Our Positions
aboutamazon.com
aboutamazon.com
- The federal minimum wage in the U.S. is too low and should be raised
(We'd like it if Walmart had higher labor costs)
- Human-induced climate change is real, serious, and action is needed from the public and private sectors
- The energy industry should have access to the same technologies as other industries
(Yes, through lobbying and lies the oil companies are fucking over our planet. But we're going to keep them as customers. Somebody should do something, but not us.)
- Diversity and inclusion are good for business—and more fundamentally—simply right
- We strongly support the rights of immigrants and immigration reform
(It'd be cool if there were more programmers for us to hire, more cheaply)
The rights of LGBTQ+ people must be protected
(We want to continue to employ LGBTQ+ people)
- Governments at all levels—federal, state, and local—should have access to the best technology
(Yeah, we're also going to keep providing services to ICE and China or whoever)
- Governments should work quickly to put in place a regulatory framework for facial recognition technology
(We recognize that someone should do something about this, but it's not going to be us)
- Counterfeiters should receive stronger penalties under federal law
(Nobody counterfeits Kindles or other Amazon brands on Amazon, but somehow the problem is impossible for us to solve for anyone else. Or we'd make less money, which is kind of the same thing when you think about it)
- Consumer data privacy should be protected under federal law
(Fuck facebook)
...
> The rights of LGBTQ+ people must be protected > > (We want to continue to employ LGBTQ+ people)
Huh? The lack of some rights for LGB+ people under current law does not prevent Amazon from employing them. In fact, that lack of rights probably actually makes it easier for Amazon to employ them by easily extending benefits beyond what are required. Once those rights are legally granted, all employers will have to extend them, reducing Amazon's advantage.
> Governments should work quickly to put in place a regulatory framework for facial recognition technology > > (We recognize that someone should do something about this, but it's not going to be us)
They are doing something about it. It takes government to establish regulatory frameworks, so they are lobbying for that.
> Counterfeiters should receive stronger penalties under federal law > > (Nobody counterfeits Kindles or other Amazon brands on Amazon, but somehow the problem is impossible for us to solve for anyone else. Or we'd make less money, which is kind of the same thing when you think about it)
No one counterfeits Kindles on Amazon because no one but Amazon is allowed to sell Kindles on Amazon. The lack of Kindle counterfeits there gives no useful information about the difficulty of keeping counterfeits out of markets that allow multiple sellers for a given product.
That is the whole point. Amazon doesn't allow multiple sellers of Kindles or Amazon Basics power cords, but it did/does allow multiple sellers of, say, Birkenstocks or Popsockets or Magformers or Ripple Rug. That they don't allow multiple sellers of Kindles proves that this is not an unsolvable problem.
For example:
- If there is a single manufacturer of a brand-name product, Amazon could make it so that only that manufacturer can sell on Amazon, just like it does with its own products.
- They could also make it more clear for commodity items which seller provided the item linked with a given review. Often different sellers sell entirely different goods under the same SKU, leading to wildly varying reviews.
- They could probably do some other things too. I bet if you ask someone who's products are getting counterfeited on Amazon, they have a lot of ideas for what could be changed.
> The lack of some rights for LGB+ people under current law does not prevent Amazon from employing them. In fact, that lack of rights probably actually makes it easier for Amazon to employ them by easily extending benefits beyond what are required. Once those rights are legally granted, all employers will have to extend them, reducing Amazon's advantage.
Yeah, that's a good point. I was assuming that LBGTQ+ people were powerful enough now that they didn't have to stay at a company that didn't believe in their rights, and would leave Amazon for greener pastures if Amazon came out against their rights.
> It takes government to establish regulatory frameworks
Or, a massive cloud provider could establish a policy against certain uses of facial recognition technology on their own platform, tomorrow.
A lot of the letter is of the form "We want someone else to put restrictions on everyone against doing bad stuff - in the meantime, we will continue to do that bad stuff, and/or continue to allow it on our platform"
-- Or they could at least have a moderated platform where those merchandisers could 'greenlight' distributors of their own products so if they do have 3rd party sellers/distributors they could show who is valid and who is not.
No concept that Amazon should be held responsible as the seller when they resell a counterfeit item.
No mention of antitrust or monopoly issues.
Amazon doesn't have much of a GPDR/CCPA privacy problem because most of the data they collect is from their own customers, who have agreed to Amazon's terms. Amazon doesn't want to sell customer info because that would help their competitors compete with them. They have their own internal closed ecosystem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Consumer_Privacy_Ac... (California Consumer Privacy Act)
Amazon is anti-union.
>No concept that Amazon should be held responsible as the seller when they resell a counterfeit item.
Amazon disagrees.
>No mention of antitrust or monopoly issues.
Amazon has no issues with being a monopoly, at all.
Why should I in this case?
One reason I might: Amazon has a lot more power and money than the local butcher.
You should care if what they are doing is against your belief system. There is a domain register that doesn't allow employees to smoke at work or home. I decided to pull my business because I don't want to support that type of company. Maybe amazon doesn't align with your views.
I think it's a legit question how far you take this though.
Do business with nazis? Fuck no!
Do business with someone with different ideas on the ideal rate of taxation? Seems ok to me.
Somewhere in the middle things are a bit murky for me, to be honest.
"We have inoffensive morals, but we don't let them interfere with making money."
