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Distressingly absent from this list is the company that cheerfully collects and sells even more data that Google about the average American's life and collects

Distressingly absent from this list is the company that cheerfully collects and sells even more data that Google about the average American's life and collects MUCH more of their money: Amazon.

untog 7y ago
Collects money, yes. But collects more data? I'm dubious.
- KirinDave 7y ago
  Everyone who uses AWS essentially gives data signals to Amazon. As they're by far the biggest cloud provider, that's a lot of data. Add that to their physical goods store, their shipping, their payments, their music store, their player apps, their subscription data, their identity and payment data. Amazon's looking at getting into the consumer communications business too. If I were a bad person asking, "Who's more valuable to Hack for consumer data" I don't know how I could conclude it's anything but Amazon. Google might have your credit card and purchasing patterns, Amazon will. Google might know about your phone, Amazon will.
  - IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago
    The idea that data stored on AWS is equal to data collected by Amazon is ludicrous. There are contracts and laws to govern such relationships. Hundreds of people inside Amazon would know about it, and any one of them could expose them to existentially threatening lawsuits whenever they are even slightly upset with their employer.
    - KirinDave 7y ago
      That's not what I said though. I said as the biggest CSP they have signals no one else has access to. I didn't say they were reading your RDS boxes.
  - bduerst 7y ago
    I may be mistaken but every major cloud provider, from AWS to Azure to Google, has dictated in their SLA that they don't mine your data (as a cloud customer).
- ReverseCold 7y ago
  Maybe not more data, but perhaps more important data? "Things you've bought before or looked into buying before" seems like much more useful data to sell ads than "non-shopping things you've searched for." It's definitely a higher signal to noise ratio.
  - KirinDave 7y ago
    I meant "more types of data" and I'm still willing to stand by that. Maybe not more bytes per person per hour.
  - ocdtrekkie 7y ago
    If your Amazon receipts go to Gmail, Google collects not just all of that data, but from every other site you've bought stuff from: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/17/google-gmail-tracks-purchase-history-how-to-delete-it.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/17/google-gmail-tracks-purchase...
    - KirinDave 7y ago
      This is true for gmail users, which is about half of the email market in the US. Amazon by dollars has over half the ecommerce market, but by any intelligence we have on sales sales they're much closer to 80%. Even if Google can get some of that data, its still Amazon's data, Google just happens to get some of it.
    - bduerst 7y ago
      Google stopped mining Gmail two years ago: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/23/technology/gmail-ads.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/23/technology/gmail-ads.html Any aggregation or segmentation of emails by ML/AI algorithms, as your article talks about, is analogous to having smarter filters in your inbox. It's tech illiteracy to confuse these perception NNs with data mining for business purposes.
      - ocdtrekkie 7y ago
        Your employer is collecting this data right now, as my link points out. And it's actually gotten better at it in the last few months, as I purged all of my purchases from Gmail that it detected, and then a few weeks later, it found more, as they'd refined their ability to mine more transactional emails. It is absolutely mining email, and it's extracting purchase data from it, that isn't even used in Gmail or revealed to users in any visible context, it's buried in settings. What Google uses it for? I don't know, as you said, they claimed they stopped using Gmail data for ad targeting purposes two years ago. But they're definitely working on extracting this very valuable and marketable data... for some reason. Is it possible that Google generically collects user purchase data, including from Gmail, and then whilst not using "Gmail data" for ad targeting, it does use the "purchase data" which has been generically made part of a user's Google profile? That'd be splitting hairs real close, but it'd probably be good enough for the lawyers.
- maxk42 7y ago
  Perhaps you forgot about AWS? More than 70% of the world's internet data goes through just one of their data centers: https://www.nextgov.com/analytics-data/2016/01/70-percent-global-internet-traffic-goes-through-northern-virginia/124976/ https://www.nextgov.com/analytics-data/2016/01/70-percent-gl...
  - dehrmann 7y ago
    Unless subpoenaed, I doubt they do much more than collect access logs, and even then, I doubt they use those logs for anything outside AWS operations. If they were caught doing this, it would massively erode trust with AWS customers.
ehsankia 7y ago
What they do with Amazon basics is ripe for antitrust. Using purchase data to find profitable products, and making a basic version of it which they then rank at the top.
- jldugger 7y ago
  Is Amazon Basics any different than any other store brand? It's not like national retailers before amazon were just throwing darts at a printout of their catalog.
  - KirinDave 7y ago
    That isn't a meaningful question for anti-trust cases. The rules are simply different for big companies.
    - jldugger 7y ago
      I don't understand how Amazon is even in the anti-trust docket. They own like one tiny ass grocery chain, and an online market dwarfed by large retailers. Sure, they have a near monopoly on eBooks, but I don't see how you make the case they used that to break into the discount microfiber towels market.
o10449366 7y ago
Amazon does not collect more data than Google does, even by your own definition. In fact, Google uses Amazon to collect even more information than they do innately by mining Gmail for purchase receipts.
- bduerst 7y ago
  Amazon purchases your credit card purchase history from major CC providers, likely as part of reciprocity agreement. They know more about you thank you think. Source: I was retargeted on Amazon for an impulse buy of an obscure item from Macy's. My CC was the only way to join my data.
  - inapis 7y ago
    Google does that too. I don't think there's any company dealing with ads which doesn't do that kind of an agreement.
- dodobirdlord 7y ago
  To be fair, Amazon probably does "sell even more data than Google about the average American's life" given that Google doesn't sell data.

