| From: Sr K | 11/18/2019 2:28:51 PM | | | | | | 11/18/2019
2:18 PM ET 11/18/2019
FTC Says Multiple Tech Antitrust Probes Are Under Way -- 2nd Update
Amazon.com hasn't disclosed being notified of a formal FTC probe and didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
WSJ
wsj.com
FTC Says Several Tech Antitrust Probes Are Under Way
Chairman Joseph Simons says investigations extend beyond Facebook
Mr. Simons, speaking at an American Bar Association event in Washington, didn’t discuss the details of any particular investigation. He said the agency’s new technology enforcement division is looking at tech firms’ conduct as well as reviewing whether previous tech mergers and acquisitions, either individual mergers or a string of smaller deals, harmed competition in violation of U.S. law.
He also said the agency is considering whether mergers were executed as part of “a campaign of exclusionary conduct that includes exclusionary behavior like exclusive dealings (and) loyalty programs.”
Mr. Simons’ remarks followed an appearance by Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen, who is a central figure in the Justice Department’s broad antitrust review of online platforms, an initiative that has created tensions with Mr. Simons and the FTC.
Mr. Rosen said the DOJ hasn’t yet reached any conclusions about potential issues people have raised about the dominant platforms, including whether they are stifling innovation and competition from other would-be rivals in the digital space.
The Justice Department’s No. 2 official, however, warned that antitrust enforcement isn’t a “panacea for every problem in the digital world,” and suggested the department would consider other legal tools at its disposal.
“We will not ignore any harms caused by online platforms that partially or completely fall outside the antitrust laws,” Mr. Rosen said. “We are keeping in mind other tools in areas such as privacy, consumer protection and public safety as part of a broader review of online platforms, to whatever extent warranted.” |
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| From: Sr K | 11/19/2019 8:57:03 AM | | | | | | 11/19
8:38 AM
* SALESFORCE AND AMAZON WEB SERVICES (AWS) EXPAND GLOBAL STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP
* SALESFORCE - CO WILL INTEGRATE AND OFFER AMAZON CONNECT AS PART OF SALESFORCE SERVICE CLOUD VOICE |
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| From: Sr K | 11/19/2019 9:30:27 AM | | | | | | 9:00 AM
11/19
Western Union Selects AWS as Preferred Long-Term Strategic Cloud Provider
“Financial services organizations around the world are turning to AWS, leveraging the breadth and depth of our services to drive innovation, increase agility, and analyze vast amounts of data to enable better decisions around customer segmentation, pricing, and product development.
About Amazon Web Services
For 13 years, Amazon Web Services has been the world’s most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform. AWS offers over 165 fully featured services for compute, storage, databases, networking, analytics, robotics, machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), mobile, security, hybrid, virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR), media, and application development, deployment, and management from 69 Availability Zones (AZs) within 22 geographic regions, with announced plans for 13 more Availability Zones and four more AWS Regions in Indonesia, Italy, South Africa, and Spain. Millions of customers—including the fastest-growing startups, largest enterprises, and leading government agencies—trust AWS to power their infrastructure, become more agile, and lower costs. To learn more about AWS, visit aws.amazon.com. |
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| From: Sr K | 11/22/2019 12:43:59 PM | | | | | | The WSJ has a list based on Drucker's principles:
Amazon takes the top spot, followed by fellow tech giants Microsoft and Apple, in the Drucker Institute’s annual Management Top 250 ranking
America’s best-run companies today include some of the nation’s oldest corporate giants and many of its most nimble technology firms.
This year, Amazon.com Inc. unseated Apple Inc. to earn the No. 1 spot in the Management Top 250, an annual ranking that uses the principles of the late management guru Peter Drucker to identify the most effectively managed companies. (How does your company rank in the 2019 analysis of well-run companies for customers, employees and investors? Explore the full Management Top 250 here.)
The online retailer was bolstered by its relentless focus on innovation. Microsoft Corp. rose to the No. 2 position, followed by Apple Inc., with Google parent Alphabet Inc. and networking-equipment giant Cisco Systems Inc. rounding out the top five.
A team of researchers at Claremont Graduate University’s Drucker Institute compiles the list using dozens of data points to evaluate companies on five performance dimensions: customer satisfaction, employee engagement and development, innovation, social responsibility and financial strength.
