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> The court gave a short deadline for meeting an ambiguous target with respect to a complex international logistics network. The court gave a short deadline be

> The court gave a short deadline for meeting an ambiguous target with respect to a complex international logistics network. The court gave a short deadline because it should have been done a while ago already. Let's not pretend like it's a surprise. The government asked to stop any non-vital activity a month ago. Amazon, instead of interpreting this as: let's reduce our activity to just the part that qualifies as vital (vital for the country, not vital for Amazon margins), interpreted this as: since we ship some vital stuff, all of our activity is vital, and can proceed like business as usual. This is just a usual greedy move where profit comes before health of the employees.

Frost1x 7y ago
Every business everywhere is using some off-base construed logic to classify their employees as "essential." Even Gamestop in the US wanted to be considered "essential." I develop software and systems in an almost pure R&D environment and all of my current project work is, as far as citizens in this country are concerned, non-essential, yet my employer blasts almost daily emails that play semantic gymnastics as more and more lockdown requirements were/are issued by states and municipalities that (surprise) are construed by management that everyone is "essential" through a long drawn out and highly questionable argument. It's comical to watch greed try and define essential because for greedy behavior: money is essential. They'll wiggle around definitions and policies all day as much as they can to limit shutting down their revenue streams.
- rootusrootus 7y ago
  On the flip side, in some places the gov't has made arbitrary choices as to what constitutes essential, and it turns out that the definition of essential can vary considerably between individuals and different life situations.
yellow_postit 7y ago
I don’t see a clear definition of what is included or not for “vital” goods. That ambiguity just gives France or whomever the ability to be dissatisfied with Amazon no matter what they do. It’s hard to cast Amazon as the villain here if France won’t provide a clear definition of vital. Off the top of my head they could use Amazon and Google’s product taxonomy to explicitly identify categories that are allowed/not which would scope this further down to a, still challenging, classification and content moderation problem.
- DuskStar 7y ago
  Unfortunately, the government explicitly listing allowed and denied categories would result in people finding luxury goods that were still allowed, and condemning the government for that (expensive foods, for instance) - and simultaneously finding banned products that could be argued to vital, and blaming the government for that. Leaving it vague lets that blame be shifted to Amazon.
  - lonelappde 7y ago
    This is exactly what happened with Michigan's latest order to shut down non essential commerce. Paint and furniture were banned by name but most things weren't.
- vkou 7y ago
  > I don’t see a clear definition of what is included or not for “vital” goods. Read the shutdown orders, they will clarify this sort of stuff. Vital goods are goods that are necessary for human life, shelter, and the operation of businesses that have been declared vital. (Which are thoroughly enumerated in most shutdown orders). Most of Amazon's business, by that definition, ships vital goods. I don't think any western country has so far discriminated between vital goods going to vital businesses, versus non-vital household use, so most of their business is permissable...
koheripbal 7y ago
> The court gave a short deadline because it should have been done a while ago already. This isn't logical. When you order someone to comply with something, you give them the amount of time it takes to do the task. If you want to punish them - fine them. Ordering them to do something impossible and then criticising them for failing is just intentionally setting them up to fail. ...so the only logical response is for them to suspend operations.
- Voloskaya 7y ago
  > When you order someone to comply with something, you give them the amount of time it takes to do the task. The French state didn't issue a mere suggestion a month ago, it was an order. The court just upheld the order. Amazon had the entire month to prepare.
  - koheripbal 7y ago
    This is not a logical position. If Amazon cannot comply with the order in the time NOW given, then their only alternative is to suspend operations. Whether or not they wasted time in the past, is irrelevant at this point.
    - Voloskaya 7y ago
      > This is not a logical position. I wasn't arguing that they should or should not close, I simply responded to OP comment that they didn't have enough time to comply, while they in fact had that time (not anymore).
mritun 7y ago
What is vital and necessary? Is toilet paper vital and necessary? One person may say no and other may say yes! What about cheese? What about mop? There are literally millions of items, each of which would need to be cleared with a lawyer now. Why would you do that? Especially if other retailers don’t have to comply with a similar order.
- Voloskaya 7y ago
  Amazon has prioritized shipping of vital and necessary items already worldwide, so they do know what qualify as such, let's not pretend it is an impossible task. I also do not believe the french state would bother Amazon because Amazon included toilet paper in their list while it's not on France's list. It's the complete inaction and not acting in good faith that has prompted the state to take action against them.

