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'I Tried to Block Amazon From My Life. It Was Impossible.' (gizmodo.com)

Kashmir Hill, a reporter at Gizmodo, spent weeks trying to avoid and block Amazon -- and every service that is owned by Amazon or uses Amazon's web services (AWS). She went to great lengths such as getting her own custom-built VPN. Turns out, it is impossible to keep Amazon off your life. An excerpt from the report: Launched in 2006, AWS has taken over vast swaths of the internet. My VPN winds up blocking over 23 million IP addresses controlled by Amazon, resulting in various unexpected casualties, from Motherboard and Fortune to the U.S. Government Accountability Office's website. (Government agencies love AWS, which is likely why Amazon, soon to be a corporate Cerberus with three "headquarters," chose Arlington, Virginia, in the D.C. suburbs, as one of them.) Many of the smartphone apps I rely on also stop working during the block.

4 of 205 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Block AWS and... by Red_Forman · · Score: 3, Funny

    W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.

    Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who was washing Waldo Woo.

    FTFY, dumbass.

  2. Oh, nonsense! by CrimsonAvenger · · Score: 3, Funny

    Turns out, it is impossible to keep Amazon off your life.

    All you have to do is turn your computer(s) off and leave them off. And yes, your cellphone is a computer....

    Now, if you want to have the conveniences of modern life along with no Amazon, that's another story. Note that she'd have the same sort of difficulties if she tried to get completely away from the electric company....

    --

    "I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
  3. Color me surprised by GrumpySteen · · Score: 4, Funny

    A tech journalist can't avoid the big tech companies due to their career depending on using the technology those companies produce.

    Who would have thought?

  4. Re:If you think that was hard... by GameboyRMH · · Score: 4, Funny

    Yes who can forget the evil Linux megacorporation and their conniving CEO, Dr. Gnu Linux, charging their users so much that they can't afford to shave.

    --
    "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel