We Need Government When We Need It. Other Times, Nah
May 14, 2020
Who knows if this CNBC news story is real. The talking head outfit has been reporting some interesting stories, and “Top Amazon Exec Calls for Federal Price Gouging Law Amid Coronavirus Scams” ranks near the top of DarkCyber’s List of Amazing Management Utterances.
The story reports:
In a blog post Wednesday, Brian Huseman, Amazon’s vice president of public policy, called for the establishment of a federal price gouging law. While there are price gouging laws in some states, Huseman said they don’t go far enough in protecting consumers against unfair pricing during crises such as the coronavirus pandemic. Third-party sellers were charging unfair prices for in-demand items like face masks and hand sanitizer.
In rural Kentucky, coronavirus products are as rare as clear thinking about the correlation of basketball victories to academic excellence.
Some questions:
- Can Amazon control the prices its vendor charge for certain products?
- With lower prices, will Amazon increase its existing sales?
- Due to Amazon’s lower prices, will other merchants decrease their prices in order to win business?
DarkCyber is confused about what was taught in Econ 101 using that old chestnut of a book by a dude named Samuelson. Available on Amazon for a mere $71.95.
Does the Bezos bulldozer long for regulation? Really?
Stephen E Arnold, May 14, 2020
Google: Responding to the Bezos Bulldozer Just Slowly
May 14, 2020
Bulldozers have a top speed of what 10 kilometers per hour, maybe less if grinding through abandoned retail store fronts? As part of the DarkCyber research for our Amazon blockchain report, we put in our files “Amazon considers Entering Insurtech Market.” The date of this write up was 2017. The bulldozer has been making progress. AWS seems to be making progress. Amazon’s outstanding online marketing and documentation provides a semi-clear picture of what the Bezos bulldozer has accomplished. See, for example, Insurance.
We found the “truth” centric Thomson Reuters’ story “Insurer Brit and Google Cloud to Launch First Digital Lloyd’s Syndicate” intriguing. We learned:
Insurance company Brit and Google Cloud are together launching the first digital Lloyd’s of London syndicate, accessible from anywhere and at any time.
Thomson Reuters’ perceives that insurers are “in a race to team up with tech giants such as Google.”
Several questions:
- Did the Amazon insurance push fizzle and Thomson Reuters miss the two year old story?
- Did Google overlook the Amazon announcements which began flowing in 2017? For instance, “Amazon Is Coming for the Insurance Industry – Should We Be Worried?”
- Will regulators pay more attention to the financial services push from US technology giants?
DarkCyber cannot answer these questions. However, it would be helpful if a time context for Google’s activities were provided. The information makes clear how quickly or slowly Google responds to the slow moving Bezos bulldozer which is chugging along in some interesting financial markets. Are those camels watching the bulldozer moving forward? Nah, the bulldozer is probably delivering groceries.
Stephen E Arnold, May 14, 2020
The Bezos Bulldozer Heads to Academia
May 13, 2020
Oxford University and AWS have teamed up for cloud based research.
Does this strike anyone else as an interesting and perhaps improbable combination? On its News and Events page, Oxford University announces, “Oxford University and Amazon Web Services Create a Test-Bed for Cloud-Based Research.” The post reveals:
“Today the University of Oxford is delighted to announce a new strategic collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS). The collaboration will focus on building a portfolio of new research projects relating to AI, robotics, cyber-physical systems, human-centered computing, and support to the University’s new ‘Lighthouse’ Doctoral Scholarships. This new university- industry collaboration, supported by a £7 million [about $8.7 million] gift from AWS to the Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences Division, will accelerate advances in AI and Data Science across the entire research portfolio of the University. Professor Patrick Grant, Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research) University of Oxford, said: ‘Cloud computing is an essential part of modern research. A streamlined operating model for using cloud services will benefit all of our researchers. The Oxford Robotics Institute, the Cyber Physical Systems Group, and the Human Centered Computing group are leading the initial projects in the short term, but I look forward to growing the collaboration to bring research benefits across our research work more broadly.’”