If every influential person in a large company agrees on a contentious issue like universal healthcare, that would suggest hiring is based on a litmus test around that issue. As much as I think we should have universal healthcare, I don't think support for that should be a requirement in the hiring process where I work.
So you end up with agreement only non-contentious issues. (Or sometimes stances that are beneficial to the specific corporation.)
EDIT: Just checked it and it is the same CA they use for AWS services.
- min wage: economic
- climate: environmental
- energy: environmental
- diversity: social/business
- lgbt: social
- immigration: social/political
- govt tech: political
- facial rec: legal/social
- counterfeiting: legal
- data: legal/political
- tax: legal/business
> Human-induced climate change is real, serious, and action is needed from the public and private sectors.
How about doing a better job at bundling items? Or encourage people to not use 2 day shipping? I'd argue Amazon actually incentivizes single package and fast shipping, which are counter to this message.
> The rights of LGBTQ+ people must be protected.
> We strongly support the rights of immigrants and immigration reform.
> Governments should work quickly to put in place a regulatory framework for facial recognition technology.
I think these three are tied together. I'll also say that with all the stuff coming out of the woodworks this week (in respect to Hong Kong) all this needs explicit action for people to believe that Amazon cares. We're seeing a lot of companies that say they care but act differently. So it is all talk until I see action as far as I'm concerned.
All of amazons shit is made in China, which does not the same environmental standards we have. This just seems like lip service.
I heard this first-hand from an Amazon HR who fought for the rights of the warehouse workers (factories as they call them) that during one of the bi-annual OLR (reviews) they were given feedback that they simply don't get the business and aren't a fit for the role. They said it was because they prevented warehouse contract workers or employees from being terminated without-cause, which would have saved Amazon money that they otherwise would have have paid as severance and absolved them from affording the workers a notice period. The factory workers (in their home-country) are no better than slaves as they do not understand their rights well enough and the managers take them for a ride to please their superiors in furthering narrative that serves as datapoints for their leadership qualities bi-annually. Amazon as a corporate might take an official stance, sure, but Amazon's vulture-culture is hiding in the plain sight for all to see.
> Amazon prioritizes equal pay, and since we’ve been measuring and publishing the ratio over the past several years, women have earned between 99.5 and 101.5 cents for every dollar that men have earned in the same jobs.
Why is that an ex-teammate of another Amazonian I spoke to who had issues with their eyesight struggled immeasurably to get promoted before quitting or being made to quit? Why do they stack-rank someone undergoing personal trauma or chronic illness to the bottom and treat them like a perishable resource? Again, official stance is one thing, ground realities are another. Lying with statistics is one thing, actually confronting the elephant in the room... Well, that's not their forte.
> Governments should work quickly to put in place a regulatory framework for facial recognition technology.
https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/search?q=Ring
> Our customer-centric approach has led us to follow privacy-by-design principles since our founding.
It is well-known that Amazon would copy your product and manufacture it themselves if there's enough money in it. How do they know? Well, they mine the hell out of the buying behaviour they track. They conveniently can target market segments to optimise returns. Not to mention prominent placement for Amazon Brands in search results.
Also, I believe, they do share buyer's personal information with the seller, per purchase.
And show ads.
None of this screams privacy-by-design, to me.
> Corporate tax codes should incentivize investment in the economy and job creation.
Why isn't there a bullet point abt social responsibility? Continuing to corner massive amt of wealth for your board, your shareholders, your VPs and employees is plain greed after a point.
I guess, I'm just grumpy and need to lighten up.
But also
> Governments at all levels—federal, state, and local—should have access to the best technology
So, we support the rights of immigrants to not be abused, but we'd like to continue making a buck selling tech to agencies directly responsible for that abuse.
Similarly,
> Human-induced climate change is real, serious, and action is needed from the public and private sectors
But but but!
> The energy industry should have access to the same technologies as other industries
Amazon even openly brags about how awesome their tech is for extracting that sweet, sweet oil: https://aws.amazon.com/oil-and-gas/
Its hilarious (and sad) how this position piece outlines what Amazon claims to believe, and simultaneously explains why they're going to keep doing things that directly contradict those stated beliefs. It's an insult to your intelligence as a reader.
What a bunch of baloney
But also
> Governments at all levels—federal, state, and local—should have access to the best technology So, we support the rights of immigrants to not be abused, but we'd like to continue making a buck selling tech to agencies directly responsible for that abuse.
Perhaps Amazon should have clarified the sentence as "We strongly support the rights of legal immigrants and immigration reform." Then it wouldn't be incongruous.
So we should ensure that oil companies have the best technology available to maximize efficiency and minimize the chances of catastrophic environmental disasters (which are almost always the direct result of a technological deficiency) while simultaneously working on the technology and policy that will allow us to minimize our oil dependence in the long term.
From their page: "Accelerate and optimize exploration, drilling, and production".
That's not just keeping the lights on, that's actually accelerating the rate of oil extraction at exactly the time when we need to be ramping down.
[update] : ok , i get this is not an US issue, and get your feelings behind downvotes, but i didnt know this was just for US..
and yet they haven't been responsive to employees and activists urging them to stop enabling ICE.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/07/12/no-tech-i...
Union suppression is anti-free market.
A lot of political mumbo-jumbo here, my best guess is this is Bezos launching his political career... "Bezos for President" in 2024. :-)