Irish Examiner view: Amazon boss could look closer to home for his supposed philanthropy
A video projection of Amazon owner Jeff Bezos is beamed into the room at the B20 summit ahead of the G20 meeting in Bali, Indonesia. Picture: Aaron Favila/AP
The squeeze continues in the tech sector, though not all of the damage is being caused by wayward owners, as is the case with Elon Musk and Twitter.
In the last few days, readers may be aware that Meta, the company which owns Facebook and Instagram, has been seeking to have a fine of €405m quashed — a fine imposed for violating children’s privacy (ironically, the company now wants its appeal to be held in private).
At around the same time, Google, which has a far more benign image than many tech giants, had to settle a €378m claim on location tracking carried out without consent in the US: It has been called the largest multi-state privacy settlement in US history.
One of the most significant developments, however, is the news that Amazon is to slash 10,000 jobs, a sobering announcement in any context but one which will chill the company’s employees with details thin on the ground as Christmas approaches.
The cynical will note with weary resignation an announcement that coincided with the reports of impending job cuts at the online giant: Amazon’s owner Jeff Bezos has decided to pick this week to share the news that he is to give away much of his fortune to charity.
Bezos’s wealth is estimated at around $124bn (€119bn), which begs a couple of obvious questions. Why doesn’t he reinvest a tiny fraction of that sum in his company and ensure those workers aren’t laid off?
And why pick this week of all weeks to share this morsel of information? He is surely not trying to offset any bad publicity accruing from the vast layoffs being planned at Amazon, bad publicity which might drive consumers away from his website and into the arms of local, small-scale retailers. Perish the thought.
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