Early in my master’s degree in Artificial Intelligence, a classmate asked me if I had heard of Amazon, a new online bookstore where you could basically order any book in the world and have it delivered to your door. Relived the excitement of my middle school book fairs, I entered the world of Amazon.com and ordered a beautiful book that felt revolutionary and futuristic, yet cozy and personal. Later that year, 1995, Amazon sent its loyal customers, including me, free coffee mugs for the holidays.
At the time, Jeff Bezos’ famous small business Garage, Bellevue, Washington Celebrating its 30th anniversary, it’s an astounding $1.97 Trillion Today, my net worth is $10 billion, and I still use Amazon to order gadgets and essentials, watch movies and shows, and read books on my Kindle — all while knowing that this once-beloved bookstore has become a data-hungry corporate giant that has destroyed my personal privacy.
Today, Amazon sells basically everything and knows basically everything, from our favorite toilet paper to the questions our kids ask Alexa to what’s going on in our neighborhood. And… police And Amazon is in on it too: They know where we live, what our voice sounds like, who our contacts are, what our credit history is, what temperature we like our homes to be, and even whether we have allergies or other health problems.
Based on this information, the company infers our overall profile: they might know whether we’re gay or straight, married or divorced, Republican or Democrat, sexually active or not, religious or secular, etc. They also know how educated we are and how much we earn, and they use this data to sell to us better.
As a privacy researcher, I advocate for strong consumer privacy protections, and after nearly a decade of closely examining privacy policies, I can say with certainty that Amazon has worse privacy protections than any other company. And it’s not just that Amazon has a terrible privacy policy; along with Facebook and Google, they’ve co-created a terrible targeted advertising economy in which they suck as much data as they can from users so that anyone with access to that data can manipulate them into buying more products.
Given the importance of freedom to America’s origin story, it’s ironic that the country should be so dependent on companies that scientifically manipulate our free will.
“Have you bought Italian coffee beans?” Amazon asks us. “Here’s what you should buy next.”
Privacy and free will are closely intertwined. Both depend on having the freedom to decide who we are, what we want, and when we want it, without anyone seeing or disturbing us. Privacy is not only good for our mental health, it’s also good for society. Neither corporations nor governments with the means to obtain the data they collect should have unlimited access to knowledge about who we are and what we do at all times.
Amazon played a key role in making this possible, especially with its war on privacy. Dystopia Recently, Amazon’s artificial intelligence system, Rekognition, has been used in some UK train stations to scan passengers’ faces to determine their age, gender, and emotional state (happy, sad, angry, etc.), identify potentially anti-social behaviors like running, screaming, skateboarding, and smoking, and infer suicidal tendencies. It’s like Orwell’s Thought Police come true, but with Big Bezos instead of Big Brother.
The worst part is, we went along with this intrusion in exchange for cheap products and free two-day shipping.
Unfortunately, Amazon has become almost a necessity, but steps can be taken to limit its worst consequences.
The burden of fixing Amazon shouldn’t be on consumers. It should be on policymakers and regulators. They should start by: US Privacy Rights Acta bill currently before Congress, is not perfect, but it would at least address a glaring lack of federal privacy law. State privacy laws are a patchwork, with the extent to which they offer consumers varying degrees of protection.
We need to start thinking about data privacy as a human right. The idea that we have a right to all the data that companies can collect and infer is pure insanity. Thirty years ago, no one would have been in favor of it.
This is not the way the world should work. It’s frightening that we’re in this situation, especially now that we’re in the age of artificial intelligence. Generative AI programs like the chatbots we hear about so often are designed to extract as much personal information as possible, which is supposed to make them more effective. And Amazon is Alexa Assistant Upgrade Incorporate generative AI technology.
Nothing I can impulse buy on Amazon gives me any reassurance about a future where there is no privacy, there is mass surveillance, and my emotions and tendencies are monitored tooth and nail. What began with beautiful books and free mugs has created a world where everything I buy, everywhere I go, and maybe in the not-too-distant future, every emotion I feel is tracked and translated into inferences to sell me more stuff, promote dangerous ideologies, or advance any other purpose that corporations or governments deem beneficial. If that sounds dystopian, that’s because it is.
Jen Caltrider is director of Mozilla’s *Privacy Not Included project.
