Workers at Amazon went to strike Black Friday demanding higher pay and better working conditions.
The strike is expected to through so-called Cyber Monday, the end of long holiday weekend in which retailer offer discounts to shopper ahead of the Christmas shopping season.
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Jeff Bezos, founder and chairman of Amazon, congratulated President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday for an “extraordinary political comeback and decisive victory” after he defeated Vice President Kamala Harris.
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Amazon announced Tuesday that it will invest another $2.2 billion in its Housing Equity Fund to create more than 21,000 new affordable housing units in Nashville and two other of its hometown communities.
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New internal emails from Amazon reveal that the tech giant ultimately censored books discussing the topic of Chinese Coronavirus vaccines after being pressured to do so by the Biden Administration.
As reported by the New York Post, the emails and other documents were released by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) on Monday in a series of posts on X, which Jordan referred to as “The Amazon Files.” The communications were obtained by a subpoena from the House Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, which was established with the purpose of exposing abuse of federal powers to target political opponents, including collusion between the government and private sector entities such as Big Tech.
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The House Judiciary Committee and the Weaponization subpanel on Monday revealed internal documents secured via the subpoena of Amazon, highlighting the Biden administration’s efforts to address “propaganda” and “misinformation” in books the online retailer sold.
Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan outlined the effort in an X thread reminiscent of the “Twitter Files” reports that addressed federal involvement with that platform.
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The Federal Trade Commission and 17 state attorneys general sued Amazon on Tuesday for allegedly using its power as a monopoly to illegally block competition and inflate prices.
“The complaint alleges that Amazon violates the law not because it is big, but because it engages in a course of exclusionary conduct that prevents current competitors from growing and new competitors from emerging,” the FTC said in an announcement about the complaint against Amazon.
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According to the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development (TDLWD), the Volunteer State’s unemployment level remains historically low.
In August, the state hit an all-time low seasonally adjusted unemployment rate of 3.1 percent, according to a release from the department.
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Amazon will hire 250,000 seasonal workers this year to meet holiday demand, including 7,600 in Tennessee, according to several reports.
According to WVLT, 1,000 employees will be hired to work in Knoxville and Blount County.
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The online shopping industry, and the multi-billion dollar logistics and distribution network at its core, depend on Pennsylvania’s roads, land and workers for its warehouses.
And yet, environmental groups say that zoning ordinances for these facilities fall short, leaving the state’s land, air and water vulnerable to destruction.
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A new online marketplace that promotes itself as a conservative and patriotic alternative to Amazon is preparing to ring the bell on the New York Stock Exchange and take the company public.
According to the Daily Mail, the San Diego-based PublicSq, which first launched in August of 2022, has already drawn the support of prominent America First figures such as Donald Trump Jr. and former Arizona Senate nominee Blake Masters. The company plans to attract more investors by highlighting its status within the so-called “parallel economy” of conservative alternatives to larger, left-wing businesses, according to excerpts from an investor call on Tuesday.
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A woman from Atlanta has been sentenced to 16 years in federal prison for stealing more than $9.4 million from Amazon while employed as a manager for the company.
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ByteDance, the CCP-linked parent company of popular shortform video platform TikTok, is trying to enter the book publishing industry, The New York Times reported Saturday.
The company filed in late April for a U.S. trademark for a publishing firm, 8th Note Press, and has already begun reaching out to some independent authors for the rights to sell their books, the NYT reported. TikTok has helped some books become bestsellers in the past several years, posts using the #Booktok hashtag have been viewed more than 91 billion times and the combined sales of 100 authors with large BookTok followings eclipsed $760 million in 2022, a 60% surge from the year prior.
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The Federal Trade Commission sued Amazon on Wednesday alleging the online retailer used “manipulative, coercive, or deceptive” practices to get customers to enroll in Prime subscriptions.
The Federal Trade Commission’s partially-redacted complaint alleges the company tricked millions of people into enrolling in Amazon Prime. Amazon Prime, a $139 annual subscription service that has fueled the company’s growth and made it part of many Americans daily routines.
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Amazon has reportedly been in talks with wireless carriers about offering low-cost or potentially free nationwide mobile phone service to Prime subscribers.
According to Bloomberg, Amazon has been in contact with Verizon Communications Inc., T-Mobile US Inc. and Dish Network Corp to negotiate low wholesale prices.
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A new database shows that some of Americans’ favorite companies—such as Airbnb, Amazon, and Disney—disregard religious freedom and free speech.
Alliance Defending Freedom, a legal organization devoted to protecting religious freedom and other First Amendment rights, joined with Inspire Insight, an investment tool that provides data on the religious values of companies, to produce the second annual Business Index ranking companies by Viewpoint Diversity Score.
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A new bill to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour is emerging in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives.
Sponsored by Representative Patty Kim (D-Harrisburg), the bill as described in a memorandum appears similar to legislation Senator Dan Laughlin (R-Erie) is spearheading in his chamber. It contrasts with a more radical measure authored by Representative Chris Rabb (D-Philadelphia) that would hike the wage floor to $16.50 in July 2025 and gradually increase it to $21 by mid-2028. The Rabb bill would also apply the state minimum wage to prisoners, vastly boosting their pay.
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After obtaining a secret audio recording from a far-left Saturday activist planning session in Nashville, The Tennessee Star can reveal locations wherein left-wing agitators plan to wreak havoc during August’s special session of the Tennessee General Assembly.
Those locations include Amazon’s Nashville office, the Lee Company, owned by Gov. Bill Lee (R), and the Metro Council.
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Google announced on Wednesday the addition of two new data centers in central Ohio.
According to the firm, one of the centers will be constructed in Lancaster and the other on South High Street in South Columbus, bringing Google’s total investment to date in the state to over $2 billion. According to Google, it has generated nearly $13 billion in economic activity for businesses and nonprofits.
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Pennsylvania’s state Senate Republican Policy chair on Friday said he’s sponsoring legislation gradually raising the commonwealth’s minimum hourly wage to $15 and thence indexing it to inflation.
Senator Dan Laughlin (R-Erie), one of his chamber’s most moderate Republicans representing one of its most electorally competitive districts, said in a statement that he carefully mulled the issue before announcing his measure. The Keystone State’s pay floor rose to $7.25 per hour in 2008, matching the federal minimum wage, and the senator insisted now is the time for an increase, observing that 30 states now set their floors higher.
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Amazon applied for economic development incentives from Virginia for its new HQ2 campus in Arlington, requesting the state pay $152 million to the company by 2026.
Arlington was chosen as the site for Amazon’s second quarters four years ago – a move the company said would bring 25,000 jobs to the area by 2030. The tech giant has roughly 8,400 employees assigned to HQ2, and the average wage of these jobs must meet or exceed $156,800, according to Amazon spokesperson Rachael Lightly.
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Recognizing that some of the most innovative classroom ideas come from teachers, Nashville Public Education Foundation (NPEF) created the Teacherpreneur program as a means to annually award seed money to implement, or scale, the best ideas from teachers. This year’s winner is Dr. Jennifer Love from East Nashville Magnet High School. Her concept beat out 11 other finalists to take home the top prize.
Love’s idea is to incorporate a social-emotional learning curriculum for student athletics in an effort to provide increased access to mental health support for high school students. As a first prize winner, she earns a $10,000 cash prize and some additional funding to help her implement her concept as a pilot program.
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Amazon received $166 million in subsidies, tax breaks, and grants from Tennessee communities for 20 projects.
Advocacy group Good Jobs First, which opposes such subsidies, found Tennessee provided the eighth-highest amount of grants and breaks among U.S. states to the nearly $1-trillion company.
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Ridesharing app Lyft and payment processing startup Stripe informed their staff of layoffs Thursday in part due to expectations of an upcoming recession, while Amazon announced a corporate hiring freeze due to “unusual” economic conditions.
