[HN Gopher] A Tale of Unwanted Disruption: My Week Without Amazon
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A Tale of Unwanted Disruption: My Week Without Amazon
Author : josephcsible
Score : 79 points
Date : 2023-06-12 16:33 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (medium.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (medium.com)
| scrum-treats wrote:
| I hope that customer sues Amazon. Because in that info discovery
| phase, there will be sooo much that is revealed about
| surveillance mechanisms linked to "smarthome" tech (e.g., eufy,
| ring, alexa, roomba, thermostats) and Amazon. The world needs to
| know, beyond inference.
| Fernicia wrote:
| I'm not sure how/if you're inferring that from this incident.
| The ban was caused by a delivery driver reporting a racist
| doorbell interaction.
|
| It would have been better for Amazon if they reviewed that
| footage before acting, but it seems like they weren't able
| (especially because they asked to be sent it by the accused).
| scrum-treats wrote:
| This is "according to Amazon," akin to "trust me bro." We
| know Amazon will make up anything. Hence, lawsuit to discover
| the facts beyond Amazon's random email.
|
| Edit: not sure why this is downvoted as there is much
| evidence to confirm this position of Amazon willful omission
| of truth, and downright lying (e.g., "our employees don't pee
| in bottles" for warehouse and delivery employees, "this
| account registered too many returns" for accounts that show
| under 10 returns over multiple years).
| Fernicia wrote:
| Fine, you may have strong priors against Amazon, but don't
| act like evidence to the contrary is supporting your
| position.
| scrum-treats wrote:
| > Fine, you may have strong priors against Amazon, but
| don't act like evidence to the contrary is supporting
| your position.
|
| Apologies, however I don't understand your position. To
| me this reads as word salad.
|
| (1) There is no evidence to the contrary. (2) You've made
| a blanket assumption that I have strong priors against
| Amazon.
|
| If you could reword your statement I am happy to try and
| understand what your point (assuming there is one).
| interroboink wrote:
| This is just a drive-by comment from an outsider, but in
| case it helps you:
|
| When you say "We know Amazon will make up anything.", it
| comes across (to me, at least) as an over-broad
| statement. The sort of statement someone with strong
| priors against Amazon would make. We _don't_ know that.
| You cite some valid examples of Amazon being sleazy, but
| even if you listed 100 examples, we still don't know
| that. Examples just mean they have made up some things,
| at some times -- not everything, all the time.
|
| I imagine you were just using hyperbolic language for
| effect, but that's just my 2C/ POV, in case it helps you
| avoid being misinterpreted in the future (:
| PeterisP wrote:
| IMHO it absolutely does not matter what the internal
| investigation determined and how the doorbell interaction
| went, it is unacceptable to disable the purchased equipment
| no matter what - even if they were literally convicted of a
| felony. If a company wants to stop future sales to a certain
| customer, that's fine, but all past purchases should still
| work.
| Croftengea wrote:
| I don't think the customer would be able to stand against
| Amazon's legal machinery on their own. But EFF could be
| interested to take this case.
| bagels wrote:
| What cause of action?
| francisduvivier wrote:
| Interesting here how the HN rules seem to be a limitation. I'd
| say the fact that Amazon is using it's power in a very unexpected
| way should be highlighted somehow in the title.
|
| But because the original blog writer doesn't do that, current HN
| rules say you should not do that either. Instead, HN rules say
| you should post the original article and keep the original title.
| But in this case, by doing that you are effectively hiding what
| actually happened. This original title sounds so uninteresting
| that I'd say it would be warranted here to post the article with
| the title of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36294748
| lolinder wrote:
| I strongly disagree. That rule exists specifically to remove
| any ambiguity about when it's "warranted" to change the title
| and when it's not. The author's title accurately reflects the
| author's perspective on the incident and the overall tone of
| the piece.
|
| Changing the title to be more inflammatory would color the
| perspective of readers in a way that the author didn't intend,
| and would make the conversation on here considerably worse. HN
| is intended for curious discussion, not outrage brigading, and
| the headline rule is one of several defense mechanisms that
| attempt to keep it that way.
| boneitis wrote:
| > the Eufy doorbell had issued an automated response: "Excuse me,
| can I help you?"
|
| (No intent to discredit or argue against TFA's primary points)
|
| Maybe I'm misreading the.. tone? I think I'd be pretty (as in,
| very) mortified if my smart doorbell spoke this, let alone even
| have an automated response at all? (Although, I don't really use
| smart appliances, if that's relevant.)
|
| Or, when employing the automated response, I'd probably care to
| make sure it's fairly apparent that it's a machine, on a quick
| second-pass thought.
| desireco42 wrote:
| I had similar thing over something more sinister... I disputed a
| charge I didn't recognize on Amazon Store Card and Synchrony sent
| me a new card. I can explain about the charge but not super
| relevant.
|
| I thought all is good...
|
| Then I got an email weeks later asking me to pay this amount to
| Amazon, around $500. I told them this was squared away, I already
| paid using other means and thing is resolved.
