Amazon and Data Privacy
April 27, 2020
Some people are snoops. I was in Sarande, Albania. The only Internet café open featured a dozen computers and so-so bandwidth. Three young men were busy duplicating US DVDs of motion pictures. I know because I stood next to the group and asked, “What are you doing?”
There was one other person in the storefront. That individual kept peering around the side of his plywood divider to check up on me and what the young men were doing.
Yep, a natural born snoop.
Why’s this relevant?
In a big operation like Amazon, there will be snoops. Some will be following the protein pulses of their DNA and others are doing what someone thought was [a] cool, [b] their job, or [c] no big deal.
I thought about Albania when I read “Amazon Tapped Sellers’ Data to Launch Competing Products.” (Page A1 and A9 in the dead tree edition of the WSJ on April 24, 2020, and at this link online.) My mind works in unusual ways: Albania and Amazon. Hmmm.
I noted:
Amazon.com Inc. employees have used data about independent sellers on the company’s platform to develop competing products, a practice at odds with the company’s stated policies.
That strikes me as a statement of fact, not an “allegedly” needed.
Okay, based on the Albania experience, there are people who ask questions directly and there are snoops. But what’s Amazon’s source? I asked the question in Albania, and I directly observed the snoop’s peeking.
The source of the factoid is:
Interviews with more than 20 former employees of Amazon’s private label business and documents reviewed by the Wall Street journal
How many employees? Who were these people? Why are they no longer working at Amazon? What documents “were reviewed”? Why not include images of these documents?
What’s going on is that a damning story lacks information I could use to verify the factoid.
I think that snoops exist at Amazon. I think that data seeps. I don’t feel comfortable with this type of behavior, but the behavior exists in Albania to Zimbabwe (yep, I have seen some interesting data behaviors there too, including violent acts for the purpose of seizing another person’s farm). A to Z of data snooping I suppose.
Nevertheless, the core of the direct statement about Amazon’s misbehavior rests upon anonymous sources of information.
Sure, the WSJ researchers and journalists reviewed online information about Amazon’s alleged activities. “Experts” were quoted but statements like this come from unnamed sources:
“We would work backwards in terms of the pricing,” said one of the people who used to obtain third party data.
The reliance on anonymous sources opens the door to making up or tweaking a comment to make it better is troubling.
Which is better? Snooping or hiding behind anonymous sources.
Both are bad; neither makes me comfortable.
Stephen E Arnold, April 27, 2020
Palantir Technologies: Getting the NSO Treatment
April 24, 2020
Rupert Murdoch’s real news outfit published “Data Firm Palantir Saw Crisis Coming, Still Faces Pain.” If you want the online version, you will have to pay. The dead tree version of the story is on B5 of the April 22, 2020, edition of the WSJ which is sometimes delivered to me in rural Kentucky.
Enough about the real news outfit. I want to run down some of the assertions made about Palantir. Assertions, I wish to add, from anonymous sources or people close to the vendor of intelware, not verifiable sources.
I highlighted these factoids from the article:
First, Palantir does a lousy job of sharing its financial information. How does the Wall Street Journal get its revenue estimate from 2019? How does the WSJ know that $100 million in costs have be removed from the firm’s operating budget? Easy. People “close to the company” and two unnamed “investors.”
Second, Palantir is pulling back from its rumored initial public offering after the November elections. Palantir has pulled back or put off an IPO for many years. But now Covid enters the picture.
Third, Palantir is providing “a single source of truth about the rapidly evolving situation.” The situation is making sense of pandemic data and the individuals who are infected or infecting. This is a contentious issue. High profile publicity like that the NSO Group has experienced is not a sales booster in some cases.
There are some other factoid assertion like rumors in the write up, but I want to address the three points I selected from the WSJ write up.
- With regard to sharing its financial data, privately-held companies are not obligated to share financial data. Palantir does, but it may not be the data investors or employees want to see. Palantir is in the secrecy business, and it is tough for specialist firms to tell anyone anything. This is not something unique to Palantir. Write Blackdot for information. Let me know how that goes, please.
- The pullback from an IPO is nothing new. Palantir took shape in 2003. Let’s see. That’s almost 17 years ago. If the firm were in a position to crank out those facing IPO documents and go through the stellar Securities & Exchange Commission process and then hit the road to chat up the market makers, Palantir and its big money backers would have volunteered to drive the minivan from meeting to meeting. There’s a reason why the Palantir IPO is unlikely to happen. Hypothetically the company is concerned about revealing data. Another hypothetical is that companies selling policeware and intelware are not loved by some investors. Check out Verint, please. How much information does the company actually provide about its specialized services? Yeah, about as much as Siemens.