Lyft announced it would cut 13% of staff, nearly 700 jobs, according to the WSJ, while Stripe announced a 14% cut to just under 7,000 employees — implying a cut of at least 1,000 employees. Both companies cited recession fears and other macroeconomic challenges as motivators for their decisions, while Amazon senior vice president of people experience and technology Beth Galetti simply characterized current economic conditions as “uncertain and challenging” in a letter to Amazon staffers.
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After years of high turnover that left some employees feeling expendable, Amazon is spending just shy of half a billion dollars for delivery partners to raise pay and provide benefits for drivers amid growing concerns of a labor shortage.
The $450 million investment into Amazon’s Delivery Service Partners (DSP) network gives money to partnered companies to offer drivers pay increases, alongside funding for new benefits such as a 401(k) plan and education and training programs, according to Amazon’s announcement. The announcement, which Amazon said is part of efforts to build and retain “great teams,” comes less than four months after internal documents were leaked revealing Amazon’s concern that if its current hiring practices and treatment of employees continued, it would run out of people willing to work for the company by 2024, according to Vox.
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California Democratic Attorney General Rob Bonta announced on Wednesday an antitrust lawsuit against Amazon, claiming that the retail giant “stifled competition and caused increased prices” in the state.
“Amazon coerces merchants into agreements that keep prices artificially high, knowing full well that they can’t afford to say no. With other e-commerce platforms unable to compete on price, consumers turn to Amazon as a one-stop shop for all their purchases,” Bonta said. “This perpetuates Amazon’s market dominance.”
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by Jason Boyce The year is 2030. Most humans have been replaced by machines in U.S. warehouses and factories. Millions of Americans are out of work and struggling to find jobs as robots pack, sort, ship, and carry out the myriad duties that just 10 years ago were the purview of living, breathing workers. There are few job prospects in sight for these workers as automation has completely taken over nearly every industry. As fictitious as this sounds, it is not a scene out of a science-fiction novel but instead a scenario that could occur in the very near future. Take, for example, Amazon’s recent launch of Proteus — the company’s first fully autonomous mobile robot. This should signal that much of the company’s workforce faces extinction by automation in the coming years. Despite the inevitability that all industries will adopt some type of automation to improve productivity and profitability, it is important that lawmakers take steps now to protect the human workforce before big tech behemoths like Amazon begin to phase them out. Amazon certainly has plenty of incentive to replace its human workforce with automated machines. For instance, there are rumors that Amazon is worried it could exhaust the supply of U.S.-based workers…
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Sen. Raphael Warnock has collected tens of thousands of dollars in campaign donations from political action committees (PAC) funded by corporations this election cycle, records show. At the same time, the senator has said he’s “never taken a dime of corporate PAC money” and pledged not to do so.
Warnock’s campaign took $29,600 during the first and second quarters of 2022 from Democratic leadership PACs that have in turn accepted $1.6 million from corporate-backed PACs since 2003, according to Federal Election Commission records (FEC) reviewed by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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Amazon and iRobot signed an agreement Thursday under which Amazon will acquire iRobot, supporting the online retail giant’s ambitions to solidify its foothold on smart home technology, according to The Wall Street Journal.
iRobot makes the popular home-cleaning product Roomba, a wireless smart-vacuum that maps spaces to clean dust and messes, according to the WSJ. The Amazon-iRobot press release notes that Amazon will acquire iRobot for $61 per share in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $1.7 billion, including iRobot’s net debt.
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Governor Glenn Youngkin ceremonially signed State Senator Siobhan Dunnavant’s (R-Henrico) SB 774 to allow the use of “bus boxes” underneath school buses to deliver packages – an invention of Clueless Robotics, a team of middle school students from Saint Bridget Catholic School. Two boxes per bus yield a 22-square foot capacity aimed at solving the last-mile delivery problem, as most logistics costs reside in the final mile of delivery. They also think it could help solve a school bus driver shortage by allowing drivers to continue to work even when not carrying students. “Public schools have struggled to find bus drivers, needing to increase their pay. More drivers would work if their pay was higher and the school district offered a full-time job,” the team’s presentation states. Their proposal calls for school districts to partner with Amazon, which would pay for the delivery services. Amazon would deliver packages to the bus lot before it leaves in the morning to take students to school. Then, after dropping the students off, the bus driver would deliver the packages. “We plan to encourage rural neighborhoods to install Amazon lockers outside their neighborhoods for easy delivery,” one student says in a Clueless Robotics video.…
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Amazon will invest $10.6 million to help build and renovate more than 130 affordable homes in Nashville, the company announced Wednesday. Amazon is working in partnership with the Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency (MDHA) and supporting the social work of the local nonprofit CrossBridge Inc.
