re:publica 24: How Amazon takes over public infrastructures and data

For years, IT companies such as IBM, Google, Huawei, and Tesla have been trying, more or less successfully, to transform cities into "smart cities" and seamlessly integrate their online services into them. Amazon is also increasingly pursuing this strategy, explained Maja-Lee Voigt, urban researcher at Leuphana University Lüneburg, at the re:publica digital conference in Berlin on Monday. The ultimate aim is to transform public infrastructures into private ones that are completely dependent on Amazon services. At the same time, a "model for our collective future" is to be developed. Politicians often let the US company get away with it or even welcome its involvement considering tight public budgets. However, Amazon is in no way democratically legitimized for this and ultimately pursues sinister plans for the public, including the misuse of public goods.

After 30 years and with a market valuation of just under 2 billion US dollars, Amazon has long been much more than a virtual department store, which is how it is still mostly perceived by the public, explained Voigt. The company has developed into a cloud giant and the largest hyperscaler, with AWS and active in areas such as publishing, the streaming and video market as well as the security, healthcare and aerospace sectors. Company founder Jeff Bezos is pursuing a kind of Star Trek ideology with Blue Origin.In Germany, around 63 percent of citizens were already Prime members in 2019. The delivery service, which remains at the heart of the company, is constantly being expanded and is more reliable than the post office in rural Canada, for example. In the USA, Amazon also operates a large part of the military cloud infrastructure.

Big tech companies "have become our neighbors", explains the research assistant. "They influence design and architecture" and link their code with "the concrete of the city". The Alexa assistant, the Roomba robot vacuum cleaner and the Ring smart doorbell are Amazon's eyes and ears, which are used for surveillance. Added to this is the decisive factor of convenience in the e-commerce giant's services. According to the researcher, the Echo speaker wakes the residents in "Amazon Town", Alexa evaluates their sleep, and Uber takes them to work past robots and warehouses. In the office, employees log into AWS services, and on the way home they take a package from an Amazon locker to their Tiny House, which already has a playlist and videos to match the mood. The fridge would take care of its own replenishment from the associated delivery service.

Subway, disaster relief and sovereign cloud as bait

This opens up more and more of Amazon's private and business life, explained Voigt. The more personal and public data the company extracts, the more could be incorporated into sales forecasts and form the basis for the future production of goods and services. Amazon benefits immensely from this, as it offers "solutions for almost every sector". However, it remains completely unclear who decides on the services, who programs them and who is represented by them. The entire system - just like the algorithms that drive it - is a black box for outsiders.

The Google subsidiary Sidewalk Labs made headlines for years with its waterfront prestige project in Toronto and ultimately failed. This is said to have been partly due to the fact that local people were not the focus. Meanwhile, Amazon is getting down to business and is building a new headquarters with a smart city focus in Arlington in the US state of Virginia, for example, reported Voigt. This includes metro and road connections to nearby Washington DC, as well as "controlled" neighborhoods and parks. The focus is on a "homogeneous, white" neighborhood that ideally also works for Amazon. The company is also interfering in politics in this way, but has long been dependent on it and has no exit strategy.

A new corporate headquarters has also been built in Berlin-Friedrichshain in the form of the controversial Amazon Tower. In addition, the company recently announced investments of 7.8 billion euros in nearby Brandenburg for a sovereign AWS cloud. In March, the company opened its first European "Disaster Relief Hub" in North Rhine-Westphalia, through which partner organizations can be supplied with relief supplies for crisis areas more quickly.

Urban resistance is alive and well

However, resistance is forming, says Voigt, who herself co-founded the interdisciplinary research group Akteurinnen für urbanen Ungehorsam (Actors for Urban Disobedience) and is looking for flaws in the Amazon matrix through discussions with employees, her own observations and participation in conferences. The team benefits from the fact that the company behaves "irresponsibly" towards its employees, as demonstrated by the destruction of a warehouse by a tornado or the constant fight against trade unions. The employees not only served as a good source of information, but also drew attention to "inhumane conditions" with go-slow strikes and intensive exchanges via online services.

Voigt appealed to hacktivists who undermine smart city concepts to scrutinize Amazon's urban development ideas more closely and participate in code development. Diversity concepts, for example, urgently need to be introduced. This is often not easy, as not everyone is an expert in urban planning. Regulation by tech-savvy politicians and the development of powerful open-source architectures are therefore just as crucial to prevent monopolies from emerging in the first place and to bring them to power. Not everyone needs to cancel their Prime subscription immediately, but they do need to know "what it entails". There are still alternative operating systems, apps and streaming services. The researcher also advised relying on local retailers, who are already "in a precarious position".

(mki)