Distressingly absent from this list is the company that cheerfully collects and sells even more data that Google about the average American's life and collects MUCH more of their money: Amazon.

untog 7y ago

Collects money, yes. But collects more data? I'm dubious.

KirinDave 7y ago
Everyone who uses AWS essentially gives data signals to Amazon. As they're by far the biggest cloud provider, that's a lot of data. Add that to their physical goods store, their shipping, their payments, their music store, their player apps, their subscription data, their identity and payment data. Amazon's looking at getting into the consumer communications business too. If I were a bad person asking, "Who's more valuable to Hack for consumer data" I don't know how I could conclude it's anything but Amazon. Google might have your credit card and purchasing patterns, Amazon will. Google might know about your phone, Amazon will.
- IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago
  The idea that data stored on AWS is equal to data collected by Amazon is ludicrous. There are contracts and laws to govern such relationships. Hundreds of people inside Amazon would know about it, and any one of them could expose them to existentially threatening lawsuits whenever they are even slightly upset with their employer.
  - KirinDave 7y ago
    That's not what I said though. I said as the biggest CSP they have signals no one else has access to. I didn't say they were reading your RDS boxes.
- bduerst 7y ago
  I may be mistaken but every major cloud provider, from AWS to Azure to Google, has dictated in their SLA that they don't mine your data (as a cloud customer).
ReverseCold 7y ago
Maybe not more data, but perhaps more important data? "Things you've bought before or looked into buying before" seems like much more useful data to sell ads than "non-shopping things you've searched for." It's definitely a higher signal to noise ratio.
- KirinDave 7y ago
  I meant "more types of data" and I'm still willing to stand by that. Maybe not more bytes per person per hour.
- ocdtrekkie 7y ago
  If your Amazon receipts go to Gmail, Google collects not just all of that data, but from every other site you've bought stuff from: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/17/google-gmail-tracks-purchase-history-how-to-delete-it.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/17/google-gmail-tracks-purchase...
  - KirinDave 7y ago
    This is true for gmail users, which is about half of the email market in the US. Amazon by dollars has over half the ecommerce market, but by any intelligence we have on sales sales they're much closer to 80%. Even if Google can get some of that data, its still Amazon's data, Google just happens to get some of it.
  - bduerst 7y ago
    Google stopped mining Gmail two years ago: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/23/technology/gmail-ads.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/23/technology/gmail-ads.html Any aggregation or segmentation of emails by ML/AI algorithms, as your article talks about, is analogous to having smarter filters in your inbox. It's tech illiteracy to confuse these perception NNs with data mining for business purposes.
    - ocdtrekkie 7y ago
      Your employer is collecting this data right now, as my link points out. And it's actually gotten better at it in the last few months, as I purged all of my purchases from Gmail that it detected, and then a few weeks later, it found more, as they'd refined their ability to mine more transactional emails. It is absolutely mining email, and it's extracting purchase data from it, that isn't even used in Gmail or revealed to users in any visible context, it's buried in settings. What Google uses it for? I don't know, as you said, they claimed they stopped using Gmail data for ad targeting purposes two years ago. But they're definitely working on extracting this very valuable and marketable data... for some reason. Is it possible that Google generically collects user purchase data, including from Gmail, and then whilst not using "Gmail data" for ad targeting, it does use the "purchase data" which has been generically made part of a user's Google profile? That'd be splitting hairs real close, but it'd probably be good enough for the lawyers.
maxk42 7y ago
Perhaps you forgot about AWS? More than 70% of the world's internet data goes through just one of their data centers: https://www.nextgov.com/analytics-data/2016/01/70-percent-global-internet-traffic-goes-through-northern-virginia/124976/ https://www.nextgov.com/analytics-data/2016/01/70-percent-gl...
- dehrmann 7y ago
  Unless subpoenaed, I doubt they do much more than collect access logs, and even then, I doubt they use those logs for anything outside AWS operations. If they were caught doing this, it would massively erode trust with AWS customers.

ehsankia 7y ago

What they do with Amazon basics is ripe for antitrust. Using purchase data to find profitable products, and making a basic version of it which they then rank at the top.

jldugger 7y ago
Is Amazon Basics any different than any other store brand? It's not like national retailers before amazon were just throwing darts at a printout of their catalog.
- KirinDave 7y ago
  That isn't a meaningful question for anti-trust cases. The rules are simply different for big companies.
  - jldugger 7y ago
    I don't understand how Amazon is even in the anti-trust docket. They own like one tiny ass grocery chain, and an online market dwarfed by large retailers. Sure, they have a near monopoly on eBooks, but I don't see how you make the case they used that to break into the discount microfiber towels market.

o10449366 7y ago

Amazon does not collect more data than Google does, even by your own definition. In fact, Google uses Amazon to collect even more information than they do innately by mining Gmail for purchase receipts.

bduerst 7y ago
Amazon purchases your credit card purchase history from major CC providers, likely as part of reciprocity agreement. They know more about you thank you think. Source: I was retargeted on Amazon for an impulse buy of an obscure item from Macy's. My CC was the only way to join my data.
- inapis 7y ago
  Google does that too. I don't think there's any company dealing with ads which doesn't do that kind of an agreement.
dodobirdlord 7y ago
To be fair, Amazon probably does "sell even more data than Google about the average American's life" given that Google doesn't sell data.