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Nearly every moment of our lives, we’re producing data about ourselves that companies profit from. Our smartwatches know when we wake up, Alexa listens to our private conversations, our phones track where we go, Google knows what we email and search, Facebook knows what we share with friends, and our loyalty cards remember what we buy. We share all this data about ourselves because we like the services these companies provide, and business leaders tell us we must to make it possible for those services to be cheap or free. Facebook’s business has relied on the trade of data for free service since we started it in our dorm room nearly 15 years ago, but it’s taken the Cambridge Analytica scandal to educate many users about just how this works. Just like many other business leaders, Mark Zuckerberg describes this as a win-win – people stay in touch with friends and family more often through a free service, and businesses can more efficiently spend marketing dollars … [Read more...] about The wealth of our collective data should belong to all of us

However they see Amazon, for good or ill, residents of the fastest-growing city in the US largely agree on the price Seattle has paid to be the home of the megacorporation: surging rents, homelessness, traffic-clogged streets, overburdened public transport, an influx of young men in polo shirts and a creeping uniformity rubbing against the city’s counterculture. But the issue of Jeff Bezos’s balls is far from settled. “Have you seen the Bezos balls?” asked Dave Christie, a jewellery maker at a waterfront market who makes no secret of his personal dislike for the man who founded and still runs Amazon. “No one wanted them. They’ve disfigured downtown. Giant balls say everything about the man. Bezos is holding Seattle hostage.” It’s not strictly true to say everyone is against the three huge plant-forested glass spheres at what Amazon calls its “campus” in the heart of the city. The Bezos balls, as the conservatories are … [Read more...] about Is Bezos holding Seattle hostage? The cost of being Amazon’s home

In the aftermath of the uprising in Ferguson, Missouri, over the killing of Michael Brown, police departments and policy makers around the country hit upon a supposed panacea to racist policing and police brutality: body-worn cameras. Many hailed the move as a victory for accountability. But among the few dissenters was Malkia Cyril, executive director of the Center for Media Justice and a leader in the Black Lives Matter network, who warned early and often that the cameras could become tools of surveillance against people of color because “body-worn cameras don’t watch the police, they watch the community being policed, people like me”. The scope and scale of that surveillance became clearer Tuesday, when the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California released a collection of public records detailing how Amazon has been marketing and selling facial recognition software, called Amazon Rekognition, to law enforcement agencies. Amazon marketing materials … [Read more...] about ‘Recipe for authoritarianism’: Amazon under fire for selling face-recognition software to police

WITH his love of designer clothes and private planes, Umar Kamani is every inch the jet-setting playboy. He rubs shoulders with the likes of Will.i.am and Jennifer Lopez, drives a fleet of supercars and holidays in exotic places. Not bad for a lad who was expelled from school and grew up in a house crammed with 18 family members. Umar, 31, is a member of the founding family behind Boohoo, the online clothing retailer that started life as a simple market stall and is now a big name in the fashion trade. While high street stores such as Debenhams, New Look and Marks & Spencer have seen sales plunge, Boohoo has bucked the trend. In the first half of this year it reported a hefty 43 per cent rise. The Manchester-based firm specialises in fast, cheap fashion for tweens and 20-somethings and includes offshoots BoohooMAN, PrettyLittleThing and Nasty Gal, together worth £3.8billion.Its executive chairman, Umar’s dad Mahmud, and his business partner Carol Kane — who started … [Read more...] about How the face of Boohoo went from getting expelled and living with 17 relatives to billionaire playboy pal to the stars

AMAZON shoppers are being warned to check their accounts after scores of customers have complained that their accounts have been hacked. Some account holders have reported how they've been charged for orders they didn't make and that parcels have been posted to addresses that aren't theirs, reports This Is Money. And many shoppers have been left frustrated by the retailer as they say it's taken months for Amazon to respond to the fraud alert. The problem occurs when shoppers save card details to their accounts - as once someone gains access to the account, they can then pay for the goods using the bank information. One shopper, called Gary, told This Is Money that he was "fobbed off" by Amazon after reporting that his card had been used to order 26 items from his account. He was also unable to cancel the payments via his bank, which told him it wasn't a fraudulent company and that his only option was to cancel his card.second time in a month my amazon account has been hacked … [Read more...] about Amazon accounts ‘hacked’ with fraudsters ordering hundreds of pounds worth of items