- Third, Palantir pitches the single source of truth idea. But that’s marketing, and it is not a tagline that makes potential buyers say, “Hey, I get it.” To make a Palantir-type sales takes time. The reason is that there are not as many customers for these specialized products as some people like high-flying investors assume. Palantir is more than 15 years old, and Herzliya, Israel is chock-a-block with start ups that are spry, hungry, and equipped with better-faster-cheaper specialized solutions. The sales problem is baked into the specialized software sector. Not even IBM can keep some cyber intelligence sheep in line. South Africa selected an intelware vendor from Poland, not the once proud nation of Big Blue.
So what?
From DarkCyber’s point of view, the Wall Street Journal could dive into more substantive aspects of Palantir and actually identify where the information originates. Even middle school students have to provide a footnote even if it is to Wikipedia. That may garner a C. But no verifiable sources? That’s nosing into the murky land of failure.
Stephen E Arnold, April 24, 2020
Hollywood Reporter and Billboard Tech Savvy Strike Back
April 17, 2020
I wonder if there were blinking vcr clocks in the homes of the senior executives of Valence Media when the management wizards were young?
The lesson of the vcr clocks that might be correct twice a day or never has been forgotten.
“Workers at Hollywood Reporter and Billboard Vandalize Website After Getting Laid Off” revealed after the near sacrilege of modifying entertainment-related data. The article revealed:
“In the wake of Covid19 pandemic, Valence Media has decided to lay off their entire web IT staff. Effective today,” the Billboard website read in a post credited to “devops.”
And what else did the “IT staff” do? Insert a reference to the fun-loving comedy Animal House.
The article about the incident added:
Valence also owns brands like Vibe, Media Rights Capital, and Dick Clark Productions. More than 100 people have been laid off at Valence, roughly 30 percent of its editorial division, according to CNN. In a companywide memo some of the cuts were blamed on “advertising market conditions” related to the coronavirus pandemic, but other cuts were supposedly part of a restructuring that had already been planned. Valence is also instituting pay cuts of between 15 and 25 percent for anyone left making over $100,000 per year and co-CEOs Modi Wiczyk and Asif Satchu are reportedly no longer going to be taking a salary.
Valence may or may not have deserved the Animal House reference. A number of “real” news and “dead tree” outfits are are far from a happy place.
The digital revolution moves forward. Substantive, local news might be useful to some people. Without financial support, the experiences I enjoyed at the Courier Journal & Louisville Times Co. before the fine, fine Gannett operation “improved” operations will be tough to find.
Stephen E Arnold, April 17, 2020
Los Angeles Times: One of Big Dogs in Newspapers May Be Put Down
April 17, 2020
I won’t use the phrases “dead tree”, “begging for dollars”, or “online subscriptions”. I promise. I read “L.A. Times to Furlough Workers as Ad Revenue Nearly Eliminated.” The governors of California emphasized the size of the state’s economy. At times, when I rented an apartment in Berkeley, I heard:
- California will leave the United States
- California will split into two states: The Northern part which is a money maker and the losers in LA which drain tax revenues
- California is the innovation center of America.
Did I believe these assertions? Well, it depended on whether someone with an opinion was buying me lunch or whether I was paying.
Now LA, where trends begin, may be playing that fashion forward role in the “Drama of Big Dog News.” I learned:
The Los Angeles Times announced on Tuesday that it will furlough some business-side employees and that senior managers will take pay cuts, as advertising revenue has been “nearly eliminated” due to the coronavirus pandemic. The company will also suspend its 401(k) match for non-union workers, according to a company memo sent by Chris Argentieri, president of the California Times.
One sensitive commenter using the handle matismf offered, “Learn to code, mofos.”
Another added, “A little ray of sunshine in our bleak police state.”
And a final quote: “I bet Salesforce Founder Marc Benioff will buy/bailout the LA Times like he did Time Magazine in September 2018.”
To sum up: Wait for the motion picture?
Stephen E Arnold, April 17, 2020
Google: Rolling Over?
April 11, 2020
DarkCyber spotted this headline: “BRIEF-Google France: Will Comply with Latest French FCA Regulatory Verdict.” Most publishers want to be paid for anything, including a link to the original story and for modern taxi meter functions like Web traffic.
Implications:
- This will be interesting for commercial database publishers. These outfits index OPC or other people’s content.
- Publishers in other countries will use their quarantine time to get the monetization show on the road as soon as possible.
- Non profit outfits like the IEEE will maybe stop charging members $10 for a three page summary article of OPC. (Nah, never happen, gentle reader.)
Exciting times ahead. Depending on the money available to sue, any outfit which points to a story could become the lucky recipient of an invoice.
And libraries? Yeah, what about libraries? My goodness what about high school students writing papers based on secondary research? Well, pay up. There is no free lunch for “real” information.
Google once again plays the role of the Great Disruptor. Good work because disruption creates opportunities.
