Bradley University



Topic: Describe and discuss Amazon’s role in developing and employing a Surveillance Capitalist business model. Your name:Amazon as a Surveillance CapitalistIntroductionIn recent years more and more companies have been joining the surveillance capitalist ranks. This branch of capitalism has been bringing in huge amounts of money for the creators of this trend, Google and Facebook. Since then it has spread from the technology industry to other industries trying to gather more and more data about its users. Another large company soon realized the promise that surveillance capitalism held and pounced on the opportunity, Amazon.To take it back, what is surveillance capitalism and what does it really mean. This term is a new branch of capitalism that was created by Google back in the late 90’s early 2000’s according to Shoshana Zuboff (Zuboff 2019). Google was originally only an internet search engine, it was a popular tool but the company was not making enough return profit. As more and more people used their search engine, the more data they had on people's searches, as they kept all the search data for people to improve the engine. Soon someone in the company realized that they could use this data for other purposes other than self improvement. Targeted Ads was the first thing that Google started to use its excess data on. From there they spread out as a company dipping their hands into everything they could in search of more data that they could use or sell. Facebook caught wind of this and also followed a similar path. Soon surveillance capitalism grew till it now dominates a large portion of income for some of the largest capitalist companies in the United States. (Zuboff 2019).In recent years, Amazon has become a large player in the surveillance game. Amazon now controls a majority of online shopping and the data they can collect from people is massive. Since Amazon has so much money backing it, it has been able to spread out like Google to gather more data from other places. Amazons path, their purchases of other companies, and their own proprietary products and services will be analyzed in a chronological order to present how Amazon has become a surveillance capitalist.Amazon’s Path to Surveillance CapitalismAmazon was founded 25 years ago in 1994 by Jeff Bezos in his garage in Seattle, Washington (DePillis 2018 [4]). Amazon started as an online book retailer and slowly grew into the giant we know today. Soon after it was founded Amazon went public and was able to be funded by investors giving it more money to grow. Not too much longer it opened a second facility. Amazon quickly entered the data gathering game with the “1-Click” patent in 1999. This patent encouraged customers to buy more things from Amazon giving Amazon the ability to gather their data (DePillis 2018 [8]). In the 2000’s Amazon expands into more markets giving it the ability to gather more data about people. With Amazon's massive growth it quickly grew into a surveillance capitalist giant, able to get data from anything users touched that Amazon had their hands on. It spread into other companies, other industries, and soon started to create its own products, all of which Amazon uses to gather data from its users. Amazon Spreading into Other MarketsAs Amazon’s wealth grew it was able to expand into other markets other than online shopping. Amazon had the money to buyout its competitors and have them join the conglomerate that is Amazon. Today Amazon has made over 100 acquisitions all over the world and in all sorts of markets (List of Amazon Products and Services 2019). Here are some of the most notable purchases Amazon has made in order of how they purchased them and how they gain behavioural surplus from it.One of the first large purchases Amazon made was in 2008 with Audible. This purchase made sense especially since Amazon started out selling books online and grew large there, and Audible sells audio books (DePillis 2018 [18]). Amazon had game in the physical book world, but had nothing in the audio book world as audio books grew in popularity. Amazon acquired Audible to get an in into the audio book world and to expand their power in the online selling of books. This benefits Amazon as it is another way that can gather data on the books you are listening to. It is more information they can add to the digital profile of the user.Amazon had a hard time competing in the online shoe world, so to be the leader in online shoes they bought the current lead Zappos in 2009 (DePillis 2018 [19]). Amazon added shoe market to the ever increasing markets they had their hands in. With this Amazon was able to gather behavioural surplus about the shoes people were buying so that they could target more shoe ads at them so that they might buy a pair. Shoe data is not the most important behavioural surplus out there but it is just one more thing Amazon can learn about you.In 2013 Amazon, specifically Jeff Bezos, bought the Washington Post. Bezos saw that the Washington Post was financially failing, so he pumped 250 million of his own money into the newspaper to improve it (DePillis 2018 [21]). Bezos gave the Washington Post the ability to expand into the internet news sector, but that was a condition of his purchase (Denning 2018 [11]). With the Washington Post online, Bezos or now Amazon has access to the news and the stories that people are clicking on. This gives valuable behavioural surplus, as the news someone looks at tells a lot about what a person cares about. Another big purchase Amazon made that led to a new source of behavioural surplus was the Twitch streaming service acquired in 2014 (DePillis 2018 [24]). Twitch is similar to Youtube, but everything is a livestream. With this service under Amazon, they are able to gather data about all the things you watch on Twitch. This service has grown and has 15 million active users, this gives Amazon a large selection of people to take