Gadgetory

welcome to the 359 I'm Ben Fox Ruben I'm Alfred Aang Amazon has a very generous return policy but even it has limits according to a story from The Wall Street Journal some folks have gotten banned by Amazon for apparently excessive returns Alfred do you find this story concerning I mean I think it's concerning that there's no like straight-up number like if you return like 20 percent of your orders or something like that then we'll Daniel will give you a warning or anything like that because from the story it seems like it's just like a straight-up like look you've been returning too many things we're gonna ban you so I mean I get it I know that there's like cases of abuse out there where people will order things and then like just immediately return it or something like that but you know I think that people should know like at least like how much they are able to return because I think well I totally disagree really you don't think people should have an idea Amazon came out with a very explicit return policy people would know they could hit that line like one returned prior to that or whatever and then abuse it to the to that level which is like obviously why Amazon does not explicitly state a return like appreciate a warning or something like that though because it's just like I I'm kind of worried about how much I'm returning now I mean I don't return that much but you know if I get something I'm wary of oh wait like what if this isn't like what if this is gonna get me banned off Amazon because there's a lot of implications of not being able to use Amazon yeah and the story mentioned something that I thought really was kind of lousy some guy had a Kindle and wasn't able to download new e-books because he got banned from Amazon the thing is is that he did argue to get reinstated and did manage to get reinstated it's also important to recognize that there are 300 million customers on Amazon which means that even a tiny tiny percentage of that getting banned to me that seems like well within the like likelihood it's a giant global company somebody's getting banned yeah I don't buy that just because it's so like when they have a massive amount like even if it's a tiny percentage that's still like millions of people like malware that hit like Gmail last year only affected point 1% of Gmail users but that was still like a hundred million people yeah if there are millions of people getting banned off of Amazon I would love to hear about that so if you've gotten been from Amazon please email me or send me a tweet I'd love to hear from you Amazon is selling its facial recognition software to law enforcement something that's raised concerns with the ACLU Alfred tell us a little bit more about this so this is Amazon's a facial recognition program that it calls recognition with a k' it's very inspiring what they've used it in amusement parks to to help like you know I lost children yeah right here it's fine like they're lost kids or anything like that but there's concerns about this technology being used by police departments mostly because you know they obviously have way more resources than your local Six Flags like Disney right but and they're worried that it could get abused yeah you know it would track like protesters or suspicious activity yeah that kind of thing but in general facial recognition software something that people should be worried about I mean yeah facial recognition software and police hat is something that you know it has been available for a pretty long time now but you know privacy advocates and just people like concerned with like technologies failures have always raised issues with that one of the bigger arguments is that facial recognition is not a hundred percent right all the time and if you're relying on this to you know solve crimes it does have a lot of dire consequences as if it has even like a 1% error rate yeah definitely a good point Mark Zuckerberg said sorry mark zuckerberg said yet another setting yet another hearing this time with the EU all part of his continued fallout with Cambridge analytical scandal so was anything new at that EU conference not by Mark Zuckerberg answer's no so the way that this conference worked this testimony worked was that instead of him answering the questions directly one after another they all asked the questions at the same time and then he tried to answer them all within 25 minutes it's basically trying to an answer an hour of questions in 25 minutes which doesn't work because he he tried to like bundle the answers a lot of questions about Facebook being a monopoly why Facebook shouldn't be broken up by you guys you want to read more about these stories check us out on Sina Ben Fox Ruben I'm Ashley shadow profile profiting thanks for listening and welcome back everybody thanks for joining us it takes me a minute to do these things I'm running a lot of switches in here outfits cool anyways thanks for joining a song yeah you're gonna dance more if you yeah if you just keep them on in the background sure gonna entertain the folks who focus at home for us no only the ones that work okay if you're watching this while you're in the office I wanted to mention something too this is so The Wall Street Journal has written more than one story related to customer returns they also had one last month about customer returns for brick-and-mortar stores this is there's this company out there called retail equation that a lot of retailers use and it basically tracks how many returns you do at a store whether you had a receipt or not and whether you like show up at