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chose to use MS Azure instead of AWS The article says someone used data from Amazon(the online store), not AWS. You should absolutely use Azure(or GCP) if it m

by nova22033 5y ago

chose to use MS Azure instead of AWS The article says someone used data from Amazon(the online store), not AWS. You should absolutely use Azure(or GCP) if it makes more economic sense for you but migrating from AWS to Azure because of this may be an overreaction.

sfifs 5y ago
It's standard practice for any retailer to not use AWS. Part of it is why would you want to give any competitive knowledge to Amazon with your data or even metadata assuming you encrypt data with your own keys (eg. # of users derivable from # of distinct home/mobile IP address connections to your servers, # of transactions from connections your servers make to payment processors etc). The other part of it is why add to Amazon's profit margin when it's well known AWS likely subsidizes retail to a large extent.
- alias_neo 5y ago
  I'm curious what kind of access Amazon would have to your data as a retailer running on AWS. Not in a technical sense, I'm a software engineer, I understand what data _is_ there, but more to the extent of, do they go out of their way to identify you, an AWS customer as a retail business and use that _retail_ data in ways such as described by the original complaint here? If the answer is anything other than "they definitely don't", I'm concerned.
  - ghusbands 5y ago
    Nobody can know for sure. Whether or not they were secretly mining data from AWS servers, they would say they don't and nobody on the outside would be able to tell. Even if it's unlikely, many people are simply choosing not to risk it.
    - NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
      This is at the level of a conspiracy theory right now, and one that doesn't even make any sense. If it were true that Amazon were taking sneaky peeks at data inside AWS related to retailers, and this became public, AWS as a business would be done. The loud banging you'd be hearing would be the door closing as the last customer exited, followed by all the engineering staff who work on AWS as they see the writing on the wall. Why would Amazon look to achieve some marginal advantage in its retail businesses at the risk of a total loss to one of its marquee businesses, AWS? It's an idiotic risk.
      - OldHand2018 5y ago
        There is no need for a conspiracy theory. The metadata that is _required_ to produce your monthly AWS bill reveals a ton of information about the success of your business and what is doing very well for you. Doing analytics on customer billing is something that Amazon has every reason to be doing, and what Amazon does with that information can be anticompetitive or not.
        NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
        At a certain level of aggregation, metadata is AWS need-to-know for capacity planning etc or for account execs to understand the needs of their covered clients. There's definitely room for discussion over when what level of granularity is necessary and whether metadata at different levels of granularity should be shared with product vs. customer facing teams. That didn't seem to be what the GP comment was about though - 'mining data from AWS servers' sounded to me like a much more invasive approach to client data.
      - jjoonathan 5y ago
        > If it were true... and this became public, AWS as a business would be done. Why on earth would you think that? They did worse on their storefront, which has a much smaller migration burden than AWS, and while a few big brands made a stink and pulled out, it didn't even noticeably slow growth.
        5y ago
  - shiftpgdn 5y ago
    Yes, of course they do. There was a post on here about a year ago from someone in the "Amazon profitability team" that involved digging through customers AWS instances to see what they could learn or duplicate for Amazon.
    - alias_neo 5y ago
      I'm more than a little disturbed by that response, can you back that bold accusation up with some references? I _need_ to read more about this (about to begin a migration to AWS, not retail though).
      - shiftpgdn 5y ago
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19734261 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19734261 https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/news/ovh-ceo-unlike-amazon-google-we-will-never-be-in-competition-with-you/ https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/news/ovh-ceo-unlike-amazo... https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/t/amazon-literally-stole-my-product-idea-and-took-over-my-listing/323388 https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/t/amazon-literally-s... https://fortune.com/2016/04/20/amazon-copies-merchants/ https://fortune.com/2016/04/20/amazon-copies-merchants/ https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2019/9/19/20874818/amazon-allbirds-shoe-clone-copy-sneaker-206-collective-private-label https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2019/9/19/20874818/amazon-allb... I can't find the most recent set of posts about peering into customer's AWS instances to research what they could copy but consider that govcloud exists.
        wrboyce 5y ago
        Am I missing something or do none of these links even mention AWS? I’m also unsure how the explicit trust from the government (“consider that govcloud exists”) is somehow evidence for their untrustworthiness?
        alias_neo 5y ago
        Thank you for the effort of posting those. Unfortunately they don't really indicate any data being taken from AWS specifically, all of the copying behaviour appears to be Amazon storefront copy-cat tactics. As for govcloud, it exists because regulatory requirements for running things for gov are more strict than your average user/business requires and such cloud offerings require certain levels of hardening and software security and assurances. I happen to work in the space so I understand the need for an alternative offering for government requirements. There's really nothing nefarious going on there and its more about govs not wanting to run alongside regular users. I see nothing concrete I could take to my superiors.