behavioural surplus from, as knowing what you watch gives a good amount of surplus (25 Useful Twitch Statistics for Influencer Marketing Managers [Infographic]).Amazon’s Proprietary Services Expansion Along with Amazon’s expansions through acquiring other companies, internally Amazon has worked on its own individual products and services. As Amazon has grown what they have offered has vastly expanded, from starting with Amazon Prime all the way to a facial recognition program with everything in between. Amazon is able to access any part of users lives if they use all of their services and even using just some of their products will give them enough behavioural surplus to know all about the user.Amazon’s largest service they created was one of the first created, Amazon Prime in 2005 . With over 80 million users in the U.S. alone, Prime is one of the most successful services Amazon has created (Leadem 2018 [3,4]). This service is a way that Amazon sucks people into their online shopping site as Prime members receive so many benefits, and with free two day shipping Prime members spend more (Leadem 2018 [6]). Since Prime members buy more on Amazon, more data is being given to Amazon. With each purchase Amazon knows more and more about your life, buy some baby clothes Amazon can suspect there is a new baby in the house, buy pet supplies Amazon now knows you have some pets, the list can go on. There are other benefits that come with a Prime membership, you have a photo cloud storage through Amazon, music access, TV streaming access, and an eBook library (Leadem 2018 [9,11]). Each benefit giving Amazon more areas of data they can use to build a users digital profile. Though Prime started more than 10 years ago, Amazon has molded and changed it into the perfect data mining service as it encourages users to use more of their wide range of services they gain access to when they pay to go Prime.In 2014, Amazon created its first digital assistant, Alexa. Since then Alexa products have grown and expanded into many homes across the U.S. At the time Alexa was the next step in gathering data from users, with Alexa Amazon invaded peoples homes. Alexa is a virtual AI that users are able to call by going “Hey Alexa” then after that command her to do what they want. Alexa hears what users want to hear and things they don’t want her to hear. One of the first issues that came out with Alexa was that the training for Alexa was done by humans who were listening to audio from users’ homes, all without them being aware of it (Blue 2019 [5]). There have been many other breaches of private data from Alexa, on par with other surveillance capitalist companies (Blue 2019 [13]). Amazon might not have the best security and have had those issues with security but it does not stop them collecting your data, they might protect it better know. According to a CNET article and investigation Alexa keeps recordings with no intention of ever deleting the data as well as sharing it with others. Any requests users make that involve a transaction, like ordering food or getting a rideshare, Amazon keeps a record of (Ng 2019 [7]). Alexa is an easy example of self-imposed surveillance renditions. Users are aware that they are allowing a microphone into their home that will record them and they allow it. Getting a microphone into users homes is among the ultimate ways to gain behavioural surplus about a user, there are no closed doors and all of the users life will be data that Amazon can gather. To follow Alexa’s listening in on users homes, Amazon released Amazon Key in 2017 (Fowler 2017 [1-4]). Key gives Amazon access to the inside of your home, both physically and digitally. Amazon Key is a newer program where users packages can be placed inside their home when they are delivered. The delivery person can enter the user's home and place the package inside. Key also offers keyless entry as well as guest access . This product links up to your home internet and is one of the more direct ways a surveillance capitalist can connect to your home. Amazon's Key lock is paired with a camera so that whenever someone enters or leaves there is a recording of them doing so. With that, Amazon now is able to gain video of users’ houses and the occupants that reside within it. Amazon says it does not have access to data from the Key product, but can easily be a lie. They at least are using the data to see how Key affects your relationship with Amazon (Fowler 2019 [24]). Ring is Amazon's next step to being your smart home provider, all to gather as much behavioural surplus as possible about as many users.Amazon’s newest project Rekognition, is a facial recognition service that they started in early 2019. Much of the reporting on this project is that it is inconsistent and unreliable with correctly matching faces, as one test showed that Rekognition incorrectly matched 28 members of Congress with criminals (Hale 2019 [4]). Rekognition is not fully developed yet, but it is still a player in how Amazon is a surveillance capitalist. As this technology develops Amazon will be able to gather more data since they will be able to identify people and could use their products to watch them. Currently Amazon is trying to create facial recognition laws that the government can adopt and use federally (Rey 2019 [2]). Rekognition has already begun being used by police departments to help identify criminals. In response to that many cities have taken their citizens privacy into their own hands by creating laws that ban this type of program (Singer 2019 [6]). Since Amazon has started the facial surveillance branch of surveillance capitalism, they may soon be able to “track people at a distance without their knowledge or consent” (Singer 2019 [16]). This is Amazon's most recent advancement in the surveillance capitalist industry, and once it is done and working can change surveillance capitalism, but not to the users advantage.They are a Surveillance