|
| This dude from chargebacks demanded that I submit card they can
| use to charge and resolve this "order". Since I already bought
| the thing, I explained once and didn't want to respond more.
|
| Then everything stopped working like described in this post. I
| could log into Amazon but I couldn't access any of the pages.
| Kindle stopped working... that was the thing that I thought is
| too much.
|
| After few days back and forth, they restored my access, I had to
| call bank few times as this guy would disable and unlink my new
| Amazon Store card from the account.
|
| After that, all my books, endless purchases not being
| accessible... I decided to take a break for a little bit. Amazon
| Prime was due for renewal, so I didn't renew. I cancelled all
| subscriptions through Prime, once I was able to access it. I
| cancelled everything but Kindle Unlimited (sorry I just can't do
| this).
|
| So this is where we are. I am not shopping nearly as much, I use
| alternative stores, Chinese retailers get way more direct
| business from me.
|
| I am sure I will enable it, but I just don't have to do it
| anytime soon.
| peppermint_gum wrote:
| >Let me be clear: I fully support Amazon taking measures to
| ensure the safety of their drivers. However, I question why my
| entire smart home system had to be rendered unusable during their
| internal investigation.
|
| This attitude is the reason why this keeps happening. I don't
| agree that it's Amazon's job to police how I use my own device.
| marcod wrote:
| > I don't agree that it's Amazon's job to police how I use my
| own device.
|
| That's not what the ban was about. His account was banned
| because they wanted to protect their drivers from future racist
| encounters.
|
| Obviously, they should be very sure that something actually
| happened, before taking such a drastic measure. The minimum
| would be to at least hear both sides.
| OkayPhysicist wrote:
| That's exactly what the author wrote: They would have
| understood if Amazon had refused to deliver packages to a house
| where the owner threw racial slurs at the delivery people, but
| think that barring them from using their smart home devices was
| inappropriate.
| peppermint_gum wrote:
| The author said it's inappropriate "during their internal
| investigation". The way I understand it, he supports the
| actions of Amazon, but he wishes there was a presumption of
| innocence.
| [deleted]
| _a_a_a_ wrote:
| > This wasn't just a simple inconvenience, though. I have a smart
| home, and my primary means of interfacing with all the devices
| and automations is through Amazon Echo devices via Alexa. This
| incident left me with a house full of unresponsive devices
|
| @Author: If I put it to you that you made a bad decision a while
| back and this is the predictable consequence, what would your
| response be?
| plagiarist wrote:
| Seems to be along the lines of, "I am seriously considering
| discontinuing my use of the Echo device." I do not get this
| mindset at all.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| I would've ripped it all out after I got that email from the
| executive.
| hospitalJail wrote:
| I know code supposedly needs to be maintained... but I have so
| many FOSS devices around my house that I havent touched in
| years. (admittedly I do hobbyist embedded, so its not like you
| can get much of this stuff off the shelf)
|
| Meanwhile my $20 Wyze security camera has gotten worse over the
| years with all the updates, fees, reduction in features, etc...
|
| On a similar note, it seems my Nest continues to lie about the
| temperature, seemingly worse than ever.
|
| Its interesting how often buying the mainstream product gets
| punished, but DIY is robust.
| teddyh wrote:
| > _This incident has led me to question my relationship with
| Amazon. After nearly a decade of loyalty, I've been given a harsh
| reminder that a misunderstanding can lead to such drastic
| measures._
|
| "'I never thought leopards would eat MY face,' sobs woman who
| voted for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party."
|
| --
| <https://twitter.com/cavalorn/status/654934442549620736?lang=...>
| namaria wrote:
| Seriously, automating your home around a single point of
| failure that depends on servers you don't control is a very
| brittle approach.
| teachrdan wrote:
| To be fair, Amazon's servers have better uptime than mine.
| marcod wrote:
| It's really not that bad.
|
| I use Amazon Echo to turn on/off my lights. If my home
| automation doesn't work, I can still just use the light
| switch to turn them off and then they will come on.
|
| Or if there is an Amazon issue, I can use the app of the bulb
| manufacturer instead. It's a convenience feature and if it
| doesn't work, it's a minor inconvenience.
|
| Many of us would be much more screwed if something happened
| to our Google or Apple account... and that same story of
| erroneous bans have happened to many people.
| JohnFen wrote:
| Deeply relying on any service provider for anything puts you
| in a very vulnerable position regardless of how excellent
| that provider is. Things change, company priorities shift,
| companies get acquired by other companies, go out of
| business, etc. Current performance is not a guarantee of
| future performance.
|
| Sometimes, you have to accept that vulnerability. I have
| exactly one option for getting electrical service, for
| example. But in general, people should avoid this sort of
| arrangement to the greatest degree possible.
|
| Especially for something where there are tons of other
| options, like home automation.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| @dang this should be merged with
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36294748 which was flagged
| for being vlog spam to this article. Or maybe just change the
| link on that one.
| richardboegli wrote:
| Hi dec0dedab0de,
|
| @ don't work on this site.
