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Tag: Amazon

  • Amazon Now Officially Owns MGM

    Amazon Now Officially Owns MGM

    Amazon is now the official owner of MGM, closing its $8.45 billion bid to acquire the storied studio.

    Amazon announced plans to purchase MGM in May 2021, for $8.45 billion, to compliment its own Prime Video and Amazon Studios. MGM’s catalog and accolades include 4,000 film titles, 17,000 TV episodes, 180 Academy Awards, and 100 Emmy Awards.

    Despite some pushback, and investigation by the FTC, the deal has finally closed, nearly a year after it was started.

    “MGM has a nearly century-long legacy of producing exceptional entertainment, and we share their commitment to delivering a broad slate of original films and television shows to a global audience,” said Mike Hopkins, senior vice president of Prime Video and Amazon Studios. “We welcome MGM employees, creators, and talent to Prime Video and Amazon Studios, and we look forward to working together to create even more opportunities to deliver quality storytelling to our customers.”

    “We are excited for MGM and its bounty of iconic brands, legendary films and television series, and our incredible team and creative partners to join the Prime Video family,” said Chris Brearton, chief operating officer of MGM. “MGM has been responsible for the creation of some of the most well-known and critically acclaimed films and television series of the past century. We look forward to continuing that tradition as we head into this next chapter, coming together with the great team at Prime Video and Amazon Studios to provide audiences with the very best in entertainment for years to come.”

    It remains to be seen what impact the Prohibiting Anticompetitive Mergers Act could have, should the bill become law. The proposed law would give regulators the ability to undo harmful mergers worth more than $5 billion. Of course, the fact that US and EU regulators did not aggressively object to the Amazon/MGM acquisition would seem to indicate it was not deemed “harmful.”

  • Lawmakers Introduce Bills to Ban Mergers Over $5 Billion

    Lawmakers Introduce Bills to Ban Mergers Over $5 Billion

    US Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Mondaire Jones have introduced bills to ban corporate mergers over $5 billion.

    Mergers have become an increasingly major concern for lawmakers, in both the US and the EU. Big Tech, in particular, has come under scrutiny, with many mergers being viewed as anticompetitive. Various measures have been proposed, but new bills — Prohibiting Anticompetitive Mergers Act — by Warren and Jones may be the most aggressive yet, proposing a total ban on mergers over $5 billion.

    The bills would give the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) the power to block mergers without needing a court order. The two agencies would also be given the power to undo mergers they deem harmful.

    “For the last five decades, big companies have had almost free reign over our economy, squashing competitors, growing bigger and bigger, and abusing their market power to price gouge consumers and crush workers and small businesses. This unconstitutional behavior has to stop. My new bill with Rep. Jones would restore our country’s anti-monopoly tradition by banning the biggest, most anticompetitive mergers and giving the DOJ and the FTC stronger tools to enforce our antitrust laws and restore real competition in our markets. Congress needs to take bold action to bring down prices for families and promote a fairer economy for all Americans, and our bill would do just that,” said Senator Warren.

    “In 2021, our antitrust agencies received more merger filings than in any other year during the last decade,” said Congressman Mondaire Jones. “From major tech mergers between companies like Facebook and Instagram to agriculture mergers between companies like Wayne and Sanderson Farms, the recent rise in corporate consolidation has increased unemployment, suppressed wages, and allowed companies to hike up prices even further during this period of inflation. It’s why we need the Prohibiting Anticompetitive Mergers Act, which I’m proud to introduce with Senator Elizabeth Warren. Our bill would empower workers, raise wages, reduce prices, combat inequality, and enable small businesses to thrive. By banning the biggest, most anticompetitive mergers, overhauling the merger-review process to include consideration of labor-market consequences, and strengthening agencies’ tools to break up harmful mergers, our bill will tackle corporate consolidation head on and help build a fairer, more vibrant economy that works for everyone.”

    In just the last few weeks, Microsoft announced plans to acquire Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion, and Google is purchasing Mandiant for $5.4 billion. Similarly, Amazon is purchasing MGM for $8.45 billion. If the bills should pass, these deals could be on the chopping block, or undone after the fact.

