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Amazon Shareholders To Jeff Bezos: Stop Marketing Facial Recognition Tool (nbcnews.com)
A group of Amazon shareholders are calling on the company to stop pitching its facial recognition tool to local law enforcement agencies, writing in a letter to CEO Jeff Bezos that the technology could pose a privacy threat and a financial risk. From a report: The letter comes amid mounting criticism of the tool, called Rekognition, from privacy activists and civil rights organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union. The groups have raised concerns that the tool could be used to build a system to automate the widespread identification and tracking of anyone. Rekognition is already being used by at least one law enforcement agency, the Washington County Sheriff's Office in Oregon, according to a customer testimonial page. "While Rekognition may be intended to enhance some law enforcement activities, we are deeply concerned it may ultimately violate civil and human rights," the shareholders said in the letter to Bezos, a copy of which was provided to NBC News by the ACLU.
What a shithole country youve become USA. Bigly shithole!
Yep, he's a traitor alright. Lock it up.
Amazon is high on my list of companies who are evil greedy bastards.
As such, I fully expect Amazon to continue to be evil greedy bastards, and decide that profit outweighs not being evil greedy bastards.
It's OK, Amazon ... you keep being evil greedy bastards, and we'll keep remembering that you're evil greedy bastards, and when you being evil greedy bastards starts to lose you customers, don't whine and complain to us that you were just being evil greedy bastards.
Fuck Amazon, as a company they seem to not grasp basic shit like privacy, not sucking, and not being evil greedy bastards.
Stop flooding your entire Store with counterfeit goods. Also stop bundling everything with the now "more expensive than ever" Prime service. Does almost a 200 billion dollar a year company that has 40% of all e-commerce need to keep constantly raising its monthly charges? 40% freaking percent, please take a minute to think about that. When is enough enough and how big is too big. * I like my 2 day shipping and Fire TV but it doesn't mean I can't point out their issues.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
Genuinely curious.
They can (and already are) tracking our every move online, and using that info, can preeeeeeeetty much figure out where we are, where we've been and where we're going.
is 'rekognition' really that big a leap forward?
Sounds like a bunch of activists, who bought the minimum number of shares to be heard, demand something that makes no business sense and will get ignored by the actual shareholders.
But hey, they can pat themselves on the back for their public virtue signalling ... and reap the dividends of business decisions made by the adults on the table.
Operate at a (near) loss until you have a near monopoly (or at least a huge barrier to entry) and run out all of the competitors then raise the prices and boil that frog slowly.
It's just the new-ish way of doing things, uber, walmart, etc, etc. They all play this shitty game.
Also APK too. Thanks in advance! Luv ya!
Wow, a whole 19 shareholders wrote a letter to Bezos imploring him not to sell a face recognition program to law enforcement for millions. 19 shareholders that are probably some staffers from the ACLU or EFF who each bought a share of Amazon stock just so they could identify as "Amazon shareholders" in their letter.
They're the new walmart. Treat their employees like shit. Outsource their costs to the public (HQ2 anyone?). Undercut competition then raise prices. Turning into another shill for out of control Western intelligence spying. Committing outright fraud with their own condition guidelines and Amazon Warehouse Deals. As others mentioned, blatantly selling counterfeits (possibly fraud). Fuck em. I canceled prime this year for ethical reasons. I am not a die hard boycotter, however. If I MUST use Amazon for a few purchases a year I will, but I think if we all made Amazon our last choice, rather than our first, they'd get the message pretty fast.
Unfortunately the average American doesn't care, there was hardly any public outcry even after the Snowden revelation. We are also talking about a country that has tons of other issues going on right now.
If this was somebody with, say, more than $25 million in Amazon shares it'd have more resonance, and if was someone or some group with in excess of $100 million in shares it would have even more.
My guess is that the big money isn't at all opposed to this, in fact, they probably love it, although they would probably prefer it be developed for more consumer-friendly purposes so that it seems benign (ala Alexa) rather than immediately being turned into a dystopian police state tool.
All your corporate ethics are belong to stuff we fought against during WW II.
Freedom, Equality, Privacy.
This is what America stands for, and Amazon needs to do the same.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
If he doesn't sell them one someone else will. What possible difference does it make who it is? If I was a shareholder I'd want a piece of that very profitable action. If they really don't like it what they should do is OUTLAW the technology's use in the USA. I'm all for that. Plus the repeal of the fucking "Patriot" Act with it's FISA secret warrant secret court bullshit. Under a strict interpretation of the US Constitution it's not even legal but Judges like to interpret the Constitution the way they think it should have been written. This fake ass outrage over Amazon is ignoring the real problem which is that we have given way too much power to people in the federal government. They have been showing us for almost 2 decades that they are unworthy of our trust.
It's interesting that so many of the responses here are addressed to the standing of the group requesting this rather than on the merits of the request itself. It's almost as if the moral dimensions of technology are invisible to most Slashdot posters.
If a child's parents are criminals, then removing that child from their custody to ensure her safety is moral and good.
That depends entirely on the crime. A classic example from relatively recent history: if a child's parents are criminals for violating a law requiring them to turn in all Jews to their local SS constabulary, and instead they hide a family in their basement, they are of course criminals, but also highly moral and good, particularly compared to their neighbors who don't do so.
Citing the law as the be-all and end-all of what is moral is not only stupid, it's dangerous.
Fuck you and your comparison with the Jews in Nazi Germany.
The Mexicans who came to the US illegally have NO RIGHT WHATSOEVER to stay in the US.
Idiots like you are traitors. If you don't like the way the US is run, get the fuck out and don't come back.
The problem is that the majority of US sheepsumers don't care whether the companies they buy from are greedy and/or evil.
It's not that they don't care. It's that most have no sources they can buy from that are not greedy or evil in some way.
When all you can choose between are different evils you stop considering that aspect in your choices.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I sincerely hope you are just pretending to be retarded
Some Amazon Shareholders perhaps. If it was a majority of them, or even a 30% of the shareholders maybe this headling could pass the BS test. Whatever.
They use the same fingerprinting techniques on cars. No one gives a shit about their privacy anymore.
What percentage of Mexico are we obligated to take in? 10%? 20%? We could probably squeeze in all 127 million Mexicans in somewhere, that would surely fix Mexico's problems!