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.”
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.
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.
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.
Amazon paid Ruh Global $30,000 to “influence legislative or administrative action” in California, according to state lobbying records.
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+ |
Digital.HentaiPreferences.zip (3.2 GB)@version I just got the data request, and it looks to be a lot of small details:
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