Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos 'Can't Guarantee' Policy Against Using Seller Specific Data Hasn't Been Violated (venturebeat.com) 19
An anonymous reader quotes a report from VentureBeat: At the "Online Platforms and Market Power" virtual antitrust hearing today, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos spoke about a policy that is meant to prevent the company from using seller specific data to help it determine what products it should manufacture and sell itself. "What I can tell you is, we have a policy against using seller specific data to aid our private label business," Bezos said. "But I can't guarantee you that that policy has never been violated." In July 2019, an Amazon lawyer told the subcommittee that the company didn't tap data from individual third-party merchants to determine what new products to create. In April, the Wall Street Journal reported that Amazon did just that. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), who was the first to question Bezos at the hearing, cited the article. "I'm familiar with the Wall Street Journal article that you're talking about," Bezos said. "And we continue to look into that very carefully. I'm not yet satisfied that we've gotten to the bottom of it, and we're going to keep looking at it. It's not as easy as you would think because some of the sources in the article are anonymous, but we continue to look into it."
Bezos then tried to play up the fact that Amazon didn't have to have such a policy. "The fact that we have such a policy is voluntary," Bezos said. "I think no other retailer even has such a policy. We would treat that like any internal policy, and if we found that someone violated it, we would take action against them." "Well, there's numerous reports, and the committee has conducted interviews with former employees who confirm that there are employees who do have access to that data and are using it," Jayapal responded. "So my next question was going to be: If you thought you were actually enforcing these rules, do you think that that's working? And again, I would just say that there's credible reporting that's documented breaches of these rules that you have put into place. And the committee has interviewed employees that typically say that these breaches typically occur."
Later in the hearing, Kelly Armstrong (R-ND) asked whether Amazon allows the use of aggregate data to inform its private label brands when there are only three sellers for a product and then again when there are only two competitors. Bezos said "yes, sir" to both. Armstrong then asked about Amazon's internal investigation on the use of third party data. "We're basically trying to understand some of the anecdotes that we saw in the Wall Street Journal article," Bezos responded. He committed to informing the committee on the outcome of that investigation.
Bezos then tried to play up the fact that Amazon didn't have to have such a policy. "The fact that we have such a policy is voluntary," Bezos said. "I think no other retailer even has such a policy. We would treat that like any internal policy, and if we found that someone violated it, we would take action against them." "Well, there's numerous reports, and the committee has conducted interviews with former employees who confirm that there are employees who do have access to that data and are using it," Jayapal responded. "So my next question was going to be: If you thought you were actually enforcing these rules, do you think that that's working? And again, I would just say that there's credible reporting that's documented breaches of these rules that you have put into place. And the committee has interviewed employees that typically say that these breaches typically occur."
Later in the hearing, Kelly Armstrong (R-ND) asked whether Amazon allows the use of aggregate data to inform its private label brands when there are only three sellers for a product and then again when there are only two competitors. Bezos said "yes, sir" to both. Armstrong then asked about Amazon's internal investigation on the use of third party data. "We're basically trying to understand some of the anecdotes that we saw in the Wall Street Journal article," Bezos responded. He committed to informing the committee on the outcome of that investigation.
So, basically, plausible deniability? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:So, basically, plausible deniability? (Score:4, Insightful)
Amazon has 840,000 employees. How could Bezos, or ANYONE ever promise that not once has any of those people ever violated the policy?
Its a mathematical impossibility to 100% monitor 840,000 people 100% of the time. None of us would want to work in a company that even tried.
Be effing reasonable here.
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Microsoft has a policy that employees can't keep their work computers when they leave the company, in thousands do every year. The US gov't has a list of countries that employees can't take computers with classified data into. Iraq is on that list but I'll guarantee that everyone above lieutenant does.
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Thanks, you beat me to it.
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My company has a 100% no tolerance policy for harassment and it is serious about it. Guess what. Harassment happens anyhow. It seems to have a fairly good track record of following its policy when harassment is reported and the accusations can be substantiated, but I'm sure much happens that isn't reported. If you employ many thousands of people it's safe to say that your 100% policy is going to be violated from time to time.
As he said, they don't need a policy (Score:2)
Just having a policy is being polite. No one is forcing you to sell stuff on Amazon. There are other places to hawk your wares or you can build your own site. It's the same as no one is forcing me to buy from Amazon as there are many other online places that offer the same products, the same shipping arrangements, and sometimes, even better prices.
Amazon doesn't even need to let people sell on their platform and likely makes it's real money with AWS anyway.
So I personally don't see the problem with the mark
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I agree that monopolies are bad, but is Amazon market place a monopoly? Yes, they are a huge corporation that offers many different services in numerous markets.
Maybe I'm just picking nits, but when I think of monopoly I think of Microsoft in the 90s. Zero competition and anytime someone tried to enter a market they wanted or were in, they did everything they could to crush them. Office, Internet Explorer and MS OS should of all been made into separate companies but this is American and we care more about t
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How exactly is Amazon a monopoly in this situation? The are far from the only online retailer. They are far from the only place sellers can effectively list their goods. They're simply not a monopoly, and as such I question how exactly they are subject to these anti-trust issues.
They are the most competitive, and they are doing the most to be nice to customers, and frankly, to sellers too - can you imagine WalMart even having this "problem"? Not in a million years. They don't just take any old person to
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How exactly is Amazon a monopoly in this situation? The are far from the only online retailer. They are far from the only place sellers can effectively list their goods.
Of course they are not the only on-line seller, but they are the only on-line seller of some things. I try hard to avoid them, even paying a higher price to do so, but there have been things that I could only find via Amazon despite searching hard. I'm not getting into what the legal definition of a monopoly is, and don't really care, but what is certain is that Amazon are shits.
Just trying to buy something without being signed up to their Prime scheme is not easy. My wife tried to buy something fro
How is he supposed to know (Score:2)
Trump doesn't know what the heck Fauci, his own dam hires, or the so-called "deep state" is up to, how can Bezos be expected be expected to know ever detail of what each employee is doing? If an employee violated the policy, he has no way of knowing. Be realistic.
Amazon, free stuff, but hang them anyway! (Score:5, Insightful)
So let me get this straight... Amazon, who pays its workers almost twice what WalMart does in many states, who have provided PPE from the start for all of its workers, provided Hazard pay at the start of the outbreak; (and has been chastised for taking it away... despite providing more than anything the federal government provided for a long time). Have prioritized customers who need urgent groceries and goods during the pandemic, hired thousands of extra workers to deal with the demand during this time providing much needed jobs to those who lost them; provide FREE delivery for groceries whilst UberEats is jacking the HELL out of its prices to profit off our suffering. This is the company we're hauling in front on Congress for violating an internal policy, that the law doesn't require, and which NO other online vendor has because they simply believe it's good for their customers...
It's is true that no good deed goes unpunished.
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Amazon added the hazard pay while they were instituting measures. By the beginning of June they had spent $800 million on COVID19 remediation, so the extra pay was withdrawn. (I work there, but nothing to do with the fulfillment centers.)
With 840,000 employees there are thousands of teams working on myriad projects, and scores of teams looking for prospective acquisitions. It wouldn't be at all surprising if a team working on one thing crosses tracks with a team looking for interesting technologies.
Scumbag (Score:1)