Those principles reflect the teachings of Mr. Drucker, long considered the father of modern management, who emphasized a comprehensive approach to leadership. He argued that highly functional organizations should benefit not only investors but also society, a viewpoint that has gone in and out of vogue.
wsj.com
The article covers topics that include Prime Now, and Alexa:
Toni Reid, a vice president of Alexa Experience and a more than 21-year veteran of Amazon, coaches her team not to solve too many technical problems in a memo or force a conclusion when one is uncertain. “If you do that, you end up watering down the project to average, because the technology likely doesn’t exist,” she says. “It’s something we may need to invent.”
Amazon’s Alexa, she says, started with a vision presented in a memo, even though the company had to later build the technology to power it. That’s why Ms. Reid encourages her team to spend ample time crafting the documents.
“You actually have to carve out space in your calendar and your brain to really be able to think and spend the time writing,” she says. “Especially if you’re trying to come up with something visionary that hasn’t been done before.”
While Amazon stands out in innovation, the company is a more uneven performer on other Drucker scores. It is below average on measures of social responsibility, although the company has made efforts to improve in that regard. Mr. Bezos earlier this year unveiled a climate pledge, noting that the company plans to be carbon-neutral by 2040.
Amazon has also been criticized for its treatment of workers by labor groups and lawmakers, although it raised the minimum wage for its U.S. employees to $15 an hour last year and has focused on helping workers gain new skills, even in occupations outside of Amazon. |
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| From: Sr K | 11/23/2019 10:51:57 AM | | | | | | Dow Jones
Amazon files suit, challenging Pentagon's award of $10 billion deal to Microsoft
10:23 AM 11/23/2019 Marketwatch |
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| From: Glenn Petersen | 11/26/2019 11:35:16 AM | | | | | | Activists Build a Grass-Roots Alliance Against Amazon
As groups join a coalition against the internet giant, a new report underlines its troubling impact in warehouse towns.
By David Streitfeld
New York Times
Nov. 26, 2019Updated 10:51 a.m. ET
The loading area of an Amazon warehouse in Eastvale, Calif. On Tuesday, the Economic Roundtable released a report looking at the local impact of Amazon’s warehouses.Credit...Philip Cheung for The New York Times
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SAN FRANCISCO — Amazon flourished over its first two decades with little opposition and less scrutiny. A new coalition and a report unveiled on Tuesday make clear that era is over.
The coalition, Athena, comprises three dozen grass-roots groups involved in issues like digital surveillance, antitrust and working conditions in warehouses. The goal is to encourage and unify the resistance to Amazon that is now beginning to form.
The report, from the Economic Roundtable, a nonprofit research group that focuses on social and economic issues in Southern California, delves into the largely unexplored topic of what Amazon is costing the communities where it has warehouses. The short answer: a lot.
While the simultaneous arrival of Athena and the report are a coincidence, they are linked by their attempts to understand and ultimately influence Amazon’s push into almost every aspect of modern life. The internet conglomerate hired 97,000 employees over the summer, nearly the total employment of Google. The report is bluntly titled “Too Big to Govern.”
“This is a company functioning at a scale that was previously left to government,” said Tom Perriello of the Open Society Foundations. Founded by the billionaire George Soros, Open Society is providing some of the seed funding for Athena. The coalition is raising $15 million to cover its first three years.
“It has incredible impact,” Mr. Perriello said of Amazon. “Who could possibly shape its future and direction?”
Amazon, like Facebook, Apple and Google, has drawn the attention of Washington regulators, state attorneys general and at least a few politicians in the last year. The central question being asked about all of the companies: When does a tech platform become too big and powerful, ultimately hurting the society it once dazzled?
An Amazon warehouse in Carteret, N.J. Warehouse working conditions are among the focuses of groups forming Athena, a coalition that will push for change at Amazon.Credit...Demetrius Freeman for The New York Times
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In Amazon’s case, the situation is particularly complicated. Its aspirations long ago exceeded online retail to encompass fresh groceries, devices that connect your home to the internet, front-door and neighborhood surveillance, professional services like plumbing and contracting, health care, government procurement, internet infrastructure and Hollywood entertainment. Just about everything, really.
Last fall, the retailer was forced to begin paying a $15 hourly minimum wage nationwide. In February, it abandoned plans to establish a new headquarters in New York after opponents mobilized against Amazon and the politicians who had approved the deal. This month, an attempt to stack the City Council in Seattle, the company’s hometown, with members more acceptable to Amazon backfired with voters.
These setbacks could be attributed to many factors, but one of them was the influence of labor and immigrant organizations. Now some of those groups are joining together under Athena.
emonstrators outside Amazon headquarters in Seattle in September.Credit...Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
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“We’re learning from what makes Amazon back down, and looking to replicate that as much as possible with as many people as possible,” said Dania Rajendra, the Athena director.
