the age of surveillance capitalism amazon

It encourages racial profiling, the groups write. It is abusing its market dominance to not only profit from private data but to leave large numbers of people open to hacking and theft of their unchangeable authentication and identification data.įor example, they allegedly make a game of reporting “suspicious people” using Neighbors, an Amazon app that works the company’s Ring doorbell surveillance system. While accusing most companies involved in this harvest - which no one denies is happening - the groups keelhaul Amazon in particular. People generally do not know or understand how these practices potentially put them in jeopardy, according to the letter. The origins and ethics of biometric training datasets has been an ongoing issue for companies developing the technology.įorty-eight advocacy groups this week signed an open letter to the trade commission saying businesses are aggressively developing products, services and corporate strategies that collect, store and profit from biometric data from consumers. Signing up for One undoubtedly would require consumers to consent to use of their biometric data, and, possibly, offering consumers cash in return for that use could insulate it from court challenges. Beautiful language aside, the book deals with critically important matter by laying out bare the. Zuboff plays with the English language, applying it skilfully to conveying her important messages. On the one hand, it is written in a beautiful literary language, more reminiscent of poetry than of factual prose.

Using One, customers in some of Amazon’s checkout-free stores can pay for goods by holding their palm over a scanner.Īccording to TechCrunch, a portion of the data gathered from palms is used anonymously to improve the technology, a move that has raised concerns for other biometric-using firms because it can be argued that doing so is a commercial use, not merely authenticating function. 4/5: Having at last finished Shoshana Zuboff’s book, I was in two minds about it. TechCrunch, which is owned by diversified telco Verizon, found Amazon promotional material offering $10 in credit to anyone signing up for One, the company’s contactless ID service.

The age of surveillance capitalism amazon