Amazon / Amazon.com / Jeff Bezos

[Estiveo]

Estiveoshot_20210720_195215.jpg

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/202 ... cer-finds/

Amazon’s anti-union conduct made free election “impossible,” NLRB officer finds
Report cites mailbox under cameras and anti-union materials at mandatory meetings.

Amazon interfered with a union-certification vote, and a second election should be held, a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) official wrote in a report released yesterday. Amazon's anti-union misconduct made a "free and fair election... impossible," the report said.

More specifically, the conduct which interfered with the result of the election relates to the employer's polling of employees by distribution of "vote no" paraphernalia in the presence of supervisors and managers, as well as the employer's unilateral decision to cause the United States Postal Service to install a generic unlabeled mail collection box less than 50 feet from the main entrance to its facility, at a location suggested by the employer and immediately beneath the visible surveillance cameras mounted on the employer's main entrance. While this is a case of first impression, the employer's conduct in causing this generic mail receptacle to be installed usurped the National Labor Relations Board's exclusive role in administering union elections. Notwithstanding the union's substantial margin of defeat, the employer's unilateral decision to create, for all intents and purposes, an onsite collection box for NLRB ballots destroyed the laboratory conditions and justifies a second election.

[Luke]

Wow, this just rolled out in our area (South Florida)... Overnight Prime.

Prime Overnight 4 AM - 8 AM

Overnight Prime.JPG (43.31 KiB) Viewed 4094 times

We are also loving the new male Alexa voice (you can hook him up in Settings, select New Voice). He's hunky. He can't be used with the UK version (we use Male UK Siri) but that's OK. You can hear him talk a bit by enabling the Skill Big Sky for weather (free and took over from dark sky). We want to call him Alex, he's getting a complex being called Alexa.

When we asked him how tall he was, he replied, "Like the third choice in Goldilocks, my height is just right."

[AndyinPA]

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... ent-stores

Amazon is planning to open department stores after years of competing against, and in some cases helping to destroy, the very same traditional brick-and-mortar retailers.

The company’s latest move to bricks and mortar, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, comes after Amazon earlier this week eclipsed even Walmart in overall sales to become the world’s largest retail seller outside China.

Although Amazon already operates physical retail locations, including bookstores and tech-focused shops, they are often found in high-traffic urban areas.

The plan comes four years after Amazon purchased Whole Foods as part of an attempt to remake consumer-facing food industry, using the chain for walk-through shopping and as home-food delivery and returns hubs.

[AndyinPA]

Alexa is officially a trumper.

She reminded me at 9 PM that at 10 PM Merican Horror Story is on.

[Dr. Ken]

I think something is wrong with one of my echos. Usually when I leave it says hasta la vista... but now it's saying ashta la vishtka like it's suddenly russian.

[Maybenaut]

I think something is wrong with one of my echos. Usually when I leave it says hasta la vista... but now it's saying ashta la vishtka like it's suddenly russian.

Sounds like it’s been drinking…

[RVInit]

Tulip wakes me up in the morning when she's hungry. Sometimes I will ask Alexa what time it is. Then after she answers I ask Tulip "are you hungry?" Alexa tells me "I never eat or drink, but thank you for asking".

[tek]

Tulip wakes me up in the morning when she's hungry. Sometimes I will ask Alexa what time it is. Then after she answers I ask Tulip "are you hungry?" Alexa tells me "I never eat or drink, but thank you for asking".

One of these days Alexa is gonna say "Yeah, ya know I could go for a couple eggs over easy, sausage, home fries, and maybe a pancake or two, real maple syrup"

Because if *I* were coding this, that's what would happen

[AndyinPA]

https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/09/23/ ... -mandates/

A bill that seeks to protect California warehouse workers from abusive quota systems has been signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The governor signed Assembly Bill 701 on Wednesday, the same day he also signed 32 other Assembly and Senate bills approved by the California Legislature.

“We cannot allow corporations to put profit over people,” Newsom said in a statement late Wednesday. “The hardworking warehouse employees who have helped sustain us during these unprecedented times should not have to risk injury or face punishment as a result of exploitative quotas that violate basic health and safety.”

AB 701, authored by Assemblywomen Lorena Gonzalez, D-San Diego, is the nation’s first legislation to make companies disclose the productivity requirements and work-speed metrics they set for employees.

[Tiredretiredlawyer]

[John Thomas8]

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/21/amazon- ... juana.html

“Pre-employment marijuana testing has disproportionately affected communities of color by stalling job placement and, by extension, economic growth, and we believe this inequitable treatment is unacceptable,” Galetti said.

Amazon first announced in June that it would no longer screen some of its workers for marijuana. The only job candidates Amazon will screen for the drug are those applying for positions regulated by the Department of Transportation, such as truck drivers and heavy equipment operators.

[AndyinPA]

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... s-revenues

Amazon’s profits declined by the largest percentage in more than four years as the online giant said it has spent heavily on coping with the pandemic and delivered a downbeat forecast for the holiday season.

The news sent Amazon’s share price down 4% in after-hours trading.

Net income decreased to $3.2bn in the third quarter compared with $6.3bn in the third quarter of 2020, its largest year-over-year decline since 2017. The company’s revenues, $110.81bn for the quarter, were also below analysts’ expectations.

Investors had expected an earnings decline after Amazon issued a weak forecast three months ago due to global supply-chain and staffing issues. Andy Jassy, Amazon chief executive officer, said those problems would continue to weigh on the company.

[RTH10260]

UK

Amazon sellers target UK with unsolicited parcels to boost sales
Scam known as ‘brushing’ is deployed to increase ranking in Amazon search system

Miranda Bryant
Thu 28 Oct 2021 12.13 BST

More than 1m British households may have been targeted by a scam in which sellers on Amazon Marketplace send unsolicited packages to addresses in order to artificially increase their sales numbers, according to research.

The technique, known as “brushing”, involves sending items that are usually cheap to ship to unsuspecting people and logging them as genuine sales to increase a seller’s sales statistics. The aim is to appear as highly ranked as possible in Amazon’s search system, which prioritises those with high volumes and good reviews.



https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... oost-sales

[RTH10260]

140,000 Amazon drivers will get back $60M in allegedly withheld tips
The FTC is sending out 139,507 checks and 1,621 PayPal payments

By Daniella Genovese FOXBusiness
November 5

About 140,000 Amazon drivers whose tips were allegedly withheld for multiple years will receive a reimbursement check from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

The agency announced this week that it's sending nearly $60 million in funds that "Amazon allegedly illegally withheld from drivers between 2016 and 2019."

Representatives for Amazon did not respond to FOX Business' request for comment.

The funds stem from the FTC's earlier lawsuit against Amazon and its subsidiary, Amazon Logistics, which is its network of delivery providers.

In the suit, the FTC alleged that Amazon didn't pay Amazon Flex program drivers the full amount of tips that they earned during the two-and-a-half-year period. Flex drivers deliver goods and groceries ordered through programs like Prime Now and AmazonFresh.



https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/a ... hheld-tips

[Luke]

Hey FYI -- Big Amazon Web Services outage. Our Alexas have been down & won't connect. As of 4pm, some things are coming back up like lights. But Amazon Music & Video are still not working. Lots of sites using AWS are affected, it isn't you.

News 18 minutes ago
Amazon Web Services outage hits many websites and apps
Amazon Web Services reported a major outage on Tuesday, which caused outages on many popular websites and apps. Services reporting issues included Disney+, Netflix, League of Legends, Slack, Tinder, McDonalds, Instacart, Robinhood and Coinbase, as well Amazon’s own delivery and ordering services, CNBC and DatacenterDynamics report. In a post on Tuesday, Amazon said that it had identified the cause of the issues and was “actively working towards recovery,” The Associated Press reports. Keep it here for updates and developments.

AWS Dashboard: https://status.aws.amazon.com/

[12:34 PM PST] We continue to experience increased API error rates for multiple AWS Services in the US-EAST-1 Region. The root cause of this issue is an impairment of several network devices. We continue to work toward mitigation, and are actively working on a number of different mitigation and resolution actions. While we have observed some early signs of recovery, we do not have an ETA for full recovery. For customers experiencing issues signing-in to the AWS Management Console in US-EAST-1, we recommend retrying using a separate Management Console endpoint (such as https://us-west-2.console.aws.amazon.com/). Additionally, if you are attempting to login using root login credentials you may be unable to do so, even via console endpoints not in US-EAST-1. If you are impacted by this, we recommend using IAM Users or Roles for authentication. We will continue to provide updates here as we have more information to share.

DownDetector: https://downdetector.com/status/aws-ama ... ator-modal

[Kendra]

Oh, that might explain things. Goodreads has been down all day - Amazon owns Goodreads.

[raison de arizona]

For customers experiencing issues signing-in to the AWS Management Console in US-EAST-1, we recommend retrying using a separate Management Console endpoint (such as https://us-west-2.console.aws.amazon.com/).

Tanks for this. I been hearing about the outage all morning and have yet to experience a problem- all my stuff is in us-west-1 or us-west-2 now. I thought I must be going crazy.

[RVInit]

Amazon may be down, but that didn't stop the delivery guy from bringing my copy of Amanda Gorman's Call Us What We Carry today!

[RTH10260]

Network outages? Did the AZ auditors pinch their routers

[AndyinPA]

Checked a little while ago. Amazon is totally up for me.

I got a small Amazon order yesterday. For the first time, the box is covered all over with advertising for something on Amazon Prime.

[AndyinPA]

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/ ... ine-groups

Amazon’s charitable program is paying tens of thousands of dollars to anti-vaccine groups in a move experts say is “shocking” as millions of Americans remain unvaccinated in the face of another Covid-19 wave.

AmazonSmile reportedly donated more than $40,000 to leading sources of vaccine misinformation in 2020, according to separate analyses by Popular Information and the Washington Post.

“That’s really shocking,” said Peter Hotez, dean for the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. “That’s incredible that Amazon is supporting those groups.”

The charity program of the e-commerce giant donates 0.5% from purchases to designated nonprofits – including at least a dozen organizations working against widespread vaccination in the US.

Cross-posting in anti-vaxxer thread.

[tek]

The Amazon Smile customer chooses which charity they want to support out of a list of 1 million plus, so I'm having a hard time faulting Amazon for this.

[Kendra]

I'm on that program, and my charity of choice is Purrfect Pals.

Been a while, but I *think* the charities on the list have to be 501C or whatever it's called, and I further recollect around the time of Malheur there was some gun rights group signed up on the Smile program and I *think* some of us reported them not being a 501C (or whatever it's called) and then they were no longer in Amazon's Smile program.

But, take that with a grain of salt since

[raison de arizona]

The Amazon Smile customer chooses which charity they want to support out of a list of 1 million plus, so I'm having a hard time faulting Amazon for this.

"at least a dozen" pales in comparison to the total number of orgs in that program. It sucks they slipped through, but there are better things to castigate Amazon over.