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> One 2018 document reviewing executives’ goals for the prior year listed privacy regulation as a primary target for Carney. One objective: “Change or block US

• tqi 5y ago
  If you reject the notion that Alexa-powered devices are bad, would this be immoral or unethical? ie medical marijuana lobbyists would probably say that they are looking to "change or block US and EU regulation/legislation that would impede growth for medical marijuana."
  • roystonvassey 5y ago
    Not sure about morality but yes it’s unethical and borderline illegal. If an elected body is planning legislations, actively blocking it means you’re suppressing the voice of the public and the voters.
    • JumpCrisscross 5y ago
      > If an elected body is planning legislations, actively blocking it means you’re suppressing the voice of the public and the voters This is reductive. When the Congress was writing cryptocurrency reporting rules, the crypto industry asking for clarifying amendments (to avoid classifying miners as exchanges) wasn't suppressing anyone's voice. It was supplementing it with specialist knowledge.
      • elliekelly 5y ago
        When we write laws about speeding should we ask sports car owners to supplement the legislative record with their specialist knowledge?
        • MrLeap 5y ago
          If the legislation, as worded, applies to cars on race tracks -- probably? I think these metaphors are getting far afield. Privacy is a fundamental thing that's more important (and harder!) to protect than most things. It's probably also a good idea to get a breadth of stakeholder's opinions on an issue. Lobbyists definitely have a massively outsized portion of this breadth.
          • roystonvassey 5y ago
            Even if it’s a decision that I don’t agree with, if we all agree democracy is the best form of representative government, the decision taken by the lawmakers has to be respected. It’s not optimal, it’s slow to effect changes but I still believe it’s the best form of government we have.
    • hogFeast 5y ago
      Because the purpose of a govt is to make laws for everyone. The tyranny of the majority is just tyranny in the end (this is what authoritarian govts, ironically, fail to understand about democracy...debate and disagreement seems weak and decadent to them, it is not, I think that US politics has relatively weak controls on lobbying but the perfect outcome is not a ban on lobbying...most successful authoritarian govts operate by claiming to represent the voice of "the people"). And btw, this is how US politics is designed, the people who created the US constitution were very aware of how democracy ended the first time.
      • HWR_14 5y ago
        > the people who created the US constitution were very aware of how democracy ended the first time. Being conquered by a foreign power? How does that relate?
    • judge2020 5y ago
      They're not "actively blocking it" any more than someone holding a protest outside of the Capitol building is. The difference is that they have lobbying money, which is allowed and generally encouraged by the congresspeople themselves. Any consumer regulation that directly targets an industry is more often than not a call-to-action for the lobbyist to dedicate more of their budget to the lawmaker(s) in question. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_lobbying_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_lobbying_in_the_Uni...
  • uoaei 5y ago
    > If you reject the notion that Alexa-powered devices are bad Why would we do that, considering the evidence available to us?
    • crusty 5y ago
      If YOU were an Amazon executive in a role that had influence over the program and wanted to keep our advance your position. The comment author here is voicing the inner monologue of one of these people, not one of the other 99.999+% of people.
    • dantheman 5y ago
      Why are the bad? what evidence is there?
      • uoaei 5y ago
        Why insist we repeat the same conversation from zero, as if it hasn't been happening all this time?
  • LeifCarrotson 5y ago
    That's a good counterpoint, I guess the obvious question is why your viewpoint is opposed. Medical marijuana lobbyists have an easy, obvious answer: impediments are the result of a failed and ill-considered war on drugs that's actively causing lots and lots of harm. It's easy to see yourself as virtuous in that scenario. Anti-privacy lobbyists have to go through more difficult mental contortions: large movements of people are concerned about the privacy invasions our devices represent, and that puts our future profits at risk. People are very capable of being irrational when their paycheck depends on it, but that feels too far to me.
    • judge2020 5y ago
      That's going into arguments on merit, though. The point is that trying to influence regulation shouldn't be seen as an issue. Berate the company for doing something you're against, but everyone has a voice, even corporations with more money to influence congress than the average person.
      • mitigating 5y ago
        What if corporations are acting against the public good the majority of the time and there aren't alternative methods of stopping this (boycotts don't work etc). It's better to ban it since it's mostly evil.
  • darksaints 5y ago
    What if it said: "change or block US and EU regulation/legislation that would impede growth for BigCo Marijuana Vape Pens"? See the difference? One is protection for an industry, the other is a protection for a specific company.
    • HWR_14 5y ago
      That's a horrible difference. You're talking about phrasing determining morals and ethics? I mean, do you condemn politicians who talk about helping a specific person with a policy to try to make it real? Obviously Amazon's lobbyists are trying to protect Amazon's interests. If you think Alexa should be regulated, you can think it's immoral. But I have no problem with Amazon identifying why they care. Unless you think that the lobbyists read that as "make sure there is an Alexa named exemption".
      • Jensson 5y ago
        > You're talking about phrasing determining morals and ethics? The courts certainly do care about phrasing. You are taught to not say "we will destroy the opposition" at big companies so that they can avoid lawsuits, instead you say things along the lines of "we will provide the best user experience". Ultimately it is basically the same thing, but the second is safe in courts, the first will create a problem. Edit: Case example: Google said AMP was to "provide the best user experience". But it also helps Google "destroy the opposition". So why isn't there a court case over Google abusing their position? Because they didn't say the second part here, just repeated the first. Words do matter a lot.
        • HWR_14 5y ago
          You're talking about phrasing producing evidence. I'm talking about phrasing in examining the problem. That is, no one believes that Google's AMP push was primarily about the best user experience. Just proving it in a court of law. What they call it is irrelevant to the moral question. Similarly, everyone knows that Amazon's lobbying is about protecting Alexa. I just don't think that's immoral. It's strange that you would call it a moral or ethical difference. Legally different, maybe (in other cases, this is obviously legal).
  • jancsika 5y ago
    > ie medical marijuana lobbyists would probably say that they are looking to "change or block US and EU regulation/legislation that would impede growth for medical marijuana." But "growth as in growing marijuana" is qualitatively different than "growth as in self-replicating paperclips that grow until they destroy the entire earth." :) I kid, but in reality I don't think the medical marijuana proponents are even after "growth" in the sense Amazon used it-- i.e., to capitalize on any opportunities to gain a stronghold in any relevant markets where medical marijuana could conceivably be used to the advantage of the medical marijuana lobby. They just want medical marijuana to be available at all for the obvious cases where it eases suffering. And at least every proponent I've talked to wants there to be sane safeguards/regulations in place and studies to make sure the benefits outweigh the costs. In fact, even the recreational marijuana lobby decided to vote against and defeat a prop in some state where a tiny group of "growth-as-in-paperclips" hopefuls were attempting to monopolize marijuana growth/distribution. (Ohio maybe?) Anyway, medical marijuana lobby seems to have made growth-as-in-business subsidiary to a second level of reflection, whereas in GP's Amazon quote the implication is that all other concerns are subsidiary to growth-as-in-business.
• colpabar 5y ago
  Do you really think C-level people at amazon care at all about acting morally or ethically? They have lots of money, and US politicians accept bribes to make things go a certain way. This is just business as usual for everyone involved.
• freeflight 5y ago
  > How do you write or even read that document and believe you're acting in a moral or ethical manner? Slightly off-topic; There's a TV show about the US opioid epidemic called Dopesick, they depict one of the responsible corporate execs, some Sackler family member, in a really interesting way. Throughout the whole show it's really difficult to tell if he honestly believes what he's doing is something good, or if he's trying to outdo his other family members legacies. I can see a very similar situation with somebody at Amazon who's just really convinced how Alexa-powered devices will somehow improve humanity on some fundamental level. In their PoV they are doing these unethical things for an ultimately greater good, in a "the ends justify the means" way. Rarely anybody perceives themselves, or their actions, as fundamentally immoral or unethical, most of the time we are the heroes in our own narratives.
  • abyssin 5y ago
    In the situation they’re in, the question is irrelevant. Companies that engage in such behaviour retain people with the ability to get emotionally involved at the level of the company itself. They get motivated in relation to the story that plays out inside the company. These lobbyists probably feel the same as someone taking a plane with friends to go on holiday in the context of climate change. It can (and should) be seen as an ethical issue. But there’s a dynamic in the group that is such that very little thought will be given to the ethical issue, as it would be seen as anti-group behaviour. Instead the group focuses on the activity they’re there to do: enjoying holidays. Joining a company is joining a group that found a specific game to play. Most people need to feel like they belong to a group, and most groups don’t tolerate people who question the game that’s being played.