yesterday an Amazon job listing for a private investigator to spy on union organizers was "an error." Then we found that Amazon already has a secret, sophisticated program and team dedicated to spying on its workers Facebook posts:
vice.com/en_us/article/…
vice.com/en_us/article/…
According to our reporting, Amazon took great pains to keep this program secret: “It will have a detrimental effect if it falls within the reach of any of our Delivery partners. DO NOT SHARE without proper authentication” 
A LOT going on here:
- the tool and its reports and files were left exposed on a domain called that was not obviously owned by Amazon & doesn't use Amazon infrastructure. Despite this, there are clear and direct ties back to Amazon w/in the files
- the tool and its reports and files were left exposed on a domain called that was not obviously owned by Amazon & doesn't use Amazon infrastructure. Despite this, there are clear and direct ties back to Amazon w/in the files
- the reports use internal Amazon nomenclature
- metadata of files ties to current Amazon employees in India and Seattle
- links in the reports are internal Amazon links
- the names of dozens of corporate employees are listed in the reports, which we cross referenced
- metadata of files ties to current Amazon employees in India and Seattle
- links in the reports are internal Amazon links
- the names of dozens of corporate employees are listed in the reports, which we cross referenced
this suggests, to me, that Amazon was trying to keep this a secret (beyond simply telling people to keep this a secret). After we asked for comment, the files were taken down, but we downloaded everything that was publicly available
Here is what we learned:
Here is what we learned:
Amazon has a "Social Listening Team" that tracks mentions of Amazon on public social media. This seems normal. But it also has infiltrated 47 closed Facebook driver groups and is automatically scraping and categorizing every post there into a tool accessible by corporate
these categories include things "onroad issues," "marketing" "payment issues" "feedback," so ... things Amazon would want to fix.
But ALSO they are categorizing posts in which drivers are "planning for any strike or protest against Amazon."
But ALSO they are categorizing posts in which drivers are "planning for any strike or protest against Amazon."
Any notable posts are compiled into a report that is sent to a bunch of corporate employees. These posts have the drivers' real names, and many are "escalated" for action by someone. This can mean fixing their app or cataloging worker dissent
to opine for a moment: Some people are saying "we already knew this" or "why are you surprised" and it's not that we are surprised, it's that these reports give us specifics about what Amazon is looking for and how it is looking for it, at least on social media
These are literal reports being delivered to executives about worker behavior. This is what a surveillance program looks like. It shows what Amazon cares about. It show's they're hiding it, it shows how they're doing it, it shows the instructions on what to look for
I suspect there are many other surveillance programs like this, both within and outside of Amazon. But if you can't be assed to care about this then you don't care about privacy, or workers' rights, or corporate abuse of power/surveillance. this is a big story, so please share it
UPDATE: In a statement, Amazon has taken responsibility for this tool, which, again, was hosted on a bizarre website called sharkandink.com that had no obvious ties to the company
vice.com/en_us/article/…
vice.com/en_us/article/…
In February, the website looked like this and belonged to @sharkandink ... yesterday, it looked like this:
I simply have no idea how the Amazon tool ended up being left exposed on this domain. Either expired domain snapped up by Amazon, or reallocated IP, or something else. No clue. Taking theories