the very last minute right before our stores about to close they create this entire profile about people and at some point you could get denied to be able to do a return if also you do excessive returns for those stores so it's important to recognize that this isn't just about Amazon there are a lot of return policies out there and I mean I've definitely returned stuff on Amazon though like if they've they've shipped me like the wrong thing like a few times yeah I mean like everybody's like probably return stuff I think the idea is like if you don't know the limit of it then like I'm kind of like I feel like I am like extra careful now about like what I'm ordering on Amazon just to make sure it's like what I wanted but even like I've ordered like USBC cables where like they sent me micro USBs hmm twice I told him you made a mistake which is totally fair I mean if they screwed up the order or it's damaged or whatever you absolutely are well within your right to return and I think that like if you're a regular customer you use Amazon regularly then you are not at threat for getting banned and even if you do get banned the story mentions that you can get reinstated by arguing your case there was one guy that Jeff Bezos it's Jeff at amazon.com after he did that he was able to get reinstated so I to me it seems like this is really focused on you know like the really serious or excessive abusers which with that many customers I feel like you know like of course that happens you have somebody's doing it seemed like I mean from the Wall Street Journal's story like from what I had read it seemed like most of those folks were not like trying to abuse it or anything like that are like the anecdotes that they had spoken sure to so that's a thing like how like how does Amazon like determine that you're abusing it because from those cases that were being made it seemed like they didn't they weren't abusing it yeah and a lot of it can be algorithmic which means some people will get trapped that weren't supposed to be and it's nice to see that people can get reinstated if you argue your case yeah so speaking of algorithmic errors you know with that in mind here's also this facial recognition program that we have use it to try to arrest people if you'd like I do want to throw out Amazon's comments because they gave us a comment specifically about the returns they said there are rare occasions where someone abuses our service over an extended period of time they went on to say that you know we we do this specifically to make sure that we can continue to have a generous returns policy for everybody so that's that's at least their point that I wanted to throw out there anyway let's get to questions yes let's take some questions right out the gate from Matthew dacher what does banning fully entail will it also kill a person's Prime membership drop their Alexa block them from video or is this strictly applied to the shipping aspect that's a good point I'm pretty sure it gets you thrown off of prime for sure as far as Alexa the story doesn't mention whether folks have an Alexa that like just just give em everything you'd need an Amazon account for yeah but you would need your Amazon account for Alexa which would be pretty miserable if you like operating your entire smart home and then you get I mean yeah I imagine because of the example you gave the person with the Kindle and like they couldn't get ebooks anymore I imagine kind of be the same scenario with like an echo and all these like smart homes I guess in that guard it's useful to consider that Apple probably won't ban you because what would they ban you from like you buy their hardware and then you use it iCloud I guess so they probably also have like some sort of returns policy to that people may or may not be abusing I mean like you know you buy too many iPhones and return them really quickly you know like it's just it's it doesn't surprise me that these companies aren't just like waiting for you to like return stuff constantly and we won't ask any questions about it so I don't know that's a good question about Alexa though I'd love to look into that that is a good question here's another good one from Mike Shaw some people abuse returns like buying a super awesome TV just before the Superbowl returning afterwards restocking fees try to deter that but it turns out to be just like renting for a weekend which makes me beg the question why has an Amazon just launched their own rent to center type situation I feel like that might actually be a beneficial industry for them to get into it's a good question I wonder if the shipping costs are just too much like if you were gonna ship out giant television and give an offer at a two-day shipping and then have to take the return on it you would have to charge a lot of money for it to actually work also are around a center is like still a thing I always love they just prayed on like people without money yes and yes so they they are still a thing and Amazon such a big company that I also like I wonder if they actually do have that service somewhere and I just don't know about it well yeah the facial-recognition service had was around for like more than a year and then like most folks didn't know about that mm-hmm yeah another question from spring joy I guess this might be related to the policy that allowed customers to keep the product and get a refund if the cost is below ten dollars I don't recall that I've never done myself yeah that's happened to me more than once like if I get like a children's book that wasn't the right one or you know like cables