  • Bipartisan Lawmakers Alert DOJ to ‘Potentially Criminal Conduct by Amazon’

    Bipartisan Lawmakers Alert DOJ to ‘Potentially Criminal Conduct by Amazon’

    A bipartisan group of lawmakers has contacted the Department of Justice over what they believe is “potentially criminal conduct by Amazon.”

    Amazon has been under increasing scrutiny for what some perceive as monopolistic practices. During investigation into Amazon’s practices, lawmakers believe some of Amazon’s executives were deceitful, intentionally misleading members of Congress.

    A bipartisan group of lawmakers — Jerrold Nadler, David N. Cicilline, Ken Buck, Pramila Jayapal, and Matt Gaetz — have written Attorney General Merrick Garland to express their concerns.

    Last Congress, the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on the Judiciary (Committee) conducted an extensive investigation into competition in digital markets. During that investigation, and in follow-up inquiries, Amazon engaged in a pattern and practice of misleading conduct that suggests it was “acting with an improper purpose” “to influence, obstruct, or impede” the Committee’s investigation and inquiries.

    The lawmakers also allege that Amazon has failed to cooperate by refusing to turn over documents the lawmakers requested.

    Without producing any evidence to the contrary, Amazon has left standing what appear to be false and misleading statements to the Committee. It has refused to turn over business documents or communications that would either corroborate its claims or correct the record. And it appears to have done so to conceal the truth about its use of third-party sellers’ data to advantage its private-label business and its preferencing of private-label products in search results—subjects of the Committee’s investigation. As a result, we have no choice but to refer this matter to the Department of Justice to investigate whether Amazon and its executives obstructed Congress in violation of applicable federal law.

    This latest issue could spell major problems for the e-commerce giant, especially if the DOJ follows through on the lawmakers’ request and launches an official investigation.

  • Walmart Brings Virtual Fitting Rooms to Customers

    Walmart Brings Virtual Fitting Rooms to Customers

    Walmart has upped the ante in its battle with Amazon, rolling out virtual fitting rooms for customers.

    Walmart purchased virtual fitting room platform Zeekit last year. The e-commerce industry has experienced major growth over the last couple of years, driven in no small part by the pandemic. Being able to virtually “try on” clothes is one of last big hurdles for customers shopping for clothes online.

    “One of the most frustrating aspects of shopping for clothes online is understanding how an item will actually look on you,” writes Denise Incandela, EVP of Apparel and Private Brands. “With Zeekit, our goal is to deliver an inclusive, immersive and personalized digital experience that will better replicate physical shopping.”

    The platform features a Choose My Model option, giving customers the ability to select the model that best matches their appearance. The models range from XS – XXXL sizes, and 5’2” – 6’0” in height. This will help customers get a reasonable idea of how an outfit would look on them.

    The platform is launching with 50 models, but Walmart plans to introduce an additional 70 in the coming weeks.

    “We have already seen a strong customer response to our Choose My Model experience,” Incandela adds. “The extraordinary, positive customer feedback out of the gate underscores our opportunity and ability to solve a common online shopping problem and build a true, personal connection between Walmart and our customers.”

  • Amazon CEO Andy Jassy Using Complaint Emails to Improve Service

    Amazon CEO Andy Jassy Using Complaint Emails to Improve Service

    Amazon CEO Andy Jassy is taking a hands-on approach, using complaint emails to improve the company’s response and better learn the business.

    AWS head Andy Jassy succeeded Jeff Bezos when the Amazon founder stepped down in July 2021. While Jassy was obviously very experienced and capable, running the entire company involves far more than just running its cloud division. Evidently, according to Business Insider, Jassy is using complaint emails to better understand the inner workings of the company he now runs, and improve its customer service in the process.

    A recent email from Visa tech chief Rajat Taneja, reporting suspicious activity on his Amazon account, is a case in point. Taneja emailed Jassy directly, who then sent it to his “escalations” team in an effort to resolve it quickly.

    “Can we help him asap?” Jassy wrote, emphasizing who the email came from and the close relationship between Visa and Amazon. “Could you pls email when resolved (hopefully today)? Thx!”

    Evidently, this behavior is not uncommon for the new CEO, with him reviewing a slew of customer support emails on a regular basis and getting personally involved.

    Jassy’s approach highlights lessons all CEOs can learn.