|
| If you need to get dang's attention, email hn@ycombinator.com
|
| When I saw your comment that's what I did.
|
| Thanks.
| jstarfish wrote:
| > However, I question why my entire smart home system had to be
| rendered unusable during their internal investigation. It seems
| more sensible to impose a temporary delivery restriction or
| purchasing ban on my account.
|
| Ah, Amazon: the paragon of social justice. Racist dollars are
| still green.
|
| This is up there with the FLDS hating the federal government
| sooooo much, they signed everybody they could up for food stamps.
| To "bleed the beast," of course.
| AJ007 wrote:
| I wouldn't touch any of that Amazon smart home stuff after how
| many employees had access to Ring and Alexa data.
| shever73 wrote:
| I am happy to be completely Amazon-free (apart from using web
| services hosted on AWS). I can't express in strong enough terms
| how much of a privacy nightmare and how utterly invasive Echo
| devices are.
| dec0dedab0de wrote:
| This is awful, I'm glad that the victim wasn't actually saying
| something racist, because it would be too risky to defend them.
|
| But companies should not be allowed to arbitrarily cut off access
| to purchased products like this. Especially when they are
| designed to be integral to day to day life. I think this practice
| should be illegal, even if they did say horrible things, attacked
| the driver, and set fire to amazons headquarters. It is simply
| unacceptable under any circumstance.
| 40yearoldman wrote:
| At a minimum, If somebody invest in such an ecosystem and is
| banned from it, the company should have you buy back the
| equipment at original retail value. This is just a start. There
| has to be some monetary penalty for the company to nudge them
| into less flipped reactions.
|
| I also think there maybe should be blowback for false
| accusations on people who report them. Basically. You better
| damn well be sure you head what you heard. It's becoming to
| easy to yell racist run away and ruin somebody's life.
|
| A secondary of this is the media. We keep saying there are
| racist everywhere. Even Biden said the biggest problem America
| has is white supremacy. People are going to find a racisim with
| out without it one actually existing.
| civilitty wrote:
| _> Even Biden said the biggest problem America has is white
| supremacy._
|
| That was in the context of domestic terrorism:
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/05/14/biden-
| whi...
|
| The FBI has been warning about the growing threat since at
| least Trump's term.
| no_wizard wrote:
| Even before Trump, the FBI was publishing warnings about
| white supremicists[0] in law enforcement being a great
| domestic threat. I wish I could find the full report, but
| they've been talking about it for decades.
|
| The run up to Trump, his presidency, and now his decline
| are definitely adding enormous fuel to the fire. Doesn't
| help Republicans now see white supremacists as a voting
| bloc they can manipulate.
|
| [0]: https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/sites/default/files/document
| s/qxf5...
| plagiarist wrote:
| It is not normal, well adjusted people who are online writing
| that we need a "bloodier Waco" simply because a criminal is
| being indicted, it is white supremacists. Biden was right.
|
| Whose life has been ruined by a single false accusation of
| racism? Racism absolutely does exist, unfortunately.
|
| That weird digression aside, yeah. People are spending money
| on content that can be taken away on a whim, or basing much
| of their lives around email platforms that can deactivate
| their accounts at any moment. There should be stronger legal
| protections.
| mym1990 wrote:
| Racism IS everywhere, and most of it happens subconsciously.
| No one wants to look in the mirror and admit that an action
| they took was racist, and the prevalence of false positives
| are probably very much outweighed by false negatives.
| atleastoptimal wrote:
| It's still worse in my opinion to accuse an innocent person
| falsely of racism than to fail to catch a non-violent act
| of racism, especially when the definition of what is
| "racist" seems to change depending on the person you ask.
| jstarfish wrote:
| > I also think there maybe should be blowback for false
| accusations on people who report them. Basically. You better
| damn well be sure you head what you heard. It's becoming to
| easy to yell racist run away and ruin somebody's life.
|
| You can't punish "false" accusations without silencing people
| from making _any_ accusation out of fear lack of
| substantiation will be interpreted as _false_. We can 't say
| that the driver did this maliciously; he may well have heard
| what he thought he did. The driver isn't the problem; he was
| aggrieved and reported it, as he was entitled to.
|
| Tampering with someone's thermostat because you were
| entrusted with access to it and later decided you don't like
| them is sociopathic, and every bit as monstrous as deploying
| ransomware in a fucking hospital. I guarantee you no
| diligence was done to prevent collateral damage. More than
| the driver (blameless) or Amazon itself, this particular
| executive needs to be taken to task for such recklessness.
| Interfering with life support or communications systems is
| just fucked; we do that shit as acts of sabotage during _war_
| , and it's domestic violence when it occurs between spouses.
| Even your utility company needs to give advance notice of
| termination.
|
| Yahoos acting on bad intel one too many times and punishing
| the innocent is literally what instigated Black Lives Matter.
| The irony is lost on Unnamed Amazon Executive.
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(page generated 2023-06-12 23:01 UTC)