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"You're responsible" is a terrible thing to say. In "the real world"? So assuming you mean with non-digital/electronic goods? If someone steals my bag they don'

by ledneb 14y ago

"You're responsible" is a terrible thing to say. In "the real world"? So assuming you mean with non-digital/electronic goods? If someone steals my bag they don't go and register it with some central bag authority, so of course I don't go calling my bag's manufacturer. Of course I'm responsible. Unless it's on CCTV. I expect /those/ guys to be sane, to help me and to show the CCTV to the police. They have clear evidence of a crime sitting right in front of them - if I flag it up to them, it should be damn near their /duty/ to give that evidence to the police. Surely Amazon have pretty clear evidence in front of them. Someone's reported their kindle stolen, they see the kindle registered in someone else's name shortly after that report, the police have contacted them. Amazon can surely create their own paper trail - verifying the identity of the police first. Besides, the other post implies that they're saying there's no hard link between the kindle and the account. That's probably front-line support failing to get a message higher than their lazy supervisor. Anyway, I disagree with the sentiments here and in other replies. There are privacy warriors - quite rightly so - but there's also blatant common sense. Amazon should be applying that here. Putting on a tin-foil hat and saying "but what if..." isn't always a sensible thing to do. If you commit a crime and submit evidence of it to my web service, you can be damn sure I'm passing your details to the police, so long as it's legal for me to do so.

analog 14y ago
In the real world as opposed to in an ideal world. The unfortunate fact is that police have more pressing issues to deal with than petty theft, no-one is going to be taking more than a second glance at any CCTV footage, and you're certainly not going to see it. Also with respect to 'privacy warriors' you have to way up the weights of the possible pros and cons. In the best case scenario you retrieve a piece of low value electronic equipment. Whoop-de-do. In the worst case, violent ex-husband finds the whereabouts of his ex-wife and assaults her, or worse.
- DrJokepu 14y ago
  > The unfortunate fact is that police have more pressing issues to deal with than petty theft … This is not strictly true. Police forces have divisions and staff dedicated to all types crime and petty theft is no exception. They might be understaffed compared to the workload but it's not necessarily true they have more pressing issues to deal with. Someone on the bulglary team is supposed to work on bulglaries, not, say for instance, murder or vice or whatnot.
  - analog 14y ago
    Ok yeah, that's probably true. But what I imagine the burglary team would do is collect evidence of patterns of thefts, and then do work to prevent thefts where there is the highest number of incidents. This might involve investigating and stopping a particular gang, or it might be as simple as putting up signs telling people to be careful of bag snatchers. What they are not going to do is go all CSI Miami to retrive a Kindle.
brudgers 14y ago
"Surely Amazon have pretty clear evidence in front of them. Someone's reported their kindle stolen, they see the kindle registered in someone else's name shortly after that report, the police have contacted them. Amazon can surely create their own paper trail - verifying the identity of the police first." The contents of a police report are allegations not facts. The evidence is ambiguous. Persons sell items and then report them stolen. It is quite reasonable for Amazon to refuse to adjudicate disputed ownership of $100 worth of hardware. Amazon's responsibilities differ with respect to the digital goods in their care. Those are tied to an individual in a way that a physical device is not.
- DannyBee 14y ago
  The police are the official investigative arm. It's their job to be doing this. The position that amazon should not cooperate with the police because the police may be wrong is ridiculous. They are not adjudicating anything, they are being asked by a law enforcement officer to provide information they said they would provide to law enforcement.

by ledneb 14y ago

analog 14y ago

In the real world as opposed to in an ideal world. The unfortunate fact is that police have more pressing issues to deal with than petty theft, no-one is going to be taking more than a second glance at any CCTV footage, and you're certainly not going to see it. Also with respect to 'privacy warriors' you have to way up the weights of the possible pros and cons. In the best case scenario you retrieve a piece of low value electronic equipment. Whoop-de-do. In the worst case, violent ex-husband finds the whereabouts of his ex-wife and assaults her, or worse.

DrJokepu 14y ago
> The unfortunate fact is that police have more pressing issues to deal with than petty theft … This is not strictly true. Police forces have divisions and staff dedicated to all types crime and petty theft is no exception. They might be understaffed compared to the workload but it's not necessarily true they have more pressing issues to deal with. Someone on the bulglary team is supposed to work on bulglaries, not, say for instance, murder or vice or whatnot.
- analog 14y ago
  Ok yeah, that's probably true. But what I imagine the burglary team would do is collect evidence of patterns of thefts, and then do work to prevent thefts where there is the highest number of incidents. This might involve investigating and stopping a particular gang, or it might be as simple as putting up signs telling people to be careful of bag snatchers. What they are not going to do is go all CSI Miami to retrive a Kindle.

brudgers 14y ago

"Surely Amazon have pretty clear evidence in front of them. Someone's reported their kindle stolen, they see the kindle registered in someone else's name shortly after that report, the police have contacted them. Amazon can surely create their own paper trail - verifying the identity of the police first." The contents of a police report are allegations not facts. The evidence is ambiguous. Persons sell items and then report them stolen. It is quite reasonable for Amazon to refuse to adjudicate disputed ownership of $100 worth of hardware. Amazon's responsibilities differ with respect to the digital goods in their care. Those are tied to an individual in a way that a physical device is not.

DannyBee 14y ago
The police are the official investigative arm. It's their job to be doing this. The position that amazon should not cooperate with the police because the police may be wrong is ridiculous. They are not adjudicating anything, they are being asked by a law enforcement officer to provide information they said they would provide to law enforcement.