For its part, AWS is happy to demonstrate how its products can help academia. That is, after all, one more sector it can add to its collection of those becoming dependent on its platform. The press release quotes members of each Oxford department involved: the Applied AI Lab, the Robotics Institute, Human-Centered Computing, and the Cyber Physical Systems group. See the post for each of those perspectives. I am particularly curious about the Human-Centered Computing professor’s vision for an Institute of Responsible Technology, but details are not provided.
As for that Lighthouse Doctoral Scholarship program, it will fund 25 PhD students for the years 2020-2022 “who are applying to the Centre for Doctoral Training in Autonomous Intelligent Machines and Systems, or to the research laboratories of the supervisors in the human-machine collaboration initiative.” This will help the university toward its existing goal of adding 300 graduate scholarships between 2018 and 2023.
Between the funding, the scholarships, and the technology, both AWS and Oxford have high hopes for an advanced, multi-national, “cloud-first” research initiative.
Like IBM, tie ups with big name universities may payoff in useful ways: Recruitment, research, virtue signaling, etc.
Too bad for the University of Washington maybe?
Cynthia Murrell, May 12, 2020
Google: Trimming Expenses Signals an Abstemious Tremor
May 12, 2020
Times are changing at the Google. Despite being the world’s best and biggest online advertising service, the company is slowly morphing into an MBA centric operation.
CNBC published “Google Tells Employees They Can’t Expense Food or Other Perks When Working from Home.” The write up states:
The company issued an updated policy in the last week that states employees cannot expense perks while working from home, including food, fitness, home office furniture, decoration or gifts… The policy also states that employees cannot use unused budgets to do things like purchase meals for themselves or their teams during virtual meetings or donate to charities of their choice.
What’s interesting is that I saw Googlers living in their vehicles on or near Google properties in Mountain View. These individuals either chose van life to avoid the pre-Covid commute or because they could not afford a house or apartment.
Since these people live in some cases on Google premises, the change in perk policy may be particularly interesting. For Googlers who relied on the company for food face other hurdles. Nuking burritos in a microwave can get old fast.
What other financial tweaks will be forthcoming as the online ad giant tries to deal with the impact of the natural force of Covid and the unnatural force of the Bezos bulldozer scraping product search and advertising dollars from underneath Googzilla’s paws?
Stephen E Arnold, May 12, 2020
JEDI Warriors: Amazon and Microsoft Soldier On for Money
May 11, 2020
DarkCyber noted “Bid High, Lose, Try Again. Amazon Continues to Push for a JEDI Re-Do.” The main point of the write up is to point out that Amazon is not happy with the disposition of the Department of Defense’s decision to award JEDI to Microsoft.
What’s interesting about the article is that Microsoft implies that it is the provider of the “latest and best technology available.” The author is a corporate vice president of communications. The viewpoint is understandable.
The blog post points out:
Amazon has filed yet another protest – this time, out of view of the public and directly with the DoD – about their losing bid for the JEDI cloud contract. Amazon’s complaint is confidential, so we don’t know what it says. However, if their latest complaint mirrors the arguments Amazon made in court , it’s likely yet another attempt to force a re-do because they bid high and lost the first time.
That’s an interesting assertion. If the bid data were available, perhaps some characterization of what “high” means in this context would be helpful.
DarkCyber understood that Amazon lost the procurement because of a combination of factors, not “price.” Factors included alleged interference by the White House, Amazon’s assurances that on premises and cloud systems would work in the security environment required / envisioned by the DoD, and a lack of support for essential applications like PowerPoint. Price is an important factor, but data about the fees is not floating around in the miasma of rural Kentucky.