or something like that that are really cheap it actually is more cost-effective for them to just eat the eat the cost and not have you return it then actually like pay for you like to ship it and to return it this happened to me a handful of times I always wonder if they're tracking how many times that actually does occur and if at some point they're just gonna be like we see what you're doing and you know just give it back to us because we don't want you abusing this policy yeah I've always I that's never been like an automatic thing for me I've always had to like take it up with the like the seller like I have to send them a message saying like you sent me this in black when I wanted it and like red or something like that and then they'll just say oh just keep the black oh and we'll send you the right one and said yeah for me I think it's a policy specifically from buying from Amazon because they also have the marketplace where there are smaller sellers that sell on it and they all have different types of return policies hmm sorry I was knee-deep in coffee change gears over into Facebook syringe oi asks did Zuckerberg mention anything about GDP our I know Facebook is following their own policy revisions yeah so Zuckerberg mentioned that they're working toward and they'll be compliant towards it but he did not mention which one of the members of parliament did call him out on was the fact that they moved many of their users outside of their servers in like Europe which like would mean that they're not really like they're complying but they're not really like complying I guess is like the best way to say it um but he did he did talk about how Facebook is moving toward making sure that they're gonna hit meet the requirements by the deadline which is this Friday can you give us like a quick TLDR what's gdpr yeah it's the global data privacy regulation general Gen Y isn't it general there was something like that yeah but it's like right legislation that was put forward by the European Union so this isn't something from like the US but the idea is that every tech company now like has to basically change their privacy standards and they have to make it so like you're much more aware of what data they're taking from you like their privacy policy has to be a lot clearer that's why like everybody has been getting all these emails from companies basically hey we've updated our privacy policy the idea being that you know because like the EU such a big like part of their user base that they're just going to do it for everybody instead of like when the users in Europe or something like that mm-hmm well let's switch back over to Amazon real quick because I like this conspiracy theory from Alex Mitchell asking I wonder if employees send wrong things out on purpose to hurt the company since we have some pretty bad stories coming from the front line in Amazon that's an easy way to get fired I mean like if that actually that is an interesting conspiracy theory for sure I don't know maybe a witch hunt it's which I don't know no full-on response to that when you're just gonna let it hang uh I mean I don't really think it that is happening but it's such a big company and they have five hundred thousand people so to assume that like no employee has ever attempted to do something like that I think would be incorrect but that's really like such an easy way to get fired is like you're intentionally sending out the wrong stuff also at the warehouses like so much of the stuff is automated and double-check that it would probably be pretty hard to do something like that or like it would be pretty easy to get caught doing it so anyway that's that's my fuller answer okay if you say so I got a hot tip from my source at Amazon Beth J's owes I don't know where he is I don't know like what level how high up he is or anything like that but Beth jaysus is the primary he's never been wrong to me so nice all right back into Facebook also from Alex Mitchell I don't understand Facebook being called a monopoly I'm all against monopolies but Facebook isn't a necessity and it's completely free I guess making money on ads does make a difference could you maybe explain this a little more how Facebook qualifies as monopoly well I said it before it's not the only social network yes so the idea and they've brought this up in US Congress to where it's the idea that like Facebook really doesn't have that much of a competitor I mean you can point to Twitter but like you look at 2.2 billion people versus like 300 million yeah on Twitter and it's just like that's not really competition for them I mean like Mark Zuckerberg didn't even list Twitter as a competitor when they asked him to name like one competitor that was out there like he instead he named companies like Google and Microsoft and Apple which are not social networks but you know from from his perspective so his defense has always been and he mentioned this at Parliament yesterday to like essentially you know Facebook is not a monopoly people on the average person uses 8 different apps to like communicate online if you take a look at the App Store the top 8 most popular apps three to four of them like if you're depending if you are on iOS or on Android are all owned by Facebook so like let's look at it so there's Facebook 300 three billion people whatsapp Instagram arguably the second most popular social network which Facebook owns Facebook Messenger so that's already like four really popular apps at Facebook owns and I think that's the big argument that people make about Facebook being a monopoly where yeah