Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
Yeah, the reuters article said that some of their reporters requested their dossier (edit: and received it. Forgot to finish that statement.)

This is something that could be legitimate though, especially if mandated by a policy they couldn't manage to influence fully. It's not like a bunch of people would do this, I presume, i.e. it's not a practice that could seriously threaten their data collection practices.
 
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version

Well-known member
What do you do if you get the dossier and don't like how much they have on you? Is there a mechanism beyond that for actually doing something about it or do you just have to put up with them having it?
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
There may be a way to request deletion, depending on the jurisdiction you're in. But even if that is an option, there is virtually no accounting for where that data has gone already. It seems way too easy to contract some hacker under the table as a de facto backup of data you are liable to receive deletion requests about
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
The company also gave public-policy staffers a mobile app enabling them to look up the number of Amazon employees in a given politician’s electoral district, the three former employees said. Company lobbyists would open lawmaker meetings with such figures, which two of the employees said carried an implied threat: These are jobs Amazon can take away. One called job creation the public-policy team’s “fundamental bargaining chip.”
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
The Amazon team’s tactics haven’t always succeeded.

Amazon tried but failed to derail the 2018 California law, the first of its kind in the United States, that allowed consumers to request the personal data companies stored on them.

[...]

The law’s passage was considered a major failure internally, a former Amazon public-policy employee said. An Amazon legal-strategy document written after the bill became law called the measure emblematic of “troubling regulatory and legislative trends” that “caught us by surprise.”

A different setback came last month, in the U.S. Senate.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, an Iowa Republican and the ranking member of the judiciary committee, was among Amazon’s top-tier VIPs, the 2014 watering-the-flowers document shows. Last month, Grassley co-authored a bill with Minnesota Democrat Amy Klobuchar that would prohibit companies including Amazon from favoring their own products on their e-commerce platforms.

Told by Reuters that Amazon had prioritized him for lobbying, Grassley pointed to the new bill and said any efforts to influence him haven’t worked.

Props to Klobuchar and Grassley, if this is true.
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
I really want to believe in our public servants, which can be a major impairment to judgement at times.

One thing I don't understand re: lobbying, is whether or not campaign contributions are contractually predicated on the policy-maker taking the policy advice of the lobbyist. If there isn't such a contract, what leverage would lobbyists have over policymakers, aside from the ability to deny future donations? If there is such a contract, how can it be called a donation?
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
Gotta respect the republican impetus of not being treaded on. A major bastion against invasive data practices, it would seem.
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
This is... interesting:

Amazon’s latest effort to stop regulation of voice recordings focused on a bill from Republican Assemblyman Jordan Cunningham. The lawmaker worried that Amazon staffers were listening to some Alexa recordings made in people’s homes. The company says employees only review a tiny fraction of the recordings.

Cunningham has tried unsuccessfully since 2019 to require companies to get consumer consent before storing or sharing smart-speaker recordings. When Cunningham re-introduced the measure this year, Amazon took a novel lobbying approach: It argued the privacy protections would hurt disabled people.

The lawmaker said he first heard that rationale from lobbyist Anthony Williams, a new Amazon hire and former aide to California Governor Gavin Newsom. Cunningham said Williams showed him a promotional video about how Alexa helped blind people with everyday tasks such as checking the weather. Williams didn’t respond to requests for comment.

At an April hearing of the California State Assembly’s privacy committee, a disability rights advocate testified that Cunningham’s bill was “a form of discrimination” against people with disabilities. The advocate, LaMondre Pough, who uses a wheelchair, testified that the bill’s consent requirements would confuse customers and potentially make the devices less functional for people with disabilities.
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
Pough testified that he represented a disability-rights organization called Billion Strong. What he didn’t say was that his employer, consulting firm Ruh Global Impact, had legally registered the nonprofit just three weeks before, or that the firm was working with Amazon.
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
A prime (no pun intended) example of dressing up as socially progressive in order to advance some ulterior, single-bottom-line motive.
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
I downloaded the first advertising zip file, and it includes a list of 3rd party advertising "audiences" that I have been included in, some which of are false.

Audiences in which you are included via 3rd Parties
Automotive:Aftermarket:Auto Parts Buyer
Automotive:Aftermarket:Auto Service Buyer
Automotive:Aftermarket:Vehicle purchase > 48 mos ago
Automotive:Body Style:Full-size Sedan
Automotive:Body Style:Hybrid/Alternative Fuel
Automotive:Body Style:Midsize Car
Automotive:Body Style:Sports Car/Convertible
Automotive:In Market:Body Style:Cross Over Vehicle
Automotive:In Market:Body Style:Entry/Economy/Compact
Automotive:In Market:Body Style:Full-size SUV
Automotive:In Market:Body Style:Hybrid/Alternative Fuel
Automotive:In Market:Body Style:Luxury SUV
Automotive:In Market:Body Style:Luxury Sedan
Automotive:In Market:Body Style:Midsize Car
Automotive:In Market:Body Style:Minivan
Automotive:In Market:Body Style: Pickup Truck
Automotive:In Market:Body Style:Small/Mid-size SUV
Automotive:In Market:Body Style:Sports Car/Convertible
Automotive:In Market:Make:Ford Truck
Automotive:In Market:Make:Toyota
Automotive:In Market:Make:Volkswagen
Automotive:In Market:Model:Toyota Prius
Automotive:In Market:Model:Volkswagen Jetta
Automotive:In Market:New Vehicles
Automotive:In Market:New and Used Vehicles
Automotive:In Market:Used:Body Style:Used Hybrid/Alternative Fuel
Automotive:In Market:Used:Body Style:Used Luxury SUV
Automotive:In Market:Used:Body Style:Used Small/Mid-size SUV
Automotive:Investible Assets - (greater than $500K)
Automotive:Make:Toyota
Automotive:Make:Volkswagen
Automotive:Not In Market For - Auto:Used 6+ years old
Automotive:Vehicle Age:2 Years Old
Automotive:Vehicle Age:4-5 Years Old
Automotive:Vehicle Age:6-10 Years Old
Automotive:Vehicle Price:$20K to $30K
Automotive:Vehicle Price:< $20K
Demographics:Age Range:18-24
Demographics:Age Range:21-24
Demographics:Education:Bachelors degree
Demographics:Home Owners
Demographics:Income:150k+
Demographics:Length of residency:11 or more years
Demographics:Male
Demographics:No Children in Household
Demographics:Number of adults in household:5+ adults
Demographics:Occupation:Sales/Service
Demographics: Property value:$400k+
 

Clinamenic

Binary & Tweed
Having looked through the data collected, I'm not as disturbed as I was expecting to be. It would be worse if I had an Alexa and/or some Amazon-compatible surveillance camera.

But I do appreciate that Amazon follows through with these data requests, but again that might have something to do with California laws. Maybe in other jurisdictions, Amazon reserves the right to deny data requests.
 
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