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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.
Amazon is a private company. It shouldn't be mandatory to use it to access any govt service. Period.
My library uses Overdrive to lend ebooks. This ties into the Amazon Kindle app, which tracks reading more than any other reading app commonly used. Fortunately, my library also does interlibrary loans, so I can get the real books too. It is less convenient, but doesn't have Amazon.
I've been blocking AWS networks from inbound connects to our internet servers for about a decade now after they were first used to attack. Other VPS providers, most of Russia, China, and a few other countries have been blocked too. Only about 30K firewall rules today. We are a local service provider, not really interested in working outside our metro area, much less outside our state.
Outbound, we block much of Google, as much of all the social network that we can and Microsoft - microsoft.com attacked our corporate IPs around 2008. We keep the public information IPs separate from the back office IPs, even using a different name and billing/contact address.
I've found that whenever people like you suggest that something is stupid, it is usually because they have something to gain. I'm guessing you host your crap on AWS or Azure or Google's cloud or DO or one of the 20,000 other VPS providers from which a cheap VPS can be used to attack others? Yes?
Personally, I have my head shoved up Amazon's ass pretty far. I have a financial relationship with them, unlike the relationships demanded by FB, TW, GOOG, Insta-whatever, Photo or MSFT. Those companies take my data without permission, without my approval, and without me opting in at any level. There needs to be a law.
I've already been corrected by Professor Smartass, dumbass.