Capitalist? As Amazon continues to expand, it is hard to deny that they are becoming more of a surveillance capitalist. Amazon has spread farther than the online book retailer that it started as. Now it is an online retail giant, selling everything from books and shoes to toilet paper and digital door lock, Amazon really has anything and everything you could ever need. Amazon easily fits into the four key features of surveillance capitalism as defined by Shoshana Zuboff.The first key feature is defined as “The drive toward more and more data extraction and analysis” (Surveillance Capitalism 2019 Key Features Section). Amazon has a drive towards providing more for its users, especially when it comes to their Key product. With Amazon Key Amazon was aiming to become users smart home provider and has been creating service by service to get there. Being users smart home providers gives Amazon access to one of the largest data extraction points there is, users’ homes. They have created so many different products and services each being able to gather another area of data on a user, from their car need to the homes needs and more. Amazon can easily be said to have a drive towards more data extraction and analysis.The next feature is “The development of new contractual forms using computer-monitoring and automation” (Surveillance Capitalism 2019 Key Features Section). This feature is among the harder ones to identify within Amazon. They do not fully fit this feature but meet some of it. Some of the parts they do meet are the forms using computer-monitoring, many of the services and products they have monitor their users. There are many technology products that they use to monitor what their users are doing, like Key which monitors who comes in and out of the door of the house. Each product has a new terms and service agreement that allows Amazon to gain access to data. Out of the four features, this is the one Amazon fits the least in, but still enough to be considered a surveillance capitalist.The third feature is “The desire to personalize and customize the services offered to users of digital platforms” (Surveillance Capitalism 2019 Key Features Section). Amazon has spread into so many different industries and services to provide anything a user could ever need. They also try to personalize all of their services as well. Using their website for shopping alone, is very personalized, they recommend products based on previous purchases or what you looked at. Each service is made personal to the user, they have a service called Amazon Garage that the users car can be entered in to the exact model and only products that work with their car will show up. It cannot get more personal than that. Amazon is a prime example of customization and personalization for the user.The final feature is “The use of the technological infrastructure to carry out continual experiments on its users and consumers” (Surveillance Capitalism 2019 Key Features Section). Amazon has the power and money behind it to continuously just roll out new products to see what sticks. They have a line of products called AmazonBasics which are their versions of certain products like power cables and whatnot. That is one example of how they are able to experiment on users, will users buy their product because it has their name or will they keep looking. Amazon keeps trying new programs to see what users will respond to the most. Alexa is another good example as they have humans behind her training, the people listen to recordings to see what users are doing with Alexa so that they can keep improving. Amazon fits into this feature, and test their users to see what works.Reviewing how Amazon fits into the four key features, their acquiring other companies, and their own products and services it is easy to conclude that Amazon fits into Zuboffs model of a surveillance capitalist. They check all the boxes, and have already gotten into similar troubles that Google and Facebook have encountered. Amazon makes it on the list of companies that seek out behavioural surplus to gain wealth and power. Paper lacks End SectionsWorks Cited“25 Useful Twitch Statistics for Influencer Marketing Managers [Infographic].” Influencer Marketing Hub, 15 May 2019, , Alfred. “Amazon Alexa Keeps Your Data with No Expiration Date, and Shares It Too.” CNET, CNET, 2 July 2019, , Violet. “Hey Alexa: How Can We Escape Surveillance Capitalism?” Engadget, 30 April 2019, , Stephanie. “Why Jeff Bezos Bought The Washington Post.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 20 Sept. 2018, , Lydia, and Ivory Sherman. “Amazon's Extraordinary 25-Year Evolution.” CNN, Cable News Network, 4 Oct. 2018, , Geoffrey. “Review | Amazon Wants a Key to Your House. I Did It. I Regretted It.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 8 Apr. 2019, , Kori. “Amazon Pitches Shady Facial Recognition Laws.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 1 Oct. 2019, . “Domesticated by Data: Amazon Barbie, Surveillance Capitalism and the Coming Borg.” Medium, Medium, 19 Mar. 2019, , Rose. “17 Incredible Amazon Prime Facts and Stats.” Entrepreneur, 25 June 2018, .“List of Amazon Products and Services.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 21 Oct. 2019, , Jason Del. “Amazon Is Creating Facial Recognition Regulations That It Wants Congress to Adopt.” Vox, Vox, 26 Sept. 2019, , Natasha. “Amazon Faces Investor Pressure Over Facial Recognition.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 20 May 2019, .“Surveillance Capitalism.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 4 Nov. 2019, , Natasha. “Amazon Faces Investor Pressure Over Facial Recognition.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 20 May 2019, , Shoshana. The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: the Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. PublicAffairs, 2019. ................
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