Microsoft’s PR VP states:
This latest filing – filed with the DoD this time – is another example of Amazon trying to bog down JEDI in complaints, litigation and other delays designed to force a do-over to rescue its failed bid. Think about it: Amazon spent the better part of last month fighting in court to prevent the DoD from taking a 120-day pause to address a concern flagged by the judge and reevaluate the bids. Amazon fought for a complete re-do and more delay. Amazon lost. The judge granted the DoD’s request for a timeout in the litigation to address her concerns. And now Amazon is at it again, trying to grind this process to a halt, keeping vital technology from the men and women in uniform – the very people Amazon says it supports.
The conclusion of the blog post is that Amazon should tip over its king and concede defeat.
DarkCyber finds this procurement to be interesting. Neither side is likely to walk away.
The reason, however, has little to do with technology or concern with the DoD, war fighters, or any other uplifting notion.
There are 10 billion reasons or more plus additional payments as a result of scope changes, engineering change orders, and ancillary tasks.
The battle is less about ideals and more about money, prestige, and the JEDI deal as a Dyson vacuum cleaner for more government work. The best technology? Yeah, right.
Stephen E Arnold, May 11, 2020
Amazon: Coining New Terms in a Time of Crisis and Money Gushers
May 7, 2020
Our news filtering system (not quite as effective as Google’s, however) spotted a Ycombinator Hacker News post about Amazon. The topic was treatment of warehouse workers in the wake of the Tim Bray hasta la vista, conquistadores. Deep in the comment thread was a new word, a coinage, a neologism! Here’s the word:
Frupid
The author of the comment noted:
Given how a key Amazon value is being “frugal” or often times called “frupid” internally, they regularly have little resources for FTEs let alone the workers in warehouses.
This is a useful term. Frupid. DarkCyber likes it.
Stephen E Arnold, May 7, 2020
An Amazon AWS Would You Believe…
May 6, 2020
I am not sure if this is content marketing, PR, or horse feathers. IndiaTV published “At Over $40 billion Annual Run Rate, Amazon Web Services Growing Faster Than Ever.” Here are some factoids from the “real news” write up:
- Amazon will have a “super annual run rate of more than $40 billion” from AWS
- AWS now spans 76 Availability Zones within 24 geographic regions, with announced plans for nine more Availability Zones and three more AWS Regions in Indonesia, Japan, and Spain.
- Amazon does cyber security: “Amazon Detective automatically collects log data from a customer’s resources and uses machine learning, statistical analysis, and graph theory to build interactive visualizations that help customers analyze, investigate, and quickly identify the root cause of potential security issues or suspicious activities.”
- “AWS has also announced the general availability of Amazon Augmented Artificial Intelligence (Amazon A2I), a fully managed service that makes it easy to add human review to machine learning predictions to enhance model and application accuracy by continuously identifying and improving low confidence predictions.”
And the biggie:
AWS helped power the NFL’s first ever remote draft — the most watched ever, reaching more than 55 million viewers total.
Will IBM and HP get the message? Google and Microsoft have.
Stephen E Arnold, May 6, 2020
Amazon from JEDI to Black Eye?
May 5, 2020
Who knows who lies today? Facebook executives remain baffled about user privacy and Cambridge Analytica? Google forgets that it has data about salaries? An Amazon executive explains a reality different from the world in which third-party resellers operate? Bleach, well, not relevant.
“House Panel Demands That Bezos Testify on Whether Amazon Misled Congress” has a catchy subtitle too:
The move marks the greatest escalation to date in the House Judiciary Committee’s antitrust probe of Silicon Valley.
The basic idea is to put the driver of the Bezos bulldozer at one of those semi-gloss tables in a room used for hearings and sometimes other things. A group of elected officials will then ask questions, usually prepared by assistants. Each question typically nests within a polemic or a statement designed to get the elected official back in the fund raising game.
Here’s an interesting statement from the write up. The “Nadler” referenced is Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.):
Nadler railed against tech giants like Facebook and Amazon during a private fundraiser in February, warning that the power they possess “cannot be allowed to exist in society.” Nadler added that confronting concentration of power in the U.S. “means breaking up all the large companies,” though he did not specify which firms should be split apart.
