Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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

Posted by msmash on from the how-about-that dept.

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.

5 of 205 comments (clear)

  1. Antitrust concerns by footNipple · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Interesting article. Any US company that is so omnipresent in the lives of its customers and has an active corporate policy to crush or, at least, impede competition does indeed warrant a good look by the US Treasury Department. And I'm not a big government, anti-capitalist kind of guy by any stretch of the imagination.

    1. Re:Antitrust concerns by Aristos+Mazer · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I'm pretty sure that was Cornelius Vanderbilt's strategy with railroads in the early 20th century. I think the anti-monopoly laws of the era have some provision for dealing with it because control of the transport network (equivalent of the info network today) was a key strategy.

  2. Re:If you think that was hard... by poet · · Score: 5, Interesting

    If you remove Linux you can not:

    Run an Android phone
    Use In-Flight Entertainment
    Use the Internet AT ALL
    No Netflix
    No Prime
    If you drive a Dodge/Chrysler you can't start your car

    The list just goes on and on.

    --
    Get your PostgreSQL here: http://www.commandprompt.com/
  3. Re:If you think that was hard... by Obfuscant · · Score: 3, Interesting

    That's like complaining you hate your government and then complain you can't drive anywhere because you can't use the roads they built.

    I think that was the point he was trying to make -- Amazon has reached a level similar to government services.

  4. what a mind numbingly stupid exercise by zlives · · Score: 3, Interesting

    " largest cloud provider" then goes to show how cloud services didn't work without it?
    WTF
    its like complaining you can't shit after you sew your ass shut.

    Sorry about the vulgar language but the author clearly wants to converse in this manner.