
Amazon stops charitable donations via Amazon Smile if you turn off notifications - rahuldottech
https://www.reddit.com/r/assholedesign/comments/dgtgr4/amazon_app_disables_charitable_donations_via/
======
cwkoss
Amazon has recently started providing third party sellers for 'fulfilled by
Amazon' orders with all of your personal information. There is no reason for
them to have this.

I've gotten three marketing postcards and have a persistent Facebook ad that
started appearing from a brand the day after I ordered one of their products.
Don't buy stuff on Amazon if you don't want the third party seller to get all
your info.

~~~
ilamont
Amazon has made this information available to Pro Sellers for years.

I think the original logic was if there was a problem with the order (missing
part, defective product, etc.) the seller could send a replacement without
having to ask Amazon for the customer's contact info.

As an Amazon customer, I have never received marketing mail separately from
the item I ordered. However, almost all orders include a printed postcard or
slip of paper saying something to the effect of "If there's a problem with the
order, contact us, but if you like the product please leave a review."

~~~
cwkoss
These were mailed separately, which is what surprised me. When I left a
negative review, Amazon removed it because it's "not about the product".
Appears their new policy is to provide customer name, address, email and phone
to third party sellers.

Postcard's call to action was to visit a URL. Luckily I opened it in a
incognito tab, because the URL redirected to try to use a logged in Facebook
messenger session to send the brand a message.

~~~
astura
They do not provide your email address to third party sellers, the only way to
email a buyer is through Amazon. I don't ever recall ever seeing a buyer's
phone number, but I have also never looked for it. You've always been able to
see a buyer's name and address, including for FBA orders, that not a new
policy.

------
verdverm
I closed all of my Amazon accounts about a year ago, now I buy so much less
crap I never needed. The only thing I miss is books... can't always find them
with local stores, even on order.

I had to go through all those "are you really, really sure?" Only to be
required to call them after all that and say, YES! I AM SURE

#BoycottBezos

Because the only good thing he can think to do with his money is go to space.
Maybe he's doing this so he can keep the profits and try to catch Elon

~~~
lokeshk
I don’t have any personal objections with how Bezos decides to use his money,
but to your point of books — how’s your local library? I recently realized I
was spending some non-negligible amount of money on books every month and
switched to the local library. It obviously depends on where you live but I’ve
been pleasantly surprised. It’s a fantastic system of local libraries and
they’ve all the titles I want to read. There’s a wait for new titles, like
Snowden’s book will need me to wait a couple of months, but anything older
than a year is almost always available. As the book loan is for 21 days, it
also forces me to finish my reading within this time.

~~~
service_bus
For me it's not so much about how he uses his money, but how he gets it.

Raking in obscene amounts of money by working people to the bone and forcing
them to pee in bottles and not be able to take proper breaks is unconscionable
in my book, and can't bring myself to support such a morally repugnant
business model.

~~~
BurningFrog
Here's actual Amazon worker with a different perspective:

[https://quillette.com/2019/07/19/the-problem-with-tourist-
jo...](https://quillette.com/2019/07/19/the-problem-with-tourist-journalism/)

~~~
wpietri
That is not exactly a neutral source:
[https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Quillette](https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Quillette)

More than that, it's not what a great number of Amazon workers say. And have
been saying since at least 2012:
[https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-
mcclelland-...](https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/mac-mcclelland-
free-online-shipping-warehouses-labor/)

~~~
BurningFrog
Sure, but do you imagine the viral piss bottle stories come from a neutral
source?

------
devicetray0
That must just be for purchases through the app? Yesterday, I went to
amazon.com and the website reminded me that I wasn't using the Smile (charity)
portal and had a button to redirect me to smile.amazon.com. I smiled at that
non-dark-pattern. I don't have the app...

~~~
vpzom
But why is it a separate website in the first place?

~~~
dgarrett
Amazon doesn’t like when customers use Google to search for a product, then
click on the Amazon link and buy it. Amazon doesn’t get the search and
behavioral data from that. By forcing the customer to go to a special site,
the customer has to now search and browse directly on Amazon for their items.

Answer: more user data

~~~
catalogia
Amazon should fix their search engine, but Jeff Bezos has been tone-deaf to
the issue for years. I think it was 6 or so years back when I was at an all-
hands that Bezos was confronted by an employee about the poor quality of
search on amazon.com and Bezos shrugged the matter off, said that Top Minds™
had created it and that he thought they did a great job.

~~~
sjg007
Both Facebook and Amazon have terrible search engines.

------
clintonb
I wasn’t aware they had an app. I agree that require notifications for
donations is not ideal, but there is an easy workaround: use the website.

~~~
petra
Another workaround - block the notifications at the OS, not inside the app.

------
tracer4201
This seems to be a dark pattern that has recently caught on.

If you try to add your tickets in the United App to your Apple wallet, the app
stops you saying the feature requires you to enable notifications.

~~~
tyfon
Can't you stop notifications from displaying on specific apps in iphone?

I've been able to do that for a couple years on my sony phone.

~~~
colejohnson66
OP is saying that when they do disable notifications, the app won’t let them
add the pass to their Wallet.

------
jgwil2
This is really crummy. If they want to support charities, just do it. I
already have to buy from them for them to make a donation. Now I have to grant
invasive permissions as well?

~~~
0zymandiass
They don't want to support charities. They want to get people that want that
to spend more money with them. They did the math, and the number of people
that will say "no" to that permission is significantly smaller than the amount
of money they make from forcing that permission in order to get them to give
their scraps to charities.

~~~
CydeWeys
Even better, they want cheap advertising from charities. Plenty of charities
broadcast to their network that you should go set up Amazon Smile to support
that charity. And thus you get charities advertising for Amazon.

------
sdtransier
There's a great Safari extension on Mac called SmileAllDay that will
automatically redirect you to the Smile version of Amazon.

[https://apps.apple.com/us/app/smileallday/id1180442868?mt=12](https://apps.apple.com/us/app/smileallday/id1180442868?mt=12)

~~~
coolspot
Also “Smile Always” for Chrome:
[https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/smile-
always/jgpmh...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/smile-
always/jgpmhnmjbhgkhpbgelalfpplebgfjmbf?hl=en)

And Amazon smile! For FF: [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/amazon-smile/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/amazon-smile/)

------
karlh
Better to donate directly to causes you support or through places like
Kiva.org (yeah, I know they have their issues too, but still better than
Amazon).

------
chiefalchemist
I don't understand why so many people support Amazon so much. Everything week
there seems to be another story that makes me think "scumbags" or "asshole."

As long as they keep getting money their behavior will not chamge.

~~~
catalogia
You should feel fortunate that you don't understand why, because the answer
will frustrate you even more than not understanding it. The horrible truth:
most people don't give a damn.

~~~
igetspam
In honestly wish I could ditch Amazon. I love in a pretty remote area and have
a small kid. Getting to a store is an ordeal and when we're running low on
things, amazon is usually the only fast way to get anything. Next move will
have better resources but this move was a necessity. I hate that we use Amazon
so much but it's the best offering where I am.

------
adg29
Dark patterns are often justified as trying to gain more of a
user’s/customer’s attention, as seen to be the case here. IMHO, this is Amazon
shrewdly introducing limits to their charity.

Whether it be a functional constraint or a dark pattern, user’s attention is
being exchanged for agency of charity on behalf of the consumer.

A quick search on Twitter leads me to believe there is a feedback cycle Amazon
leveraged with notifications about the Smile program. Consumers buy,
notifications of their charity are pushed, Amazon profits. Repeat cycle.
Amazon profits.

~~~
dictum
If one considers absence of desire to take a certain approach as a constraint,
anything can be a legit constraint.

