With the help of the public sector, the corporations take over people’s living rooms and bedrooms, regulate their lives and also determine what they have to do and not to do. This happens insidiously and people subconsciously but willingly accept it.
Inhalt / Content
- 1 Having something is not the same as owning it
- 2 Amazon sets a good example
- 3 Amazon slowed down for the time being
- 4 Amazon shuts everything off for customers
- 5 Injured sees problem in “overreaction”
- 6 The real problem is not addressed at all
- 7 Commercial separation of powers
- 8 It is what it is
- 9 Agiators introduce themselves
Having something is not the same as owning it
Possession is not the same as property and what you currently have can also be reclaimed from the owner. However, the fact that you do not automatically have to become the owner of an item after paying a purchase price has been shown for years by the business philosophy of the shipping giant Amazon. Even goods that have been paid for can be taken away from the owner, literally at the push of a button.
Amazon sets a good example
As a matter of course, Amazon handles this “flexible” ownership structure using electronic media such as music, audio books, e-books and films. All products are linked to a personal customer account. The customer selects the item he wants and downloads it, for example, as an e-book to read anywhere. However, the prerequisite for the usability of these electronic media is always an active customer account. Once this account is closed, the customer also loses the right to use one of these products. This also applies if these products have already been paid for with Heller and Pfennig. This is particularly bitter when Amazon’s customer account is closed because this company suspects, for whatever reason, that it could be an account with fraudulent intentions, or when the customer’s wishes go against the grain.
Amazon slowed down for the time being
In Germany, this seemingly idiosyncratic business practice has (for the time being) been dampened. The Higher Regional Court of Cologne (AZ: OLG Köln 6 U 90/15) has a from Amazon Europe Core S.á.r.l. clause contained in the Terms of Use is declared null and void. With this provision, Amazon claimed the right to “withhold services on the Site, terminate member accounts, or remove or modify content” if customers “violated any applicable law, these Terms of Use, or any other applicable contract terms or policies.”
It can be seen that there have already been numerous such “violations” by customers in the past, which prompted Amazon to impose such sanctions. The consumer center North Rhine-Westphalia has already received many complaints from Amazon customers because Amazon has threatened their accounts because of “too many returns” or account access has already been denied. In these cases, customers were no longer able to access products they had already paid for, such as films, music and e-books.
Higher Regional Court overturns Amazon clause
The Cologne Higher Regional Court is of the opinion that every retailer may decide with whom to do business without giving reasons, but this should not result in consumers being restricted in their rights. The judgment is final.
Amazon shuts everything off for customers
Another example in the USA shows how people are made dependent on corporations with the “brave new technology”. Again, the shipping giant Amazon plays a central role here. Based on the products used, this case can also be used in other countries, including Germany.
A homeowner, Brandon Jackson, has equipped his property in the USA with the so-called smart home technology from Amazon. The command center was the well-known “Alexa”. Although it became known in 2019 that Amazon unabashedly eavesdrops on conversations in private rooms via Alexa, records them and also evaluates them using entire teams, this small “spy center” seems to be unbroken in popularity (Süddeutsche Zeitung, 30.09.2019).
Here, too, the “obligation” to provide truthful information has been fulfilled and it is now up to the “consumer” himself whether he will continue to participate voluntarily from now on.
False accusation of racism
Jackson had ordered something from Amazon and the supplier also wanted to deliver this package. But the homeowner was not at home. Instead, an automatic announcement came over his door intercom. However, the supplier took this announcement as a racist insult. Jackson, himself a black man, said the New York Post reported that saying “Excuse me, can I help you?” was. The footage from the surveillance camera in front of the door shows that the delivery man was wearing headphones.
The Amazon driver then filed a complaint against Jackson for racism. Less than 24 hours later nothing was going on in the Jacksons’ house. The homeowner, who ironically works as an engineer at Microsoft, could no longer operate his smart home system. Neither the light nor other automated processes worked anymore. Alexa pretended to be mute, deaf and blind.
Shipping giant played judiciary and executive
Amazon has apparently seen itself as the moral executive and has not waited for the result of the actually official judiciary. The shipping giant has summarily blocked Jackson’s customer account. The connection to the actual “Alexa’s brain” was interrupted.