    • Jassy doesn’t consider responding to a customer’s email as something beneath him. Instead, he looks at it as an opportunity to better understand his business and improve customer relations.
    • Jassy is setting the tone for the rest of the company, and especially his customer support personnel.
    • By personally getting involved in the support process, Jassy is able to use what would otherwise be a negative experience as an opportunity to build closer relationships with strategic partners.

    Overall, Jassy is providing a case study in good leadership.

  • Amazon Elastic File System Achieves Sub-Millisecond Read Speed

    Amazon Elastic File System Achieves Sub-Millisecond Read Speed

    AWS has announced a major upgrade to its Elastic File System (EFS), achieving sub-millisecond speeds.

    EFS is at the heart of the AWS platform, and is used in a wide array of applications. As a result, any increase in performance can result in significant quality-of-life improvements for AWS customers.

    The latest announcement should be welcome to the company’s customers, with EFS now boasting sub-millisecond read latency.

    “Up until today, EFS latency for read operations (both data and metadata) was typically in the low single-digit milliseconds,” writes Jeff Barr, Chief Evangelist for AWS. “Effective today, new and existing EFS file systems now provide average latency as low as 600 microseconds for the majority of read operations on data and metadata.

    “This performance boost applies to One Zone and Standard General Purpose EFS file systems. New or old, you will still get the same availability, durability, scalability, and strong read-after-write consistency that you have come to expect from EFS, at no additional cost and with no configuration changes.”

    AWS began rolling the update out over the last few weeks, so some customers may already have noticed the speed boost.

  • Amazon Prime Going Up $20 to $139 a Year

    Amazon Prime Going Up $20 to $139 a Year

    Amazon is raising the price of its popular Amazon Prime to $139, a $20 increase over the current price.

    Amazon Prime is one of the company’s main selling points, giving customers faster shipping and access to a large catalog of streaming TV and movies. Given its price, at $119 a year, the service is competitively priced, given all it includes.

    Unfortunately, the company announced at its fourth-quarter earnings that it was raising the price to $139 a year, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Meanwhile, monthly plans will increase by $2 to $14.99 a month.

    “Since 2018, Prime Video has tripled the number of Amazon originals,” CFO Brian Olsavsky told analysts, saying that “the continued expansion of Prime member benefits, and the increased use we have seen, along with increased costs and inflation,” were contributing factors in the decision.

    Another major factor is likely Amazon’s deal to broadcast Thursday Night Football, a contract that is costing the company $1 billion per year.

  • ’Sold by Amazon’ Shutting Down In Agreement With Washington AG

    ’Sold by Amazon’ Shutting Down In Agreement With Washington AG

    Amazon has agreed to shut down its “Sold by Amazon” program, and pay $2.25 million, in an agreement with the Washington Attorney General.

    Washington AG Bob Ferguson launched an investigation into Amazon’s “Sold by Amazon” program. The program effectively amounted to price-fixing, as Amazon and third-party sellers agreed to a specific price, rather than compete with each other.

    Amazon has agreed to shut the program down, and pay $2.25 million to the Attorney General’s office.

    “Consumers lose when corporate giants like Amazon fix prices to increase their profits,” Ferguson said. “Today’s action promotes product innovation and consumer choice, and makes the market more competitive for sellers in Washington state and across the country.”

    The investigation is not the only such legal challenge the company is facing. Washington DC AG Karl A. Racine filed a similar lawsuit against the company, accusing it of using its “most favored nation” (MFN) agreements to price-fix.

  • Spotify Chooses Joe Rogan Over Neil Young

    Spotify Chooses Joe Rogan Over Neil Young

    Neil Young gave Spotify an ultimatum: Him or Joe Rogan — and Spotify chose Joe Rogan.

    Despite Spotify accounting for 60% of Young’s streaming music worldwide, the artist took the platform to task for hosting Joe Rogan. Rogan — and by extension Spotify — has come under fire for spreading misinformation regarding the COVID pandemic and various medical treatments, including vaccines.

    Young decided he could no longer stand by and do nothing, telling Spotify to remove his music from their service.

    “Spotify has recently become a very damaging force via its public misinformation and lies about COVID,” Young wrote. “I first learned of this problem by reading that 200 plus doctors had joined forces, taking on the dangerous life-threatening COVID falsehoods found in Spotify programming.”

