Amazon Fires Employees for Leaking Internal Data

AlphaAtlas

[H]ard|Gawd
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The Wall Street Journal claims that Amazon has fired "several employees" for selling company data to independent merchants. According to Kitguru's interpretation of the report, the workers allegedly sold user email addresses, unbanned accounts, and deleted negative reviews for money, and merchants who bought the company data used it to "manipulate customer perception and target advertisements." The problem is particularly rampant in China and India, and customer support employees in those countries are allegedly getting their access to sensitive data revoked. Fortunately, Amazon is appears to be coming down hard on the practice, as they have with other forms of fraud and abuse that plagued their storefront in the past.

Getting an Amazon seller onto your side is not cheap, as payments were expected to range between $80 and $2,000. On average, bad reviews were often removed in bulks of five for approximately $300 per transactions. "We have zero tolerance for abuse of our systems and if we find bad actors who have engaged in this behaviour, we will take swift action against them, including terminating their selling accounts, deleting reviews, withholding funds, and taking legal action," exclaims an Amazon spokesperson. "We are conducting a thorough investigation of these claims."
 
Amazon is upset they are not getting a cut of the money. Isn't that what Facebook and Amazon do? Sell data to who ever pays.
 
I remember reading something similar to this on [H] some time ago. Not surprised this resurfaced / happened again. How much is a CS person making in India or China? Not surprised.
 
How much is a CS person making in India or China? Not surprised.

In their countries, they are being paid well above the "minimum/average wage" -- this is not a job digging ditches in that part of the world.
They just went for it, because of lax oversight, and sheer greed. Simple as that.
 
I'm surprised they got fired... I would have though they would get promoted and transferred to marketing.
 
They should be publically lashed too.
I'm actually quite ok with criminal and/or civil charges to put them into financial ruin.

While apparently Amazon (and everyone else) uses personal data and what not for financial gain, that is due to the company and our agreeing to obscure ToS contracts with THE COMPANY, not any individual inside the company. As a result that's simply theft from us as well as Amazon.
 
I'm actually quite ok with criminal and/or civil charges to put them into financial ruin.

While apparently Amazon (and everyone else) uses personal data and what not for financial gain, that is due to the company and our agreeing to obscure ToS contracts with THE COMPANY, not any individual inside the company. As a result that's simply theft from us as well as Amazon.
Comic exaggeration...but they won't be getting any references from Amazon makes for an awkward space on their resumes...who knows what, if any, other consequences they will face.
 
Amazon is upset they are not getting a cut of the money. Isn't that what Facebook and Amazon do? Sell data to who ever pays.

No shit. That’s (one of) their commodity. Think the electric company would want their fair cut of someone was stealing their electric?
 
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