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It's sad this article makes absolutely no attempt to describe what, exactly, Amazon did wrong.

by saddlerustle 5y ago

fmajid 5y ago
Essentially using your Amazon purchase and browsing history to target you on its ad network.
- londons_explore 5y ago
  I am reasonably certain that they earned more than $1B by using this targeting information... Their ad network is quite small as just $28 billion annually, but it seems unlikely that purchase history wouldnt uplift value more than 4%.
  - Bjartr 5y ago
    Isn't that the point though? That violating the restrictions has negative return taking the fine into account?
    - doytch 5y ago
      I believe they're saying that it _doesn't_ have negative returns. The fine is under 1 billion dollars, and the poster you replied to is saying they're "reasonably certain that [Amazon] earned more than $1B by using this targeting information." So the poster is saying that they believe it was worth it for Amazon to break the law and pay an $888 million fine.
      - benjaminjosephw 5y ago
        But, of course, the fine isn't a price point for unlawful behaviour but a penalty levied in judgement of the fact that the company violated the social contract. Seeing fines simply as a business cost would be a serious distortion of the way society should function. Could people in boardrooms actually entertain that kind of reasoning in good conscience? I really hope not.
        hobs 5y ago
        Genuinely - are you being sarcastic or just a rube? People in boardrooms dont entertain reasoning in good conscience because conscience doesn't come into it - just "Does this make us more money?"
        benjaminjosephw 5y ago
        Boardroom greed might follow a logical rational but this behaviour isn't reasonable in the long run. Disregard of fairness and civil conduct won't be worth the eventual cost of a society that becomes increasingly opposed to the system itself. Break the law once, shame on you - pay a fine. Break it twice, well, we might rewrite the law so the fine is enough to actually deter you. Break it three times and shame on us for letting you trade at all.
        thereare5lights 5y ago
        > Boardroom greed might follow a logical rational but this behaviour isn't reasonable in the long run. We already see that boards don't care about the long run in the US. Companies chase short term gains at the expense of everything else all the time. > Disregard of fairness and civil conduct won't be worth the eventual cost of a society that becomes increasingly opposed to the system itself. This is true but it doesn't matter if the people running things are short sighted and selfish.
        hobs 5y ago
        There's no long term strategic plan - people are mortal and time out of boardrooms just in time for their golden parachutes to open.
        adventured 5y ago
        With Amazon there has been a long-term strategic plan. Bezos had been operating Amazon at a high level for a quarter of a century and most of his personal wealth is tied up in the stock. Your golden parachute premise doesn't apply in this case. There was a strategic plan, Bezos wasn't counting the seconds waiting on a golden parachute. Amazon is largely commanded by long-serving execs that notoriously take a long-term strategic view, not executives looking to bail out at any moment. Jassy for example has been there since 1997. Amazon's ad business has extraordinary margins and is growing fast. They knew they could afford speed bumps between the starting block and where they plan to end up (one of the world's largest ad networks, reliably printing $30 billion per year in operating income).
  - saddlerustle 5y ago
    It's impossible they earned more than $1B from europeans, since Amazon's entire international retail business still hasn't turned a profit overall.
    - high_byte 5y ago
      just because the profits are deferred to some time in the future does not mean these actions did not help the company expand, establish monopoly and devour other businesses in the meantime.
      - saddlerustle 5y ago
        To me it doesn't make much sense for a fine to be based on money a company might make in the future.
        kube-system 5y ago
        No but it does make sense to fine them based on how big their operations are
        MikeUt 5y ago
        They're not being fined for making too much money, but for the harm they've caused the market or consumers through anti-competitive practices.
        saddlerustle 5y ago
        This is entirely tangential, but I'm interested to hear how, exactly, you think consumers have been harmed?
        CogitoCogito 5y ago
        You seem to be changing the subject. In your post here you seem to be arguing that the fines should somehow be related to profits: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28007958 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28007958 Frankly that argument doesn’t really make sense. If I ran a car stealing gang and didn’t turn a profit (say due to costs related to my underlines), then my punishment wouldn’t just go away because I made no profits. The punishment would be related to the total value of the cars that were stolen. A similar line of reasoning here would show that Amazons profits are irrelevant. It does’t matter if they have zero profits today due to magic accounting or due to future strategy or due to monopoly building or anything else because the profits don’t matter at all. Of course you’re correct that if there’s not damage caused by Amazon (equivalently that Amazon did nothing illegal), then they wouldn’t have to pay any fines, but in that case you’re changing the subject and arguing something than than your original point. The EU however seems to believe the actions to have been illegal which makes profit irrelevant to the discussion.
  - whazor 5y ago
    But they also have to fix it otherwise they will risk more fines.
miohtama 5y ago
It is not public yet. Amazon had to disclose ongoing investigation to the shareholders.
shakeitlikea 5y ago
Maybe it is the fact that their pseudoanonymisation is simply a sha256 hash with the same salt for every user, which is "salt"?

It's sad this article makes absolutely no attempt to describe what, exactly, Amazon did wrong.

fmajid 5y ago

Essentially using your Amazon purchase and browsing history to target you on its ad network.

londons_explore 5y ago
I am reasonably certain that they earned more than $1B by using this targeting information... Their ad network is quite small as just $28 billion annually, but it seems unlikely that purchase history wouldnt uplift value more than 4%.
- Bjartr 5y ago
  Isn't that the point though? That violating the restrictions has negative return taking the fine into account?
  - doytch 5y ago
    I believe they're saying that it _doesn't_ have negative returns. The fine is under 1 billion dollars, and the poster you replied to is saying they're "reasonably certain that [Amazon] earned more than $1B by using this targeting information." So the poster is saying that they believe it was worth it for Amazon to break the law and pay an $888 million fine.
    - benjaminjosephw 5y ago
      But, of course, the fine isn't a price point for unlawful behaviour but a penalty levied in judgement of the fact that the company violated the social contract. Seeing fines simply as a business cost would be a serious distortion of the way society should function. Could people in boardrooms actually entertain that kind of reasoning in good conscience? I really hope not.
      - hobs 5y ago
        Genuinely - are you being sarcastic or just a rube? People in boardrooms dont entertain reasoning in good conscience because conscience doesn't come into it - just "Does this make us more money?"
        benjaminjosephw 5y ago
        Boardroom greed might follow a logical rational but this behaviour isn't reasonable in the long run. Disregard of fairness and civil conduct won't be worth the eventual cost of a society that becomes increasingly opposed to the system itself. Break the law once, shame on you - pay a fine. Break it twice, well, we might rewrite the law so the fine is enough to actually deter you. Break it three times and shame on us for letting you trade at all.
        thereare5lights 5y ago
        > Boardroom greed might follow a logical rational but this behaviour isn't reasonable in the long run. We already see that boards don't care about the long run in the US. Companies chase short term gains at the expense of everything else all the time. > Disregard of fairness and civil conduct won't be worth the eventual cost of a society that becomes increasingly opposed to the system itself. This is true but it doesn't matter if the people running things are short sighted and selfish.
        hobs 5y ago
        There's no long term strategic plan - people are mortal and time out of boardrooms just in time for their golden parachutes to open.
        adventured 5y ago
        With Amazon there has been a long-term strategic plan. Bezos had been operating Amazon at a high level for a quarter of a century and most of his personal wealth is tied up in the stock. Your golden parachute premise doesn't apply in this case. There was a strategic plan, Bezos wasn't counting the seconds waiting on a golden parachute. Amazon is largely commanded by long-serving execs that notoriously take a long-term strategic view, not executives looking to bail out at any moment. Jassy for example has been there since 1997. Amazon's ad business has extraordinary margins and is growing fast. They knew they could afford speed bumps between the starting block and where they plan to end up (one of the world's largest ad networks, reliably printing $30 billion per year in operating income).
- saddlerustle 5y ago
  It's impossible they earned more than $1B from europeans, since Amazon's entire international retail business still hasn't turned a profit overall.
  - high_byte 5y ago
    just because the profits are deferred to some time in the future does not mean these actions did not help the company expand, establish monopoly and devour other businesses in the meantime.
    - saddlerustle 5y ago
      To me it doesn't make much sense for a fine to be based on money a company might make in the future.
      - kube-system 5y ago
        No but it does make sense to fine them based on how big their operations are
      - MikeUt 5y ago
        They're not being fined for making too much money, but for the harm they've caused the market or consumers through anti-competitive practices.
        saddlerustle 5y ago
        This is entirely tangential, but I'm interested to hear how, exactly, you think consumers have been harmed?
        CogitoCogito 5y ago
        You seem to be changing the subject. In your post here you seem to be arguing that the fines should somehow be related to profits: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28007958 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28007958 Frankly that argument doesn’t really make sense. If I ran a car stealing gang and didn’t turn a profit (say due to costs related to my underlines), then my punishment wouldn’t just go away because I made no profits. The punishment would be related to the total value of the cars that were stolen. A similar line of reasoning here would show that Amazons profits are irrelevant. It does’t matter if they have zero profits today due to magic accounting or due to future strategy or due to monopoly building or anything else because the profits don’t matter at all. Of course you’re correct that if there’s not damage caused by Amazon (equivalently that Amazon did nothing illegal), then they wouldn’t have to pay any fines, but in that case you’re changing the subject and arguing something than than your original point. The EU however seems to believe the actions to have been illegal which makes profit irrelevant to the discussion.
- whazor 5y ago
  But they also have to fix it otherwise they will risk more fines.

miohtama 5y ago

It is not public yet. Amazon had to disclose ongoing investigation to the shareholders.

shakeitlikea 5y ago

Maybe it is the fact that their pseudoanonymisation is simply a sha256 hash with the same salt for every user, which is "salt"?