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The Arlington County Board voted unanimously Saturday to approve plans for development at Amazon’s HQ2, including the Helix, an up to 350-foot high spiral-shaped tower with indoor meeting spaces and a walking paths on the outside. The PenPlace plan also includes three 22-story office buildings, public park space, and retail pavilions. The vote concludes a year-long public review process, and planning officials recommended that the board approve the plan, noting that it fits within broader goals for Pentagon City. “We have a brand-new sector plan in place with Pentagon City, and it is really exciting that this first project out of the gate under that new sector plan not only conforms with it, but exceeds it, right,” board Chair Katie Cristol said in summary remarks before the vote. Cristol said the plan met and exceeded Arlington’s Climate Change, Energy and Environment Commission goals, and would also benefit the community, small business owners, construction workers, and students. Amazon has highlighted the eye-catching design of the tower, green spaces, and public walking paths through the compound. Arlington Community High School will also have a permanent home on the PenPlace site. After a 2018 announcement that Amazon would build its HQ2 in Arlington,…
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Amazon plans to go on the offensive against the Amazon Labor Union (ALU) following its successful bid to unionize Amazon workers on April 1 in New York City, according to legal documents filed with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
Amazon intends to appeal the Amazon Labor Union’s victory in a 55% majority vote at a Staten Island, New York City warehouse to unionize the facility’s workers. The company argues that labor groups influenced the outcome of the vote.
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Small businesses worry about the power of larger corporations in the marketplace, but they’re also unhappy with the subsidies and tax breaks big businesses get from the government.
A survey of independent small businesses published by the Institute for Local Self-Reliance showed that small businesses perceive a business climate that favors bigger companies. A majority of respondents were retailers, and businesses had an average size of 15 employees.
Survey respondents suggested a handful of policy changes they’d like to see:
Ending subsidies and tax breaks for big businesses.
Breaking up and/or regulating Amazon.
Investing in downtowns and neighborhood business districts.
Strengthening antitrust policy and enforcement.
Capping credit card swipe fees.
Bipartisan members of the House Judiciary Committee sent a letter to the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Wednesday requesting an investigation into Amazon for alleged criminal obstruction of the committee’s probe into the tech giant.
The letter, sent to Attorney General Merrick Garland, alleged Amazon misled committee members and engaged in “potentially criminal conduct” during a 15-month investigation into competition in digital markets. The letter was signed by House Judiciary Committee Chair Democratic New York Rep. Jerry Nadler, Democratic Rhode Island Rep. David Cicilline, Republican Colorado Rep. Ken Buck, Democratic Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal and Republican Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz.
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Sen. Amy Klobuchar appeared on Fox News’ Special Report Thursday night, primarily to promote an antitrust bill aimed at reforming laws that govern Big Tech and increasing competition.
A bipartisan U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee voted 16-6 Thursday to advance the legislation — The American Innovation and Choice Online Act — as bipartisan lawmakers seek to curtail the power and influence of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and others.
In short, the bill would prevent companies from “unfairly preferencing their own products and services” on their platforms while prohibiting “specific forms of conduct that are harmful to small businesses, entrepreneurs, and consumers.”
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A Chinese man alleging that he was imprisoned and tortured after he revealed substandard working conditions in factories making Amazon products is asking the company for an apology.
Tang Mingfang spent two years in prison after he shed a light on working conditions inside Foxconn factories manufacturing Amazon Echo, Echo Dot and Kindle devices, he told The Guardian. Tang said he was beaten and tortured by Chinese authorities during his internment.
