
Our Positions - kevinsundar
https://www.aboutamazon.com/our-company/our-positions
======
wheelie_boy
A cynical reading:

\- 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)

~~~
tzs
> A cynical reading

...

> 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.

~~~
wheelie_boy
> 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"

~~~
gremlinsinc
> 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.

\-- 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.

------
Animats
No mention of unions.

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.

~~~
basch
google, facebook, salesforce, and linkedin dont really want to "sell data they
collect" either. They want to sell _access_ to data, or access to _targeted
attention_. They dont want data leaking from their ecosystems, they want to
keep you coming back to their tools to utilize data.

------
nisuni
When I go to the local butcher’s shop and buy a couple of steaks, I don’t care
about his political views.

Why should I in this case?

~~~
Sebguer
You probably would care about how your butcher exerted his political will if
he was worth almost a trillion dollars and had entered literally every facet
of your life, including selling police surveillance equipment that's installed
on your own home.

~~~
samstave
Hey Alexa, how do you clean up a murder scene?

~~~
gremlinsinc
Damn you... on one hand I'm very curious what her response is, on the other...
I do not want to end up in jail.

------
falcolas
As I read this, everything seems to boil down to:

"We have inoffensive morals, but we don't let them interfere with making
money."

~~~
lkbm
If you're a large group of people tied together by something other than
political ideology, it's to be expected that the only things they would reach
consensus on would be topics where society has reached widespread consensus.

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.)

------
ineedasername
The domain makes me ask this question-- I mean, why not host off the main
Amazon.com domain? So, is this really an official Amazon page?

~~~
gouggoug
The SSL certificate was issued by Amazon, so it is legit.

~~~
mercora
Does that matter? i mean they are running their own CA for use with their
offerings on AWS. I am not sure if it is the same CA though.

EDIT: Just checked it and it is the same CA they use for AWS services.

------
chipperyman573
Interesting, almost all of these issues are social issues (LGBT rights,
immigration policy, etc), but third from the bottom they slipped this in:
"Counterfeiters should receive stronger penalties under federal law." and go
on to talk about how bad counterfeiting is for americans.

~~~
n4r9
I dunno, I think corporations talking about social issues stands out more
because it's contentious. If I was to try and broadly categorise the topics:

\- 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

------
arch-angel
[https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/3/17934194/amazon-
minimum-w...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/3/17934194/amazon-minimum-wage-
raise-stock-options-bonus-warehouse)

------
godelski
It is all talk till I see action. Action that could already be taken on these
issues.

> 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.

~~~
ajhurliman
It looks like they're buying 100,000 electric delivery vehicles; seems like
they're taking action.

~~~
godelski
Awesome! Thank you for letting me know. That is action that I am happy about.

------
justinzollars
On Climate Change.

All of amazons shit is made in China, which does not the same environmental
standards we have. This just seems like lip service.

~~~
whydoyoucare
I think it is lobbying for more taxes than anything else.

------
smacktoward
It's fascinating how many of these boil down to "We know we do terrible
things. Somebody really ought to stop us!"

------
ignoramous
> We are using our position as one of the nation’s largest employers to
> encourage other companies to raise their wages and to lobby members of
> Congress and state legislatures to raise the minimum wage.

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](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.

------
qsymmachus
> We strongly support the rights of immigrants and immigration reform

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/](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

~~~
ng12
I don't understand this utopianist view. Yes, I would like to see oil
companies go away but we can't switch off our oil dependency like a light.
Whether we like it or not, literally the entire world runs on oil in some
capacity and we don't have the ability to wean ourselves off it in the
immediate term.

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.

~~~
fooblitzky
The AWS Oil & Gas offering is explicitly about helping "energy companies" find
and extract _more_ oil, _faster_.

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.

~~~
empath75
I think an argument could be made that they’re going to dig for that oil
anyway and they might as well do it efficiently.

~~~
lazyasciiart
Not strongly. The less efficient they are at extracting it, the more
attractive renewable sources of energy become, and the more effort will go
into producing them.

------
totaldude87
search " Hong Kong" \- results, none found

[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..

~~~
api
These are positions on US issues.

~~~
totaldude87
gotcha..

------
alkonaut
Good. Now add something about international relations (such as consistently
supporting individual freedo vs authoritarian regimes) and in support of trade
unions, and I won’t put you in the naughty column with
NBA/Blizzard/Disney/Apple.

------
sciurus
"We strongly support the rights of immigrants and immigration reform."

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...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/07/12/no-tech-ice-
protesters-demand-amazon-cut-ties-with-federal-immigration-enforcement/)

~~~
Notorious_BLT
I believe that's meant to be part of the meaning of one of the statements in
this page: >Governments at all levels—federal, state, and local—should have
access to the best technology

------
kingkawn
Unions are a legitimate business activity by people who sell their labor. They
are forming business associations to negotiate better terms company or
industry wide in order to improve the efficacy of their market position.

Union suppression is anti-free market.

~~~
throwawaysea
So why is a union different from people forming a separate company and
contracting out their labor? Why ask for special provisions (obligating all
employees to join and pay dues) if it is just a 'business association' like
any other. And if that association is industry-wide as you said, doesn't that
make it anti-free market?

~~~
kingkawn
They are making a legit decision that reflects their position in the market
and their relative economic strength as individuals vs as a group. If they
don’t do this their relative economic position is unacceptably weak, and they
should not be expected to shoulder it passively.

------
whydoyoucare
"It’s critical that Amazon employees are also diverse and that we foster a
culture where inclusion is the norm." is self-contradictory, since diversity
does not imply inclusion, rather continued segregation. Climate science is not
settled, so calling it "real, serious, human-induced" is misleading.

A lot of political mumbo-jumbo here, my best guess is this is Bezos launching
his political career... "Bezos for President" in 2024. :-)