Athena will be run from New York, but the real work will be done out in the field where most of the member organizations are. They include the Awood Center, a Minneapolis nonprofit that has organized Amazon workers from East Africa; Warehouse Workers for Justice, which is based in Chicago; and Fight for the Future, a group that focuses on digital issues, in Massachusetts.
In a separate move on Monday, Fight for the Future and other groups called on Congress to investigate Amazon’s surveillance products, including the Ring front-door monitor and Rekognition facial tracking software. The products threaten “our privacy and civil liberties, especially in brown and black communities,” the groups said.
The effort against Amazon will not be easy, said Lauren Jacobs of the Partnership for Working Families, a coalition member in Oakland. Amazon is projected to have $238 billion in sales this year with 750,000 employees.
“This is a David and Goliath story,” she said. “David took what he had and turned it into a winning strategy. We’re taking what we have — the voices of the members of our various organizations, our collective knowledge and experience and deep understanding of the economy around Big Tech, and the experience we’ve had with making this company shift its behavior — and trying to build a more humane economy.”
Athena’s $15 million budget is modest for the scale of change it hopes to bring about. “This is grass-roots democracy,” said Barry Lynn of Open Markets Institute, a Washington think tank and coalition member focused on antitrust issues. “There’s no money in it. Just people.”
Mr. Perriello of the Open Society Foundations said updating protest movements for the digital era was an interesting challenge.
“Uncertainty is now baked into the model,” he said. “You don’t know where the fight is going to be two months from now or two years from now. So you need the ability to organize citizens of very different political stripes across geographies and across demographics, where traditionally you had to organize in place.”
The name Athena is associated with democracy, freedom and wisdom. But it has another advantage for the coalition.
The Awood Center, which has organized East African immigrants who work for Amazon, is joining Athena.Credit...Jenn Ackerman for The New York Times
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“We didn’t want to have Amazon in the name — People Against Amazon or whatever — because part of the strategy is to offer a better vision for how the economy could work,” said Stacy Mitchell of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, a nonprofit in Maine that opposes corporate concentration and advocates local community development. “To be for something, not just against.”
Sheheryar Kaoosji of another coalition member, the Warehouse Worker Resource Center in Ontario, east of Los Angeles, said Athena was not planning a boycott of Amazon but more interested in trying to sway it — including its employees and customers.
“Half the households in America have an Amazon Prime account,” Mr. Kaoosji said. “That gives them a huge amount of power to change the company.” His group is dedicated to improving conditions in what is sometimes called “the goods movement sector.”
The resource center is in California’s Inland Empire, where the work gets done to process those packages that appear on porches in Santa Monica and Newport Beach as if by magic.
Amazon workers and Amazon customers exist in two different worlds, the Economic Roundtable said. The report calculates that a little over half of Amazon warehouse workers in Southern California live in substandard housing. And for every $1 in wages, they receive 24 cents in public assistance.
“Every day, ships, trucks, trains and airplanes bring an estimated 21,500 diesel truckloads of merchandise to 21 Amazon warehouses in the four-county region,” the Economic Roundtable report said. It calculated that Amazon trucks last year created $642 million in “uncompensated public costs” for noise, road wear, accidents and harmful emissions.
Amazon trucks heading to a warehouse in San Bernardino, Calif. The Economic Roundtable calculated that a little over half of Amazon warehouse workers in Southern California live in substandard housing.Credit...Philip Cheung for The New York Times
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Almost as an aside, the report indicated how adept Amazon, with a stock market value of nearly $900 billion, is at getting funding from California and local communities. This included $25 million from the California Film Commission to subsidize six productions, including the third season of “Sneaky Pete,” an Amazon crime drama, and $1.2 million from the California Office of Business and Economic Development toward an office building in Irvine for programmers.
The report noted on its title page that it was underwritten by the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, which represents more than 800,000 members of 300 unions. The Economic Roundtable said that did not affect the results.
Among the report’s suggestions: that Amazon raise its minimum wage to $20 an hour, that it require its logistics subcontractors to do the same, that it provide child care at its warehouses and that it build affordable housing in its logistics communities.
The report draws on California Public Records Act requests filed with communities with Amazon facilities. Many of them nevertheless came up empty. The report noted that very little of Amazon’s business was known to anyone but Amazon. Communities are in the dark.
“Our conclusion is that it’s time for Amazon to come of age and pay its own way,” said Daniel Flaming, a co-author of the report. “This means paying its full costs to the communities that host it and the workers who create its profits.”
nytimes.com |
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