    “I realized I could not continue to support Spotify’s life threatening misinformation to the music loving public,” Young continued. 

    The artist also took the opportunity to promote other platforms, highlighting the fact that other platforms have high-fidelity auto, something Spotify has promised but failed to deliver.

    “Many other platforms, Amazon, Apple, and Qobuz, to name a few, present my music today in all its High-Resolution glory — the way it is intended to be heard, while unfortunately Spotify continues to peddle the lowest quality in music reproduction. So much for art,” Young wrote.

    The artist thanked Warner Bros for standing with him, despite the hit their business will take from Young’s music leaving the platform.

  • Amazon SEO is Now More Important than Google SEO for Brands

    Amazon SEO is Now More Important than Google SEO for Brands

    Amazon has dethroned Google in product searches with over 54 percent of all product searches now happening on Amazon instead of Google. What this means is that brands must make Amazon SEO their priority in order to show up near the top of product searches for their related keywords.

    It’s predicted that an entire industry is in the midst of emerging to help companies adjust their strategies similar to what happened when Google first started to dominate search a couple decades ago.

    Walled garden research company Jumpshot released The Competitive State of eCommerce Marketplaces Data Report earlier this month which shows Amazon’s amazing eight-point rise in product searches in the last year alone.

    Recently, Deren Baker, Jumpshot CEO, revealed the latest results from their report in a Bloomberg Technology interview with Emily Chang:

    Amazon Leading Google with Product Searches

    We have seen a shift from Google to Amazon. Today over 54 percent of all the product searches that occur on the entire internet now occur on Amazon. Once you get into Amazon we’ve seen a strong growth in the number of sponsored placements that they put on their site. The product views that emanated from a sponsored click has increased from 3 percent to 7 percent in the last 18 months.

    We think that Amazon and Google are converging. We did some additional analysis at Jumpshot that shows that from the time a consumer searches on either Google or Amazon to the time that they buy was actually much shorter on Google. On Google, 35 percent of those purchases were made within 5 days, only 20 percent on Amazon.

    Amazon Becoming a Place for Product Discovery

    What you are seeing is that Amazon is becoming a place for product discovery for customers more and Google is shifting from pure product discovery to more of that considered purchase. When people are interested in understanding the price or the quality or the brand name they’re going away from Amazon back to Google now.

    Once you get to Amazon, 90 percent of the product views are actually the result of a search. So people aren’t messing around with merchandising placements or banner ads, they are typing a search for a product into Amazon and getting a search result. Once they get that search result we found that over two-thirds of the clicks are on the first page.

    Amazon SEO is Now More Important than Google SEO for Brands

    Imagine if you are a brand, you know that the majority of your customers are now searching for your product on Amazon. You know that once people get to Amazon what they are doing really doing is typing in a product search. Then once you get that search result you’ve got your competitors products, Amazon’s private label products, and you have to decide whether you are going to try and increase your organic results or pay for a sponsored placement. It’s a very confusing world for a brand today.

    I would not want to be a brand manager at a CPG company right now because I think you are between a rock and a hard place. I think what you will see in the future is the same way that an ecosystem of companies sprung up around Google search when it started to dominate peoples online behavior, you are going to see the same thing for Amazon search. What people are going to need is a non-Amazon source of information to help them understand what they are supposed to do and how they are supposed to spend their advertising dollars.

  • Amazon Pushes Its Own Brands at the Expense of Others

    Amazon Pushes Its Own Brands at the Expense of Others

    Amazon is being accused of pushing its own products at the expense of more popular, better reviewed products from other companies.

    Amazon is the world’s biggest e-commerce site, but the sellers that use it often have a love/hate relationship with the company. Many sellers have long suspected Amazon favors its own brands, something the company denied in testimony to Congress in 2019.

    According to The Markup, however, Amazon does favor its own brands, or brands that are exclusive to its platform, even if that means promoting them over other brands that are more popular or have more reviews.

    The Markup cites the example of Robert Gomez, founder of 4Q Brands, who worked tirelessly to get his Kaffe coffee grinder ranked in the top three Amazon search results. Gomez even paid Amazon $40,000 a month for advertising. Once Amazon introduced its own competing coffee grinder, and started carrying a partner exclusive, both of the competing grinders almost immediately started showing up in the top three search results.