Jackson immediately contacted Amazon and learned of the allegations. After also unsuccessfully checking the other video and audio footage from other cameras for any racist remarks, Jackson contacted Amazon again and submitted supporting evidence. A promise of an “internal review” followed. All in all, it took a whole week for Amazon to breathe life into its “self-sufficient” smart home system.
Injured sees problem in “overreaction”
The fact that private companies are increasingly encroaching on end customers’ privacy with what is justifiably assumed to be voluntarily is one side of the coin. The other side is that this takeover of private life by private sector companies does not seem to be noticed at all by the customers concerned.
Now, in Brandon Jackson, an engineer at Microsoft, one such customer has been hit hard. Companies determine how he can live and act within his (supposedly) own four walls. But that doesn’t seem to be the problem for Jackson. Because, as he himself explained, this incident made him question his relationship with Amazon. “After nearly a decade of loyalty, I’ve had a stark reminder that a misunderstanding can lead to such drastic action,” Jackson said. For the Microsoft engineer, it makes more sense to “treat such problems more separately than to switch off all services across the board.”
Amazon spokesman Simone Griffin, when asked by the New York Post, said: “We work hard to provide a great experience for customers while ensuring that drivers delivering Amazon packages feel safe.”
The shipping giant conducted the internal investigation and concluded “that the customer did not act improperly” and announced: “We are working directly with the customer to address their concerns while also looking for ways to… prevent a similar situation from occurring again.”
The real problem is not addressed at all
At least the homeowner had this “great experience”, as long as this phrase has burned out. But the core problem has not been addressed at all, not even by the person concerned himself. Whether Jackson cannot recognize this disclosure of his privacy, his freedom of action, even freedom in general, or whether he is not allowed to recognize this as a Microsoft engineer, is an open question. At least Amazon does not have a unique selling point in relation to the takeover of private living rooms and bedrooms, but is in the very best of company together with Microsoft, Alpha (Google), Meta (Facebook), Apple and Co. One competes on the advertising space, but pursues the same goal.
After all, which user of an end device with a Microsoft operating system, a mobile phone with Google Android or a device with a bitten apple logo is aware that they are actually only the owner, but not the owner of the device and functions. The end customer enters into a commercial contract with his use. This means that the terms and conditions are accepted through implied action. And who reads through these library-filling terms of use? This carelessness of the people was also the prerequisite for the data octopuses that are omnipresent today.
Commercial separation of powers
The “fate” of the proud Smart Home user also clearly shows who now holds the one scepter in his hand, which was once designed as a three-part branch, as the legislative, judiciary and executive. The much-cited buzzword “Puplic Private Partnership (PPP)” appeared a good two decades ago. One of the favorite words of the former Bavarian Finance Minister Erwin Huber.
The part of the judiciary has also already been partially handed over to the private sector. If Facebook, Twitter (“X”) and Instagram are now stopped, so-called “fact checkers”, all private companies within a certain anonymity, and other “correction authorities” are supposed to clean the social platforms of “illegal” statements, then this would actually be a case for the judiciary. It would have to be clarified in a legally binding(!) manner as to whether there was a violation of the law at all. But one or two unnamed inspectors censor and sanction. Judiciary and executive in one.
When government and business (corporations) come together to jointly write the laws of the country (e.g. Deutsche Bank blueprint as a bill) and also divide the areas of responsibility of the executives, then this constellation has a clear name in the field of economics. This is called fascism. This is something completely different than what the media hammers into people almost every day. Just with the intention of pillorying this one of the worst systems in a completely wrong context, in order to introduce this system at the same time via the back door.
It is what it is
This is how a business dictionary describes it:
It is understandable that a Microsoft engineer would not even begin to question the seemingly fundamental practices of Amazon and his own employer. One is almost inclined to regard this incident in the USA as a cleverly contrived diversionary maneuver. The advance of capital power does not exist at all due to its complete hiding, but there is only a problem with the exaggerated reactions to misunderstandings.
Agiators introduce themselves
Concrete ideas of a brave new, digitized world have already been presented by the former Merkel government with the “Smart Cities” concept. The superordinate, i.e. global level of a world of “possessless but happy human beings” certainly plays with wide open cards and also has a face(Council for Inclusiv Capitalism).
But the same applies here as always:”We told you“.