In a WDR documentary is a bleak picture of the future: Displaced Amazon soon, all the competitors and know everything about the customers?

Christmas buy millions of German gifts on Amazon, often at the last minute. A strike by the Union.di scatters now a little Sand in the gears of Amazon. In the WDR documentary “the omnipotence of Amazon” by Martin Duke and Marko Rösseler it is all about the shadow sides of the Internet giant. It is a dark look into the near future, about a group is always more powerful.

The Thesis is the documentation: There will come a day that Amazon customers know better than you yourself. The Online retailer assesses the buying behavior of its customers in a systematic and a master of it is identify, in the large amounts of data consumption patterns. Perhaps Amazon would send soon, even products before the customers even be a need for it is clear.

Amazon “gigantic personality profiles” – create

the level of detail this is really happening, makes the network of activist Katharina Nocun. For the Research for a book Nocun a bought a year almost only on Amazon and looked at there are also many article. Then demanded that the Online retailer your data. Neyine Ultimately, she received a data CD, which will be printed consist of approximately 15,000 pages. “Amazon even know, when I was on vacation”, because the country and the network provider from which you are surfing on Amazon is saved. This Nocun has not looked on Amazon Prime series or movies. For the data guardian is the result of their Research is frightening: “Because you can really create a gigantic personality profile on someone.”

Professor Heinemann: Amazon boss Jeff Bezos has a “huge Power”

Similarly gloomy trade expert Gerrit Heinemann looks to the future with Amazon. The Professor at the Niederrhein University of applied Sciences conducts research on the vacancy rate in the German cities. “There are already many Small and medium – sized cities no longer can do your shopping in which we actually, really,” says Heinemann. Perhaps Amazon will soon be the only dealer, then stay left. The fire roll was already clearly visible on the horizon. The Problem is that Amazon have invented the trade through the analysis of Big Data recently, many other retailers are now trying laboriously to keep up.

The Oxford Professor Viktor Mayer-Schönberger fears of a dangerous concentration on the market. Amazon boss Jeff Bezos have now “a huge Power that allows him to press prices, terms, and conditions for the traders and producers. More and more Amazon also manufactures products and sells it under the name Amazon.“

expert fears that Amazon planned economy

Mayer-Schönberger is concerned that this could all end in a planned economy with an omniscient trader. The need to tackle the root of the Evil. “The only way is to force Amazon to make the data accessible to others,” says Mayer-Schönberger, so competitors and Start-ups. Otherwise, Amazon will have competition.

Additionally, Amazon is expanding more and more its offer. In the USA there are besides Online trading other Subsidiaries, such as books stores, the world’s largest organic market (“Whole Foods Market“), its own aircraft fleet (“Prime Air“), insurance, a payment system, film studios, and much more. In more and more areas of life, the group is expanding.

Professor: Amazon wants to suck the private life of the customer

economy Professor Shoshana Zuboiff of the Harvard Business School has described the development as “the age of surveillance capitalism”. Emblematic of this is Amazon’s assistant Alexa who wants to be omnipresent. This Form of capitalism can only live by that he wanted to suck the private life of the customer, in order to draw profit, Knowledge and Power. For Zuboiff he is even a “profound threat to democracy”.

Amazon says the analysis of the customer data

The documentary filmmaker also asked Amazon to comment, but received only written answers. “Information about our customers is an important part of our business,” said the Internet giant. This is but only a means to an end. “We use data to make shopping and our products make Amazon a better and more comfortable”

About plans for the future the company declined to comment. To speculate “instead of about the future, we focus rather on the things that will not change, certainly. For us, that our customers always want to get a wide selection at good prices with fast delivery.“

Here you can see the WDR documentary on Amazon:

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