    Further exacerbating the issue is that many listings for Amazon brands or exclusives are not explicitly listed as “sponsored,” despite showing up in the part of the site reserved for search results. This is also in direct contradiction to a statement from company spokesperson Nell Rona, who said the company adds “Amazon brand” to its own products. The Markup found that only 23% of the Amazon-branded products it researched had that tag.

    This behavior could land Amazon in hot water, according to Bill Baer, former director of the Bureau of Competition at the FTC, as well as former assistant attorney general in charge of the DOJ antitrust division.

    “If basically you’ve got somebody with market power that is restraining competition both in terms of site access or where things appear on the site,” he said, “that is potentially problematic.”

    Despite Amazon’s ethically — and potentially legally — questionable behavior, few sellers are willing to speak up. Blake Adami, VP of Government Relations, National Association of Wholesaler-Distributors, explained the problem to The Markup in an email.

    “Our members are still very hesitant to speak out against Amazon for fear of retaliation, even anonymously.”

    The Markup’s full report is well-worth a read, especially for anyone in the e-commerce industry, and illustrates why legislators are increasingly looking to crack down on anticompetitive behavior.

  • Amazon Required to Email 1 M Employees About Their Right to Organize

    Amazon Required to Email 1 M Employees About Their Right to Organize

    Amazon has reached a settlement with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) requiring the company to email employees about organizing.

    Amazon has drawn ongoing criticism for how it deals with employee efforts to unionize. The company has hired Pinkerton detectives to keep tabs on unionization efforts, and has been accused of bullying workers and violating labor laws at an Alabama warehouse in the lead-up to a vote on unionization.

    According to Business Insider, Amazon has reached a settlement with the NLRB, and one of the stipulations is that it must email approximately 1 million employees to inform them of their right to organize.

    The Teamsters had already created a division specifically tasked with helping Amazon workers successfully unionize. With the NLRB settlement, the tide may finally be turning against the e-commerce giant and its efforts to fight unionization.

  • Mergers and Acquisitions Set New Record in 2021, Led by Cloud Companies

    Mergers and Acquisitions Set New Record in 2021, Led by Cloud Companies

    Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) will set a new record in 2021, thanks in no small part to Oracle, Microsoft, and Amazon.

    According to The Street, the previous record for M&A was set in 2018, coming in at $1.55 trillion. Thanks to massive acquisitions this year, 2021 is set to blow past that, reaching $2.4 trillion.

    Cloud companies helped contribute a large portion of that total. 

    Amazon agreed to purchase MGM Studios for $8.45 billion in May. The deal is seen as a way for Amazon to beef up its Prime Video platform even more, enabling it to better compete with Netflix, Hulu, and others.

    Microsoft announced in April that it was purchasing Nuance, its second-largest acquisition. Nuance specializes in conversational AI for the healthcare market, an increasingly important industry for cloud providers.

    The latest major cloud acquisition was Oracle’s announced plans to acquire medical records giant Cerner for a whopping $28 billion, the largest acquisition in its history.

    Regulators have become increasingly wary of consolidation in the tech industry, especially with Big Tech buying up rivals. Despite the additional scrutiny, it doesn’t seem to have hurt the M&A market in 2021.

  • Intel and Italy Move Forward With Talks for $9 Billion Chip Factory

    Intel and Italy Move Forward With Talks for $9 Billion Chip Factory

    Intel and Italy are moving forward with negotiations to build a $9 billion chip factory.

    Under CEO Pat Gelsinger, Intel has been working to get back to the top of the chip industry. As part of those plans, the company has been investing heavily in new factories. The company hopes to not only step up its own internal production, but also wants to serve as the foundry for other companies, such as Apple, Amazon, and Qualcomm.

    Intel is already spending $20 billion on two new factories in Arizonabut, according to Reuters, the company is looking to build a $9 billion factory in Italy. Reports indicate the talks are intensifying, paving the way for Italy to receiving 10% of the 80 billion euros Intel plans to invest in its European production.

