The Amazon Lobbyists Who Kill US Consumer Privacy Protections (reuters.com) 36
In recent years, Amazon has killed or undermined privacy protections in more than three dozen bills across 25 states, as the e-commerce giant amassed a lucrative trove of personal data on millions of American consumers. From a report: Amazon executives and staffers detail these lobbying victories in confidential documents reviewed by Reuters. In Virginia, the company boosted political donations tenfold over four years before persuading lawmakers this year to pass an industry-friendly privacy bill that Amazon itself drafted. In California, the company stifled proposed restrictions on the industry's collection and sharing of consumer voice recordings gathered by tech devices. And in its home state of Washington, Amazon won so many exemptions and amendments to a bill regulating biometric data, such as voice recordings or facial scans, that the resulting 2017 law had "little, if any" impact on its practices, according to an internal Amazon document.
The architect of this under-the-radar campaign to smother privacy protections has been Jay Carney, who previously served as communications director for Joe Biden, when Biden was vice president, and as press secretary for President Barack Obama. Hired by Amazon in 2015, Carney reported to founder Jeff Bezos and built a lobbying and public-policy juggernaut that has grown from two dozen employees to about 250, according to Amazon documents and two former employees with knowledge of recent staffing. One 2018 document reviewing executives' goals for the prior year listed privacy regulation as a primary target for Carney. One objective: "Change or block US and EU regulation/legislation that would impede growth for Alexa-powered devices," referring to Amazon's popular voice-assistant technology. The mission included defeating restrictions on artificial intelligence and biometric technologies, along with blocking efforts to make companies disclose the data they keep on consumers.
The document listed Carney as the goal's "primary owner" and celebrated killing or amending privacy bills in "over 20 states." This story is based on a Reuters review of hundreds of internal Amazon documents and interviews with more than 70 lobbyists, advocates, policymakers and their staffers involved in legislation Amazon targeted, along with 10 former Amazon public-policy and legal employees. It is the third in a series of reports revealing how the company has pursued business practices that harm small businesses or put its own interests above those of consumers. The previous articles showed how Amazon has circumvented e-commerce regulations meant to protect Indian retailers, and how it copied products and rigged search results to promote its own brands over those of other vendors on its India platform.
The architect of this under-the-radar campaign to smother privacy protections has been Jay Carney, who previously served as communications director for Joe Biden, when Biden was vice president, and as press secretary for President Barack Obama. Hired by Amazon in 2015, Carney reported to founder Jeff Bezos and built a lobbying and public-policy juggernaut that has grown from two dozen employees to about 250, according to Amazon documents and two former employees with knowledge of recent staffing. One 2018 document reviewing executives' goals for the prior year listed privacy regulation as a primary target for Carney. One objective: "Change or block US and EU regulation/legislation that would impede growth for Alexa-powered devices," referring to Amazon's popular voice-assistant technology. The mission included defeating restrictions on artificial intelligence and biometric technologies, along with blocking efforts to make companies disclose the data they keep on consumers.
The document listed Carney as the goal's "primary owner" and celebrated killing or amending privacy bills in "over 20 states." This story is based on a Reuters review of hundreds of internal Amazon documents and interviews with more than 70 lobbyists, advocates, policymakers and their staffers involved in legislation Amazon targeted, along with 10 former Amazon public-policy and legal employees. It is the third in a series of reports revealing how the company has pursued business practices that harm small businesses or put its own interests above those of consumers. The previous articles showed how Amazon has circumvented e-commerce regulations meant to protect Indian retailers, and how it copied products and rigged search results to promote its own brands over those of other vendors on its India platform.
Do as they do. (Score:3, Insightful)
In California, the company stifled proposed restrictions on the industry's collection and sharing of consumer voice recordings gathered by tech devices.
Just note all the devices absent from the European market and avoid buying those.
The document listed Carney as the goal's "primary owner" and celebrated killing or amending privacy bills in "over 20 states."
Wonder if he's ready to live in the world of his creation?
Re: Ms. Mash is gay (Score:2)
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Re:Do as they do. (Score:4, Insightful)
And then marvel at how the same SKU with the same appearance but bought in the U.S. collects more data than the one bought in Europe.
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The question you should be asking is why does this lobbying not work in the EU? Why do the privacy laws get passed there but not in the US?
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That is a fair question and it's down to our non-Representatives in the federal government bending over for lobbyists.
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There's also the lack of Representatives. 435 for the last 100 years in a nation now of 350+ million. Canada for example has 308 for 38 million with another 4 or so being added for the next election.
