The Seattle-based e-commerce giant Amazon launched a public website last Thursday. It has mentioned its views on various political and social issues that are a hot topic of discussion at present.
The website lays out the corporate stand of Amazon on issues like climate change, immigration, and tax policy. In a few cases, the company echoed the voices of opposition against US President Donald Trump’s disputed policies; for example, the travel ban imposed especially on countries having a majority of the Muslim population.
It also used this platform to speak about more thoughtful subjects that include Amazon’s facial recognition technology and its work in the field of law enforcement, for which the company drew a lot of flak. The company has spoken about its support for a single, countrywide privacy law, which empowers consumers with access to their personal information and also allows them to delete it if they wish to. The e-tailer, along with many other businesses, urged Congress to draft a law that empowers the citizens to protect their privacy.
The page mentioned,
“Harnessing the capabilities of advanced technology such as the cloud and machine learning are important to the ongoing safety and security of the country, its citizens, our communities, and the world [….]. We will continue to provide U.S. government and law enforcement agencies access to the most advanced technology.”
The website was launched after Amazon’s senior vice president of global corporate affairs; Jay Carney publicly criticized Trump administration. Carney, on Wednesday speaking at a Seattle conference, questioned the patriotism of the present government; he also condemned the violation of longstanding norms by the Trump administration.
This website could add fuel to the existing tension between Amazon and Trump, who eyes the company with criticism. As per the website, Amazon considers “human-induced climate change is real, serious, and action is needed from the public and private sectors,” a sharp deviation from the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw from the Paris international climate accord.
Amazon has taken up many innovative initiatives in different areas, one such is its campaign against selling of counterfeit products on its platform. It is set to use an anti-counterfeit tool known as Transparency, to curb this issue. Initially, it is going to be launched in the three biggest consumer countries of the company- India, Canada, and Europe.