The digital monopolies have been doing their thing for a couple of decades. Soon the driver of the Bezos bulldozer will appear and explain what the reality is.
And what is the reality? The Washington Post presents one view. Prime members have another. Third party resellers presumably have their perception as well.
Amazon moved from JEDI to a black eye.
No doubt Mr. Bezos’ view will be interesting. Maybe he will Amazon Chime in?*
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* Chime is Amazon’s video conferencing systems which let’s people work together, simplified.
Stephen E Arnold, May 5, 2020
The Bulldozer and Bray: Amazon and Its People Policies in Action
May 4, 2020
I read “Bye, Amazon.” The author is Tim Bray. Some may remember him as one of the spark plugs of Open Text. He did some nifty visualization work. He did the Google thing until 2014. From 2014 until a couple of days ago he worked at Amazon, the Bezos bulldozer, the online bookstore, and all-around economic engine of Covid America.
The write up states:
I quit in dismay at Amazon firing whistleblowers who were making noise about warehouse employees frightened of Covid-19.
When Amazon terminated with prejudice the Amazonians protesting.
Mr. Bray’s reaction was
Snap!
Mr. Bray was upset, went through Amazon channels, and resigned.
He states about the warehouse worker action:
It’s not just workers who are upset. Here are Attorneys-general from 14 states speaking out. Here’s the New York State Attorney-general with more detailed complaints. Here’s Amazon losing in French courts, twice.
On the other hand, he points out:
Amazon Web Services (the “Cloud Computing” arm of the company), where I worked, is a different story. It treats its workers humanely, strives for work/life balance, struggles to move the diversity needle (and mostly fails, but so does everyone else), and is by and large an ethical organization. I genuinely admire its leadership.
In his penultimate paragraph he offers:
At the end of the day, it’s all about power balances. The warehouse workers are weak and getting weaker, what with mass unemployment and (in the US) job-linked health insurance. So they’re gonna get treated like crap, because capitalism. Any plausible solution has to start with increasing their collective strength.
Several observations:
- Mr. Bray has a moral compass. DarkCyber finds that of value.
- Amazon’s “power” has been largely unchecked since the mid 1990s, and only now are actions building like storm clouds on the horizon.
- Mr. Bray was able to continue working for the Google but he could not continue working at Amazon. That’s interesting in itself.
Net net: Will Amazon take steps to deal with what seems to be the Tim Bray situation? Do Prime customers get orders delivered on time? Not if warehouse employees put sand in the Bezos bulldozer’s differential.
Stephen E Arnold, May 4, 2020
Amazon: Now on a Piracy and Counterfeiting List
April 30, 2020
DarkCyber doubts some sensational headlines, but many times the factoids conveyed are interesting and often amusing. Here’s an example:
Amazon’s Foreign Websites Named in US Piracy and Counterfeiting Report
The story reports that “several of Amazon’s foreign websites have been added to the US trade regulators “Notorious Markets” report on marketplaces known for counterfeiting and piracy concerns.”
DarkCyber assumes that “foreign” means non US centric Web sites. What’s intended is that country specific Amazon Web sites in Canada, France, Germany, India, and the UK purvey counterfeit goods.
The article states:
The USTR [Office of the US Trade Representative] said it had received complaints that seller information displayed by Amazon was often misleading and allegations it was too easy for anyone to sell on Amazon “because Amazon does not sufficiently vet sellers on its platforms.”
Will this have legs? Amazon is challenging some US government procedures with the spin that President Trump is not a fan of the online bookstore.
DarkCyber believes that President Trump conflates the Washington Post (owned by a Bezos entity) with Amazon’s ecommerce business.
Maybe doing more research will allow the Office of the US Trade Representative to determine if the allegation is accurate or a misunderstanding.
Stephen E Arnold, April 30, 2020
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