any useful computation on your data (read, what you're using all AWS for) they have to have 100% visibility into your data. > If they say they won't read your data, better trust them. If you don't, stay away from their datacenters. That's it, right there. All of this is based on Trust in…

> To do any useful computation on your data (read, what you're using all AWS for) they have to have 100% visibility into your data. This is true, but it doesn't have to be this way [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homomorphic_encryption

I'm aware, but thanks for posting nevertheless. I've actually read Gentry's thesis. Last I looked into FHE though it was something like 14 times to 100 times as inefficient (either in time or space depending on the scheme) as operating on unencrypted data.

Now things may have changed since then, but I'd imagine it's not yet gotten down to 1.X inefficiency multiplier regardless of the FHE scheme you're using.

Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products

#455

Post by theturtletalks »

This is the exact reason why Shopify grew rapidly. Sellers knew they needed a platform where they own the data and could abstract the operations outside of Amazon seller dashboard.

People also forget that Amazon doesn't have to pay to advertise its own products, but 3rd party sellers do. This immediately puts you at a disadvantage if you want your product at the top since you pay seller commission and advertising fees to Amazon. Next time you want to buy something from Amazon, I would encourage you to find the seller's website directly or find them on eBay. eBay charges less seller fees and is not in the business of selling products directly.

Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products

#457

Post by TimSchumann »

deanCommie wrote: post #285
nateburke wrote: post #266

About 10 years ago I met the head of IT for B&H cameras in NYC. Among many things, he was in charge of the hosting for their online store. After he complained about dealing with physical servers, I asked him if he had ever considered using AWS ec2 for the website, and he replied that his boss refused because he believed that Amazon would pull data on B&H products and use it to compete more effectively. I'm not sure t…

Sounds like this head of IT isn't very good at his job if he can't explain the difference between EC2 access, databases, and web requests over TLS There are ways that you can use AWS that Amazon would have no way to access any of your data even if they wanted to.

> There are ways that you can use AWS that Amazon would have no way to access any of your data even if they wanted to.

Please explain, as I'd like to know how.

Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products

#458

Post by theturtletalks »

viahoptop wrote: post #449

What is the difference between this and the store brands at supermarkets?

This is different that Costco selling their own brand vodka or toilet paper because buyers can see those items side by side when shopping. Amazon has their products on the top every time and if 3rd party sellers want to be next to them, they have to pay for ads. Amazon doesn't pay for its own ads so they can effectively hide their competition.

Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products

#459

Post by noizejoy »

joyj2nd wrote: post #352
TimSchumann wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You know what is a pretty good competitor? Competitor on what vector? Speaking from a US-centric viewpoint here, but my thoughts; * Distribution & Warehousing - Walmart & Costco * Sales & Advertising - Google & Facebook A few notable online storefronts that are independent and I use frequently are B&H Photovideo and Newegg. Realistically though the options I listed above are the only companies I see having the scal…

Yes, sorry, I meant from a buyer perspective. As a side node: I am actually thinking of buying a tiny bankrupt travel equipment company. Friends advised against it because of "Amazon essentials". I would not sell on Amazon but it is a strong argument. Maybe someone has some words of wisdom regarding to this.

If you’re considering entering anything that depends on travel right now, you are much braver than me! Respect!

Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products

#460

Post by TimSchumann »

vageli wrote: post #395
deanCommie wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like this head of IT isn't very good at his job if he can't explain the difference between EC2 access, databases, and web requests over TLS There are ways that you can use AWS that Amazon would have no way to access any of your data even if they wanted to.

If any decryption of your data occurs on AWS hardware (i.e. if your software in AWS has access to your unencrypted data), then wouldn't AWS also have access to it if they wanted? Even with encrypted volumes, etc, the decrypted data is present in memory, AWS controls the box with the memory in it.

Yep, this is how computers work. Not saying this to be snarky, just... it's surprising how many people don't know this. And when I say 'people' I mean 'Professional Software Engineers with Years of Experience in the Industry'
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