and then now they're also trying to like take out tinder with their new dating service they tried to take out Craigslist with their marketplace they they own there and they have the user base to do that I mean like look at what happened with snapchat which could have been one of their biggest competitors and it was okay so just copy exactly everything what they do and I'll snap check still exists though yes one of the arguments that Zuckerberg made which i think is at least worth repeating is that from a advertising and a digital advertising perspective they're clearly not a monopoly they obviously are a duopoly with google in the united states where they get a lot of digital advertising revenue versus a bunch of other publishers and a bunch of other folks that add you know do ads online but the like there was at least one EU guy that was like look that's an understandable argument except if you if you have a monopoly on cars you can't say that like oh well you could take a bike or a train you know that still means that you have monopoly on cars which I thought was an interesting argument yeah I mean I guess I guess the argument like if we're going with the car analogy here yes Facebook doesn't have in analogy I mean doesn't have like a monopoly on all cars like they don't have a monopoly on all advertising but like imagine if like the most popular car company in the world also had like owned the most popular bike and train company - mmhmm yeah one of the other things that I thought was interesting that was mentioned in the hearing wise they like somebody posited this idea be like would you think it was a good deal he did not answer this question by the way they were like you think it was a good deal if we forced you to spin off whatsapp like you no longer own or control that company like he obviously didn't even attempt to touch that one but at the same time I you you saw all like the congressional hearings I didn't I was there was there like a big difference between what the European like what the tenor of that conversation was because it looked like a lot of them were talking about monopolies and breaking up Facebook it was like it was I wish they had the members of the European Parliament asking those questions with the US Congress format because like in this one it was like a lot of good questions but he doesn't have the time to answer it whereas in the US Congress like hearings it was a lot of dumb questions and then he had to answer every single one of them and it was like okay well that was a massive waste of time they were both like massive wastes of time for different reasons well that's good to hear so like one was like dumb questions and then the other one was dumb answers so and before somebody in the comments trolls with this show it was a massive waste of time oh cool no no no just it it's the rules of in before we've got to learn the internet no no I haven't figured that part out yet but okay thank you we are winding down let's take one more question and talk about recognition honestly I thought that there was some like new Russian initiative or something when is yeah that's actually my wake word so I'm gonna go off and do some spy stuff now see oh wow okay don't kill me first freight car APEC says that most law enforcement companies have their own very advanced facial recognition software so is this really concern and how this kind of superseded what they're doing at the local level I think it's it's a bigger concern because it's from Amazon the idea that like this is a mega like giant company that's helping supplied at the same time that they're also you know hey put this camera in your home that like will tell you how great your outfit is like they're not using any of the echo data or anything like that but I do think it strikes a chord with a lot of people that already have concerns about like the echo like listening in their homes and things like that well you said you got to talk to Amazon though and they told you that the information is siloed right they there's not like one central database No yeah so all the data that's in there like if I'm you know the Orlando Police Department I'm not gonna be able to match up photos of like potential suspects that like say police in Oregon has if you buy like if you use recognition it matches only the photos that you upload yourself that being said though like an the ACLU has made this argument to there's always like a potential for breaches totally especially with Amazon Web Services to where like that has been a major source of breaches from like companies over the last like five years now and the idea is every time that happens it's like it's never Amazon's fault because it's not like Amazon themselves got breaches the person that set up this ad AWS like cloud server they got breached so that's like another like major concern with this - mmm all right I think that's gonna just about do us for time today we have one more episode coming up tomorrow you guys back for this one or are we getting Joan on here sometime soon well invite Joan Joan we'll come back what you're getting sick of us what's happening yeah all right fine okay well all right the 3:59 is available on itunes - in that situation wait for the music we rehearse every day hey what can I can I do the outro we have rehearsals for this action and wait for the music and go the 3:59 podcast is available on iTunes tune institure Feedburner google play music and of course amazon echo the amazon echo and also of course scenic calm calm and we'll see you again tomorrow take care everybody see you tomorrow you