In three weeks is Christmas. And because fewer people want to push their way through the busy shopping streets, let the gifts for your loved ones delivered directly to your home. In General, the Amazon done. The group from Seattle is in Germany, the market leader in online trading. It offers millions of products that can be conveniently delivered in just a few clicks, sometimes even on the same day.
But with each order, Amazon is not our money, but something much more valuable: data. Why the group is so eager to learn as much as possible about its customers, shows the Film “the omnipotence of Amazon” by Martin Duke and Marko Rösseler, which will be broadcast tonight in the WDR (22.10 PM).
“people are more predictable, as we
faith,” “A group that knows us better than we know ourselves? Of the wish fulfilled, before we have you in mind? We will soon be living in this beautiful Amazon-world,” questions the filmmaker at the beginning. Just to give the answer briefly: so far we are not there yet, but we are well on the way there. In the Film, several experts come to Berger, one of the critics of Viktor Mayer-is-beautiful. He is a Professor of Internet Governance at Oxford, so, what the IT giant to start with data. He says: “In this age of Amazon is at the very front.”
The group collect all the data he could get, so the expert. Every click reveals something about the customer: What is the device he uses to go Shopping, to buy what time of day he preferred, what products he has viewed, what are the prices compared? We have all of these behavior patterns from us to collect and to analyse, although we would agree to such a thing in real life, never. For one thing, we notice nothing of it. On the other, because we also draw benefits from it.
Because of all this data, Amazon is trying to figure out which products best for the customer. Probably everyone knows the “people who bought this are also interested in”box. “For many consumers, this is something Great, something Good. It is therefore not surprising that, allegedly, 30 percent of its sales arise from the recommendations. We humans are more predictable than we actually believe,” says Mayer-Schönberger. Machines would recognize patterns much faster and accurate than people. “That allows, to recognize preferences, of which we knew ourselves, when we have you.”
Amazon, a Allmachts group?
The Internet activist and author, Katharina Nocun sees, it is also critical that the companies pushing ever deeper into our private lives. Amazon about is no longer just a shopping platform. The group sold, in the meantime, insurance companies, operates a Film-, series – and music-streaming service, Cloud Server, and provides in some German cities, even fresh food. Amazon is growing in all areas of life, and also to the attention of the EU competition Commission.
“companies like Amazon have a very large interest in it, find out when a new child into a family is born, because that is a point, in the a family incredibly changed a lot. Who can make it there, to place a product, has won a new long-term customers,” explains Nocun.
Alexa is a harbinger of a new capitalism
the more moderate positions of Andreas is Andreas Weigend. He worked at the beginning of the 2000s, even as the chief scientist at Amazon, in the meantime, he is a sought-after expert in the field of data analysis. He is a member of the Digitalrat of the Federal government. Weigend says we do not need to bypass in the future, be more economical with data, but more for the data produced.
Quite different, it looks the American economist Shoshana Zuboff. You see, especially in the voice assistant, Alexa, and the corresponding Echo devices there is a danger: “What we deliver with our voice, is priceless.” The ubiquitous “Alexa” was the harbinger of a new kind of capitalism: “we believe We are customers, but actually, we are the raw material.” Zuboff refers to the surveillance of capitalism as a “rogue capitalism”: “He lives from our private lives to suck, to draw profit for himself.” The price for this future is “the loss of our freedom, of our social bonds, of our democracy.”
Dystopian future
The man is always dwindles glass, variety, more and more services are controlled by always few companies: Martin Duke and Marko Rösseler sign in with your Film in a dystopian future. If the world develops so pessimistic as to see it is here, it will show. The authors deal with more on the risks and less with the opportunities offered by the technology. This is a shame for all the justified criticism.
Some aspects of the rain but to Think: data is only dangerous if they are centrally controlled by a Power? Privacy is more important than convenience? We underestimate how well the System knows us?
The Film “omnipotence Amazon” to be running on the 05. December in the WDR
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