    The move will also help Intel, and the semiconductor industry in general, to lessen its dependence on manufacturing in Asia, potentially helping to insulate the supply chain from another pandemic-type disruption.

  • Amazon Appstore Issue Fixed on Android 12

    Amazon Appstore Issue Fixed on Android 12

  • Companies Race to Fix Critical Zero-Day Vulnerability

    Companies Race to Fix Critical Zero-Day Vulnerability

    Companies around the world are racing to patch a critical zero-day vulnerability that is among the worst ever found.

    Cyber security experts and government officials began warning Friday of a critical bug in “Log4j,” a Java-based logging framework used in Apache. As news of the vulnerability became known, the list of impacted companies grew to include some of the biggest in the world.

    Palo Alto Networks reported that iCloud, Twitter, Amazon, Baidu and Minecraft were impacted, to name just a few. Even worse, the vulnerability is actively being exploited and attacked, putting many companies at risk.

    The director of the Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) issued a statement outlining the seriousness of the vulnerability.

    “We are taking urgent action to drive mitigation of this vulnerability and detect any associated threat activity. We have added this vulnerability to our catalog of known exploited vulnerabilities, which compels federal civilian agencies — and signals to non-federal partners — to urgently patch or remediate this vulnerability. We are proactively reaching out to entities whose networks may be vulnerable and are leveraging our scanning and intrusion detection tools to help government and industry partners identify exposure to or exploitation of the vulnerability. 

    To be clear, this vulnerability poses a severe risk. We will only minimize potential impacts through collaborative efforts between government and the private sector. We urge all organizations to join us in this essential effort and take action.” 

    Cybersecurity experts are echoing CISA’s assessment of the danger, calling the vulnerability a major issue for the tech and cybersecurity community.

    Dr. Richard Ford, CTO of cybersecurity research firm Praetorian, told WebProNews the Log4j is even worse than other, widely reported vulnerabilities.

    “Praetorian researchers weaponized the vulnerability within hours and have a fully working exploit that we can use in the field,” said Dr. Richard Ford. “As background, Praetorian is an Austin-based cybersecurity solutions company that helps solve complex cybersecurity problems across critical enterprise assets and product portfolios. Their combination of software and security expertise puts them at the forefront of vulnerabilities such as this. Earlier this year, Praetorian was at the forefront of another critical vulnerability, proxylogon. The company says, as critical as proxylogon was to resolve, it had a much smaller potential impact than Log4j.

    “The company’s engineers and researchers have been working since last night in a war room to scan its customers and are finding vulnerabilities in the field. Worse yet, we’re also inadvertently discovering the vulnerability in 3rd parties who are on adjacent or integrated systems. Naturally, we are following responsible disclosure policies so cannot call out these systems by name, but it is one of the largest exposures we have seen at Internet scale. All vulnerabilities are typically scored by how dangerous they are: this vulnerability has practically the highest score possible, and it seems likely that even some professionals are unaware of its potential impact. The situation is rapidly evolving, and we are learning a great deal about the scope and impact of this vulnerability as we quickly work with customers to help mitigate the risk in the short term while they work on a long term solution, which will require patching all instances of the vulnerable code – a process which could take months.”

    Due to Log4J’s widespread use, experts believe companies will continue to come under attack in the coming days as mitigation efforts are being taken.

    “ This vulnerability feels similar to ShellShock, first identified in 2014, and still observed by GreyNoise,” Andrew Morris, Founder and CEO of cybersecurity firm GreyNoise told WebProNews. “Due to ease of exploitation and prevalence of Log4J, GreyNoise researchers believe that this activity will continue to increase over the next few days.”

  • Italy Fines Amazon $1.3 Billion For Antitrust Violations

    Italy Fines Amazon $1.3 Billion For Antitrust Violations

    Italian regulators have fined Amazon $1.3 billion for promoting third-party sellers that buy its extra services over other sellers.

    Amazon is the biggest e-commerce platform on the planet and, as such, serves as a gateway for countless other companies looking to sell online. Unfortunately, Amazon’s position as the market leader also makes it the gatekeeper for those third-party companies. The decisions it makes about which companies to promote can mean the life or death of a smaller company’s business.