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Democrats are expensive (Score:2, Informative)
Amazon's 2020 lobbying money: 81% ($10.36 million) to Democrats [opensecrets.org]. The (R) money is mostly split among some RINOs.
Cue the apologists, hair splitters, equivocators and whataboutery.
Today's so-called Republicans hate democracy (Score:2)
You're feeding a troll and propagating it's real (but fake) message in the Subject.
As for the story, I must confess that my 20-year boycott of Amazon has apparently failed to achieve its objectives. I can't imagine why. /sarcasm
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The Republicans are pro-dystopia by default. There's no need to buy them off.
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I'm sure if you look under mango moussilini's term it's the reverse. Lobbying is bribery and corruption regardless of your political affiliation.
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2020 was the Trump era (people are blurring that year into this one). In 2019 the split was 65/35, again favoring Dems. I attribute this to Dems being the ones who typically push for consumer protections--so if you want to influence that legislation, you need to donate to those reps (this would also explain why "Rinos" also got money, assuming that is accurate).
This does not excuse Democrats' weakening of various state laws. I suspect that in most states with privacy protection laws, Dems deserve most of t
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Amazon's 2020 lobbying money: 81% ($10.36 million) to Democrats [opensecrets.org]. The (R) money is mostly split among some RINOs.
What you're saying is that Democrats have to be bribed to do this shit, but Republicans do it on for free?
"Privacy Rapists" (Score:2)
The architect of this under-the-radar campaign to smother privacy protections has been Jay Carney,
Now we have a name for the principal Privacy Rapist.
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They also have a Chief Privacy Gaslighter, Andrew DeVore:
https://www.wired.com/story/am... [wired.com]
They may be doing this just as much to soften the blow of their inevitable privacy Chernobyl moment as to pave the way for ever more privacy-invasive home automation devices.
Amazon's information security is like a pinata, if you could just crack the hard outer shell of most any part of it, all the candy would easily come spilling out at once.
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If this is who you blame, a temporary employee who had nothing to do with policy and is just a lobbyist, then you fell for the trolling summary hook, line, and sinker.
What a fucking clown. It's like you just got access to media for the first time yesterday.
When they list working a small job for a Vice President before working as a cabinet secretary for the President, and leave out that he's a Clinton guy who has been famous since before slashdot was created, it's pretty obvious this is a political troll pre
Privacy-shmivecy (Score:2)
Amazon will not make purchase of anything mandatory, nor will Amazon open a "terrorism" investigation over your being impolite to them [usatoday.com].
You don't want Alexa — don't buy Alexa. You hate Amazon — shop at Walmart, or Costco, or Target, or K-Mart or that mysterious "mom and pop shop", that anti-Walmart goons were waxing about [slashdot.org], before giving up [inthesetimes.com].
But if you want to talk privacy — then government should be your target, not businesses. Because businesses seek profit, whereas government attracts thos
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But if you want to talk privacy — then government should be your target, not businesses.
Businesses are serving the government, in other words, government uses businesses to do their dirty work and evade constitutional issues. In exchange, business gets great big subsidies and tax cuts, money to be used for reelection, and yachts and helicopters. Business and government are in a symbiotic relationship, very interdependent... acting as one
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Thank you for confirming, that government is the root of the problem. Just as I said.
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You are wagging the dog. Business creates government to provide security and enforce contracts. One cannot exist without the other. Even the commies have to do business
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Bullshit. Governments are instituted among Men to secure our rights. Human rights.
Pursuit of happiness being one of them.
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Governments are instituted among Men to secure our rights. Human rights.
:-) yeah, ok... The Easter Bunny is real
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Easter Bunny is not real, but the reasons for their being a government are just what I said.
More generally, I have nothing to fear from businesses — not from Amazon, not from a local pizzeria. I do have quite a bit to fear from a) criminals; b) government.
Re: Privacy-shmivecy (Score:2)
The american government was created to maintain a specific status quo which does NOT include effective protection of rights for all, which is why they gave the vote only to landed white males specifically. This is literally the same criteria as in Athens, which means it was about as progressive as ancient Greece.
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Voting was never enumerated as a human right. Fail. You're factually wrong too — voting was not limited to Whites, but that's not relevant.
America would not have convicted Socrates, unlike Athens. So, no, not quite the same.
Given, what "progressive" has become to mean of late, that's not a bad thing at all.
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Who pays for the government to get elected?
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