Frost1x 7y ago

Every business everywhere is using some off-base construed logic to classify their employees as "essential." Even Gamestop in the US wanted to be considered "essential." I develop software and systems in an almost pure R&D environment and all of my current project work is, as far as citizens in this country are concerned, non-essential, yet my employer blasts almost daily emails that play semantic gymnastics as more and more lockdown requirements were/are issued by states and municipalities that (surprise) are construed by management that everyone is "essential" through a long drawn out and highly questionable argument. It's comical to watch greed try and define essential because for greedy behavior: money is essential. They'll wiggle around definitions and policies all day as much as they can to limit shutting down their revenue streams.

rootusrootus 7y ago
On the flip side, in some places the gov't has made arbitrary choices as to what constitutes essential, and it turns out that the definition of essential can vary considerably between individuals and different life situations.

yellow_postit 7y ago

I don’t see a clear definition of what is included or not for “vital” goods. That ambiguity just gives France or whomever the ability to be dissatisfied with Amazon no matter what they do. It’s hard to cast Amazon as the villain here if France won’t provide a clear definition of vital. Off the top of my head they could use Amazon and Google’s product taxonomy to explicitly identify categories that are allowed/not which would scope this further down to a, still challenging, classification and content moderation problem.

DuskStar 7y ago
Unfortunately, the government explicitly listing allowed and denied categories would result in people finding luxury goods that were still allowed, and condemning the government for that (expensive foods, for instance) - and simultaneously finding banned products that could be argued to vital, and blaming the government for that. Leaving it vague lets that blame be shifted to Amazon.
- lonelappde 7y ago
  This is exactly what happened with Michigan's latest order to shut down non essential commerce. Paint and furniture were banned by name but most things weren't.
vkou 7y ago
> I don’t see a clear definition of what is included or not for “vital” goods. Read the shutdown orders, they will clarify this sort of stuff. Vital goods are goods that are necessary for human life, shelter, and the operation of businesses that have been declared vital. (Which are thoroughly enumerated in most shutdown orders). Most of Amazon's business, by that definition, ships vital goods. I don't think any western country has so far discriminated between vital goods going to vital businesses, versus non-vital household use, so most of their business is permissable...

koheripbal 7y ago

> The court gave a short deadline because it should have been done a while ago already. This isn't logical. When you order someone to comply with something, you give them the amount of time it takes to do the task. If you want to punish them - fine them. Ordering them to do something impossible and then criticising them for failing is just intentionally setting them up to fail. ...so the only logical response is for them to suspend operations.

Voloskaya 7y ago
> When you order someone to comply with something, you give them the amount of time it takes to do the task. The French state didn't issue a mere suggestion a month ago, it was an order. The court just upheld the order. Amazon had the entire month to prepare.
- koheripbal 7y ago
  This is not a logical position. If Amazon cannot comply with the order in the time NOW given, then their only alternative is to suspend operations. Whether or not they wasted time in the past, is irrelevant at this point.
  - Voloskaya 7y ago
    > This is not a logical position. I wasn't arguing that they should or should not close, I simply responded to OP comment that they didn't have enough time to comply, while they in fact had that time (not anymore).

mritun 7y ago

What is vital and necessary? Is toilet paper vital and necessary? One person may say no and other may say yes! What about cheese? What about mop? There are literally millions of items, each of which would need to be cleared with a lawyer now. Why would you do that? Especially if other retailers don’t have to comply with a similar order.

Voloskaya 7y ago
Amazon has prioritized shipping of vital and necessary items already worldwide, so they do know what qualify as such, let's not pretend it is an impossible task. I also do not believe the french state would bother Amazon because Amazon included toilet paper in their list while it's not on France's list. It's the complete inaction and not acting in good faith that has prompted the state to take action against them.