“I think Amazon should give me an explanation, tell me if I really deserve to be sent to jail?” Tang said. “If not, Amazon should give me an apology, along with its partner, Foxconn, to assist me to appeal for a redress, and provide compensation.”
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Amazon has agreed to shut down its third-party seller program nationwide and pay a fine of $2.25 million after Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson investigated the company for price fixing.
Ferguson simultaneously filed a lawsuit and a legally binding resolution Wednesday in King County Superior Court. The consent decree order means that the Seattle-based company will end its “Sold by Amazon” program and provide the attorney general’s office with annual updates on its efforts to avoid violating antitrust laws.
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Amazon and Facebook parent company Meta spent more money in 2021 lobbying lawmakers and officials than any year before, according to lobbying disclosure filings.
Amazon spent $20.3 million on lobbying while Meta spent $20.1 million in 2021, according to a review of lobbying disclosure filings by MarketWatch. The figures are record totals for both tech companies, who spent $18.9 million and $19.7 million on lobbying in 2020, respectively.
Google’s lobbying spend for 2021 clocked in at $11.5 million, while Microsoft spent $10.3 million and Apple spent $6.5 million, according to MarketWatch’s review.
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As the economy turns around with the COVID-19 pandemic receding and lockdowns and restrictions fading, some states are recovering better than others. Only Arizona, Texas, Utah, and Idaho, some of the reddest states in the country, have all returned to pre-pandemic job levels.
According to Adam Kamins, director of regional economics at Moody’s Analytics, this is largely due to people wanting to move to those states. “Those four states have experienced persistently strong population growth, which really wasn’t dented by the pandemic,” he told The Wall Street Journal. “More and more people keep coming from expensive coastal cities to places like Dallas and Phoenix, which have a relatively lower cost of living and higher quality of life.”
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Amazon employees in Bessemer, Alabama, are set to hold a second union vote after the first election was deemed illegal, a federal labor agency said Tuesday.
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) announced that workers at the Bessemer warehouse would vote again on whether to join the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) on Feb. 4. The second vote comes almost a year after the first election in which Amazon employees overwhelmingly rejected the proposal to join the RWDSU.
Following the unsuccessful unionization bid, labor organizers demanded a new vote, alleging that Amazon improperly placed the election ballot box on company property, which the union argued was a form of intimidation. The union also alleged that Amazon threatened warehouse workers with messages saying the facility might close or they might lose benefits if the union vote succeeded.
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Amazon and Google are lobbying small businesses who use their services to oppose antitrust bills aimed at breaking up major tech companies, enlisting them to pressure lawmakers, Politico reported.
The companies are conducting a public relations campaign in an effort to drum up opposition to antitrust legislation proposed in the Senate, including a bill sponsored by Republican Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley and Democratic Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar that goes after companies like Amazon and Google for prioritizing their own services in online shopping platforms, according to Politico.
The tech giants are using email campaigns, Zoom calls and online petitions, to spread the message that the bills would harm small businesses that rely on their platforms, Politico reported. Several technology trade groups, including the Connected Commerce Council, are also working to encourage small businesses to oppose the legislation.
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Over half of the states in the U.S. will institute a minimum wage increase in 2022, according to a report.
A total of 26 states will raise the minimum wage in 2022, with 22 of the states starting the pay hikes on Jan. 1, accordingto payroll experts at Wolters Kluwer Legal & Regulatory U.S.
“These minimum wage increases indicate moves toward ensuring a living wage for people across the country,” Deirdre Kennedy, senior payroll analyst at Wolters Kluwer, said in the report. “In addition to previously approved incremental increases, the change in presidential administration earlier this year and the ongoing coronavirus pandemic have also contributed to these changes.”
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Amazon stopped offering customer ratings and reviews of books sold in China at the request of the Chinese Communist Party, according to a Reuters investigation.
The Chinese government ordered Amazon to stop allowing customers to review books following less-than-perfect ratings of a collection of President Xi Jinping’s writings, Reuters reported, citing two people familiar with the matter. Amazon partnered with a state-owned firm called China International Book Trading Corp (CIBTC) and created a portal, which it called China Books, that promotes Chinese Communist Party material and forbids negative reviews.
