The variance within the human being species has played a bigger role in our evolution than many think. Having hugely different perspectives on the table has not only helped us in honing our cognitive skills but it has also holistically influenced the way things shake out on an actionable frontier. In fact, without a sense of uniqueness around our thought processes, there is no way we get to where we are today. However, this exact versatility also has its fair share of downsides. At times, the human beings have shown strong tendencies to put their thoughts and interests over everyone else’s, and as you can guess, such a habit ends up setting a very lopsided stage. Worse still, we have enough evidence that suggests the said habit can very well take on a large section of the society, even causing the world’s dynamics to change rather irreversibly. To steer clear of what is a grave situation, the governments across the globe are constantly monitoring areas with wide access, and they do so while using established regulations as their blueprint. Tailored according to the needs of a particular area, these regulations are supposed to protect the different interests in play. Unfortunately, a well-intentioned setup of this nature is defied when one party tries to get more than they are allotted. Over the years, many big companies have been caught up in a dogfight against regulators due to similar issues, and it looks like the pile of these cases is all but set to have a new addition.
According to an investigation done by the Wired, Amazon’s inefficiencies in protecting customer data are far greater than anyone has been able to realize so far. The reports digs deep into how Amazon employees take advantage of faulty system to snoop into customer’s personal information, which includes entire purchase logs and search history. It’s not the first time that the e-commerce giant’s integrity has been brought into question. Only a while ago, Amazon was accused of stealing valuable third-party seller data to bolster the visibility of its in-house products.
As if the story wasn’t bizarre enough already, one former Amazon service representative, who spoke to Wired on a condition of anonymity, revealed that “he remembered his colleagues researching purchases from Kanye West and movie stars from the Avengers films.”
The scale at which these data breaches have occurred, and continue to do so for all we know, is alarming to say the least. Furthermore, it only gets grimmer when you learn how, during the antitrust hearing in 2020, Amazon’s founder; Jeff Bezos had refused to guarantee that the company’s employees were not accessing customer data. With pressure to take an action growing by the second, it remains to be seen whether the regulatory bodies are able to set an example out of the situation or not.