Stephen E Arnold, April 11, 2020
Northern Lights: Classification Enables Classification
April 10, 2020
Old technology is being reborn as Northern Lights takes ABI Inform subsets from the 1980s and repackages them as a machine learning powered knowledge management platform. Yahoo Finance digs into the wheel of Internet past in the story, “Northern Light To Create Custom Search And Content Aggregation Solutions For Large Enterprises.” Northern Light is a company that specializes in content aggregation, enterprise search, and machine learning to provide knowledge management solutions. For twenty years, Northern Light built custom knowledge management platforms for market research sights, global enterprises, and competitive intelligence.
Northern Light’s newest project is a blast from the ABI Inform subsets past:
“One of Northern Light’s first custom solutions was announced by Global Venture, a natural resource consulting company. The solution, called Prospector, enables automated search and analysis of 43-101 reports, a national instrument for the Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects within Canada, which are required of Canadian mineral exploration and mining companies listed on the TSX Venture Exchange (TSX-V) or the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX). Disclosures covered by the 43-101 code include mineral exploration progress, reporting of resources and reserves, and more. 43-101 reports average 500 pages long and can reach 1000 pages. Traditional search which returns a list of documents is not helpful when the documents are so big.”
Global Venture worked with Northern Light to develop Prospector and it solved a huge search and content aggregation issue. Prospector was designed to digest 43-101 forms that are filled with loads of text and data tables that are in different formats. Investors dig through these forms for specific information that can lead to a useful insight. The machine learning aspect of Prospector saves investors a lot of research time.
Northern Light is working on other projects that requires custom knowledge management solutions. It appears old ideas still have value if they are revamped for modern technology.
Whitney Grace, April 10, 2020
Some No Cost Electronic Scholarly Books
April 7, 2020
Finding books for many people is a virtual stroll through Amazon. Outfits like Ebsco and other commercial database companies don’t do a very good job of indexing books. When it comes to locating a copy, some of the readers journey to Google Books. That Google project remains controversial and a disappointment. The Internet Archive offers books, but it is remarkable that the effort required to find a book is fascinating.
What do you do if you want to locate a copy of a book published by a university press? Instead of flailing through the sources I mentioned or your favorite bookfinder, navigate to Publicbooks.org. The service provides a catalog of books which are “freely accessible online.”
Continuing the tradition of making books difficult to find, we did not spot a search function. Books are listed by university press. These books are offered through Project MUSE. (Project Muse is located at https://muse.jhu.edu/.)
Most of the titles are scholarly. Some warrant wider readership. Others are the ravings of a PhD desperate to get a book on his or her cv.
Enjoy free books at least through the end of June.
Stephen E Arnold, April 7, 2020
The US Newspaper Industry: Extinction Event
April 7, 2020
I am in rural Kentucky because of a newspaper. I left the wonderful world of suburban Washington, DC, to live near a mine drainage system. Oh, sure, I worked at a diversified newspaper committed to electronic publishing, but a mine run off is a mine run off.
I read “Local Newspapers Are Facing Their Own Coronavirus Crisis.”
I spotted an interesting statement about the newspaper industry in the US:
Researchers have long worried that the next recession – which economists say is already upon us — “could be an extinction-level event for newspapers,” said Penelope Abernathy, a University of North Carolina professor who studies the news industry.
Extinction event. Interesting phrase. The write up offered some factoids:
- More than 2,100 cities and tows have lost a newspaper (mostly weeklies) in the last 15 years
- Newsroom employment has shrunk by 50 percent since 2004
- Twenty global news publishers expect a median 23% decline in 2020 ad sales
- Lee Enterprises announced salary reductions and furloughs
- The Tampa Bay Times, owned by the nonprofit Poynter Institute, cut five days of its print edition and announced furloughs
- C&G Newspapers, which publishes 19 weekly newspapers near Detroit, suspended print publication
What snagged my attention was the last paragraph in the article:
Editor, publisher and owner Louis Fortis is keeping the website operating and promises to resume printing at some point, in some form. Yet he’s feeling the same uncertainty as millions of other Americans. “I’m very disappointed,” he said. “On the other hand, you have to look at the big picture. People are dying.”
Interesting. On one hand the person is disappointed. On the other hand, people are dying.
What’s this mean? Gnostic puzzles must be eyeball magnets.
Historical fact: The Courier Journal’s Barry Bingham Jr. understood the change electronic publishing would have in the late 1970s. How did that work out?
Gannett, announced 15-day furloughs and pay cuts for many employees.
Gannett purchased the Courier Journal in the late 1980s.
How did that work out? Electronic information is not a solution. Flowing digits work like a high pressure water stream in the ill fated FlowTex system; that is, high pressure water directed at an object erodes that object, blasting it into tiny particles in some cases. Where once an edifice stood, only fragments remain.