sfifs 5y ago

It's standard practice for any retailer to not use AWS. Part of it is why would you want to give any competitive knowledge to Amazon with your data or even metadata assuming you encrypt data with your own keys (eg. # of users derivable from # of distinct home/mobile IP address connections to your servers, # of transactions from connections your servers make to payment processors etc). The other part of it is why add to Amazon's profit margin when it's well known AWS likely subsidizes retail to a large extent.

alias_neo 5y ago
I'm curious what kind of access Amazon would have to your data as a retailer running on AWS. Not in a technical sense, I'm a software engineer, I understand what data _is_ there, but more to the extent of, do they go out of their way to identify you, an AWS customer as a retail business and use that _retail_ data in ways such as described by the original complaint here? If the answer is anything other than "they definitely don't", I'm concerned.
- ghusbands 5y ago
  Nobody can know for sure. Whether or not they were secretly mining data from AWS servers, they would say they don't and nobody on the outside would be able to tell. Even if it's unlikely, many people are simply choosing not to risk it.
  - NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
    This is at the level of a conspiracy theory right now, and one that doesn't even make any sense. If it were true that Amazon were taking sneaky peeks at data inside AWS related to retailers, and this became public, AWS as a business would be done. The loud banging you'd be hearing would be the door closing as the last customer exited, followed by all the engineering staff who work on AWS as they see the writing on the wall. Why would Amazon look to achieve some marginal advantage in its retail businesses at the risk of a total loss to one of its marquee businesses, AWS? It's an idiotic risk.
    - OldHand2018 5y ago
      There is no need for a conspiracy theory. The metadata that is _required_ to produce your monthly AWS bill reveals a ton of information about the success of your business and what is doing very well for you. Doing analytics on customer billing is something that Amazon has every reason to be doing, and what Amazon does with that information can be anticompetitive or not.
      - NovemberWhiskey 5y ago
        At a certain level of aggregation, metadata is AWS need-to-know for capacity planning etc or for account execs to understand the needs of their covered clients. There's definitely room for discussion over when what level of granularity is necessary and whether metadata at different levels of granularity should be shared with product vs. customer facing teams. That didn't seem to be what the GP comment was about though - 'mining data from AWS servers' sounded to me like a much more invasive approach to client data.
    - jjoonathan 5y ago
      > If it were true... and this became public, AWS as a business would be done. Why on earth would you think that? They did worse on their storefront, which has a much smaller migration burden than AWS, and while a few big brands made a stink and pulled out, it didn't even noticeably slow growth.
      - 5y ago
- shiftpgdn 5y ago
  Yes, of course they do. There was a post on here about a year ago from someone in the "Amazon profitability team" that involved digging through customers AWS instances to see what they could learn or duplicate for Amazon.
  - alias_neo 5y ago
    I'm more than a little disturbed by that response, can you back that bold accusation up with some references? I _need_ to read more about this (about to begin a migration to AWS, not retail though).
    - shiftpgdn 5y ago
      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19734261 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19734261 https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/news/ovh-ceo-unlike-amazon-google-we-will-never-be-in-competition-with-you/ https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/news/ovh-ceo-unlike-amazo... https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/t/amazon-literally-stole-my-product-idea-and-took-over-my-listing/323388 https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/t/amazon-literally-s... https://fortune.com/2016/04/20/amazon-copies-merchants/ https://fortune.com/2016/04/20/amazon-copies-merchants/ https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2019/9/19/20874818/amazon-allbirds-shoe-clone-copy-sneaker-206-collective-private-label https://www.theverge.com/tldr/2019/9/19/20874818/amazon-allb... I can't find the most recent set of posts about peering into customer's AWS instances to research what they could copy but consider that govcloud exists.
      - wrboyce 5y ago
        Am I missing something or do none of these links even mention AWS? I’m also unsure how the explicit trust from the government (“consider that govcloud exists”) is somehow evidence for their untrustworthiness?
      - alias_neo 5y ago
        Thank you for the effort of posting those. Unfortunately they don't really indicate any data being taken from AWS specifically, all of the copying behaviour appears to be Amazon storefront copy-cat tactics. As for govcloud, it exists because regulatory requirements for running things for gov are more strict than your average user/business requires and such cloud offerings require certain levels of hardening and software security and assurances. I happen to work in the space so I understand the need for an alternative offering for government requirements. There's really nothing nefarious going on there and its more about govs not wanting to run alongside regular users. I see nothing concrete I could take to my superiors.