    According to Italian regulators, Amazon has been abusing that position, favoring sellers that buy into its extra services over sellers that don’t. As a result, Italian antitrust regulators have fined the company $1.3 billion

    Amazon provided a statement to GeekWire disagreeing with the ruling.

    “We strongly disagree with the decision of the Italian Competition Authority (ICA) and we will appeal. The proposed fine and remedies are unjustified and disproportionate,” Amazon’s spokesperson said.

    “More than half of all annual sales on Amazon in Italy come from small and medium sized businesses and their success is at the heart of our business model,” the spokesperson added. “Small and medium-sized businesses have multiple channels to sell their products both online and offline: Amazon is just one of those options.”

  • Amazon SageMaker Canvas: A No-Code Machine Learning Service

    Amazon SageMaker Canvas: A No-Code Machine Learning Service

    Amazon has released SageMaker Canvas, the company’s no-code machine learning service.

    No-code is one of the fastest growing sectors within development. In fact, Gartner predicts that no-code development will account for 80% of tech products and services by 2024.

    Amazon is getting in on the action with its SageMaker Canvas, a no-code tool with machine learning applications in mind.

    “Today, I’m excited to announce the general availability of Amazon SageMaker Canvas, a new visual, no code capability that allows business analysts to build ML models and generate accurate predictions without writing code or requiring ML expertise,” writes Alex Casalboni, AWS Developer Advocate. “Its intuitive user interface lets you browse and access disparate data sources in the cloud or on-premises, combine datasets with the click of a button, train accurate models, and then generate new predictions once new data is available.

    “SageMaker Canvas leverages the same technology as Amazon SageMaker to automatically clean and combine your data, create hundreds of models under the hood, select the best performing one, and generate new individual or batch predictions. It supports multiple problem types such as binary classification, multi-class classification, numerical regression, and time series forecasting. These problem types let you address business-critical use cases, such as fraud detection, churn reduction, and inventory optimization, without writing a single line of code.”

  • Amazon Set to Pass UPS and FedEx as Largest US Delivery Service

    Amazon Set to Pass UPS and FedEx as Largest US Delivery Service

    Amazon is on the verge of a major milestone, as it closes in on UPS and FedEx as the largest US delivery service.

    Amazon may have started as an online book sales platform, but it has grown far beyond its origins. The company is now the largest e-commerce platform, the largest cloud provider and will soon be the largest delivery service, according to CNBC.

    While Amazon originally relied on other services to deliver its products, it has increasingly invested in its own service over the last few years. Dave Clark, Amazon’s CEO of Worldwide Consumer, told CNBC that the company expects to become the biggest service in late 2021 or early 2022.

    “We expect we will be one of the largest carriers in the world by the end of this year,” Clark told CNBC’s Becky Quick. “I think we’ll probably be the largest package delivery carrier in the U.S. by the time we get to the end of the year, if not in early ’22.”

  • The Internet Is Broke: Almost Every Major Site Experiencing Outages

    The Internet Is Broke: Almost Every Major Site Experiencing Outages

    The majority of high-profile sites are experiencing outages Tuesday afternoon, with no indication what the cause is.

    According to DownDetector.com, Google, Google Cloud, Amazon, AWS, Facebook, Instagram, Cloudflare, Spotify, Discord and other are experiencing spikes in reported outages. The reports range from a few hundred to tens of thousands of users.

    It’s still too early to know the precise cause, although some sites are already returning to normal.

  • Google Once Again Pursuing Pentagon Contracts

    Google Once Again Pursuing Pentagon Contracts

    Google is once again pursuing Pentagon contracts after employee activism put the brakes on its last attempt.

    Google famously stopped pursing a Pentagon AI contract three years ago when employees raised a furor. Despite the company’s past setbacks, The New York Times reports that Google is once again looking to do business with the Pentagon, trying to get in on the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability (JWCC) contract.

    The JWCC contract is the Pentagon’s replacement for it’s ill-fated JEDI contract. The DoD surprised the industry by initially awarded Microsoft the JEDI contract, despite Amazon being considered as the front-runner. Amazon challenged Microsoft’s win and tied it up in court long enough for the Pentagon to abandon JEDI and completely rework its requirements, leading to the JWCC.

    The Times is reporting that Google is making a play for the JWCC, a move that could help the number three cloud provider make major headway in the industry.