Print newspapers are going to fall over. Money bandages won’t work.
Stephen E Arnold, March 7, 2020
A Term to Understand: Geofencing
March 25, 2020
DarkCyber has reported in its twice-a-month video news program about companies providing specialized geofencing solutions; for example, our go-to touchstone Geofeedia and others like PredPol. You can find these programs by searching DarkCyber on YouTube or Vimeo.
A news story from a “trusted” source reports “Taiwan’s New Electronic Fence for Quarantines Leads Wave of Virus Monitoring.” The “first” means, DarkCyber assumes, refers to a publicized use of a large-scale geofencing operation applied to numerous citizens.
When you read the story, several questions come to mind which the “trusted” story does not touch upon:
- What vendors provide the geofencing solution in Taiwan and the other countries mentioned in the write up?
- What technologies are used in addition to the latitude, longitude, time stamp data generated by mobile devices connected to or pinging a “network”?
- What additional software systems are used to make sense of the data?
- How long has the infrastructure in Taiwan and the other countries mentioned been in operation?
- What was the ramp up time?
- What was the cost of the system?
- What other applications does the Taiwan system support at this time? In the near future?
- Are special data handling and security procedures required?
News is one thing. Event A happened. Factoids without context leave questions unanswered. Does one trust an absence of information? DarkCyber does. Of course. Obviously.
Stephen E Arnold, March 25, 2020
Mr. Bezos, A 21st Century News Outfit Wants You to Do a Daily Briefing, Just Like a Government Leader
March 24, 2020
I read “It’s Time for a Regular Amazon Daily Coronavirus Briefing.” The title alone is remarkable for two reasons: [a] Amazon is a company talk outputs enormous amounts of information in its blogs, on its Web site, and in its public statements and [b] news organizations are supposed to go and find information, not demand that companies give daily briefings.
What the article demonstrates is that reporting is supposed to be like the second grade. Students show up. A teacher outputs. The student listens, practices, or whatever.
The subtitle to the write up (I am not sure what to call it) asserts:
The company’s distribution network is understandably struggling — and it’s time that Amazon started answering questions about it
It is good to know that a 21st century news outfit can take a parental approach: “Understandably struggling.” Yeah, news flash. Many companies are struggling because employees are falling ill and certain attendant disruptions are amplifying. But “understandably.”
The subtitle also demands, like an old fashioned grade school teacher; for example, “It’s time that Stevie Arnold stops daydreaming in class.” How did that work out? I still daydream, and I am not sure external inputs are going to change me. I had to inform one millennial via a LinkedIn message that I was not looking for a consultant to improve my marketing of my blog. I explained, “Not a chance, gentle millennial.”
What’s the write up “reporting”? Here’s an example:
The company has temporarily stopped taking orders for non-essential items that are shipped through its fulfillment service while it focuses on getting more important items to customers.
The company also suspended Prime Pantry, a service for getting rapid delivery of discounted grocery and household items, amid a surge in demand. And — at the request of local governments — it downgraded the quality of streaming on Prime Video in Europe in an effort to reduce the strain on the internet.
Yep, slower deliveries and downgraded video. News flash: There is a virus problem. That virus is disrupting many things. Next day delivery. Does it matter? Video quality. Why not read a book?
Here’s what the DarkCyber team has noticed about Amazon’s current situation:
- Amazon is undergoing forced change. Change is hard, and in the midst of change, there’s confusion and those on duty may find it difficult to do mission critical things at all.
- Daily briefings are what governments do. Where’s the daily briefing from the hospital supply company in Nashville? No one cares about a daily briefing even from giant companies. Daily briefings, in case the 21st century news outfits have not noticed, are theater.
- Amazon appears to have failed in three critical business functions: Securing its supply chains, maintaining existing services to customers who pay for these services, and managing employees in a way that keeps employees chipper.
My thoughts are:
- Find people who have first hand information about Amazon and talk to these people. This is research; it is difficult and time consuming. But the point is the news has to be found, not delivered like cookies and milk in grade school.
- Adopt an informed approach to assembling verifiable facts. Skip the woulda, shoulda, coulda approach to a write up. The fact is the write up itself reveals that some people are inconvenienced because Amazon cannot deliver something quickly. Wow. One has to exert effort and manage time without Amazon’s “mom” services.
- Provide useful information. That means answering questions like, “What can an Amazon customer do when an order does not arrive?”, “What are the options for obtaining video entertainment?”, “How does one apply for a job at Amazon?” Answers, not complaints, might be helpful, might they not?
Net net: Companies are not eager to be told what to do by people who know zero about a business at a point in time. It is time for “real news” professionals to do old fashioned research, analysis, and reporting in DarkCyber’s opinion.
Stephen E Arnold, March 24, 2020
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