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Amazon removed Daily Wire host Matt Walsh’s children’s book, “Johnny the Walrus,” from its LGBTQ+ bestseller list on Friday.
Walsh’s book reached the top spot on Amazon’s LGBTQ+ bestseller list last weekend, according to the Daily Wire. However, as of Friday, the book can no longer be seen on the list at all, apparently having been removed.
“Amazon has removed my bestselling LGBT children’s book from their LGBT book list. This is an unconscionable attack on gay rights and a horrific example of homophobia and gay erasure,” Walsh posted on Twitter on Friday morning.
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An Italian regulator hit Amazon with a massive fine Thursday over alleged anti-competitive business practices.
The Italian Competition Authority issued the $1.3 billion penalty after the results of its investigation into Amazon concluded the online marketplace favored third-party vendors who use Amazon’s shipping and logistics services, the regulator announced in a press release Thursday. The Authority alleged that Amazon boosted the presence of vendors that used its services on its site as a way to increase use of its own logistic service, Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA).
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The Nashville Public Education Foundation (NPEF), a Vanderbilt University-based schooling-policy nonprofit, this week announced the creation of its first twelve-member “Teacherpreneur cohort” to consider solutions to what the organization sees as major challenges in education.
NPEF—which aligns itself with progressive causes like “culturally relevant curricula,” higher teacher pay and increased public-school funding—is creating its new program with financial support from the ubiquitous online merchant Amazon, which also owns the information-technology-platform company Amazon Web Services (AWS).
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There is growing bipartisan concern over the power Silicon Valley’s oligopolies wield over American society. Amazon alone controls 72% of U.S. adult book sales, Airbnb accounts for a fifth of domestic lodging expenditures and Facebook accounts for almost three-quarters of social media visits. Just two companies, Apple and Google, act as gatekeepers to 99% of smartphones, while two others, Uber and Lyft, control 98% of the ride-share market in the U.S. Yet, for government to take robust antitrust action against Silicon Valley requires the kind of data it currently lacks: documenting the harm this market consolidation inflicts on consumers. A new RealClearFoundation report offers a look at how amending Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to require platform transparency could aid such antitrust efforts.
When it comes to Silicon Valley’s social media platforms, they have long argued that antitrust laws don’t apply to them because their services are provided free of charge. In reality, users do pay for their services: with their data rather than their money. Companies today harvest vast amounts of private information about their users every day, using that data to invisibly nudge their users toward purchases and consuming ads, or the companies simply sell that data outright.
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Amazon announced on Wednesday that the organization will construct a solar farm in east Georgia, the first of its kind in the state.
The project in Burke County will supply energy for Amazon’s corporate offices, fulfillment centers, and Amazon Web Services (AWS) data centers, according to a press release from the group.
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The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ordered a new unionization election at an Amazon warehouse in Alabama, ruling that the company violated federal labor law during the first election.
“Today’s decision confirms what we were saying all along – that Amazon’s intimidation and interference prevented workers from having a fair say in whether they wanted a union in their workplace – and as the Regional Director has indicated, that is both unacceptable and illegal,” Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) President Stuart Appelbaum said in a statement Monday.
“Amazon workers deserve to have a voice at work, which can only come from a union,” he continued.
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Republican Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton and Democratic Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar unveiled a bipartisan bill Friday intended to restrict how major tech companies acquire and merge with smaller firms.
The bill, titled the Platform Competition and Opportunity Act, is a companion to antitrust legislation advanced out of the House Judiciary Committee in June. If enacted, the law would shift the burden in antitrust cases to the acquiring party for mergers greater than $50 million, meaning that the acquiring firm would have to prove that its acquisition of another company was not anti-competitive.
The bill explicitly targets Big Tech companies, and it applies to firms with market capitalizations over $600 billion, at least 50,000,000 U.S.-based monthly active users or 100,000 monthly active business users. This would include Amazon, Google, Facebook and Apple.
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