In a move that absolutely no one could have predicted, Amazon have announced the government’s 2% Digital Services Tax is to be passed straight onto consumers. Guido presumes the government line on this one will be full Brass Eye: ‘This is the one thing we didn’t want to happen’…
A post on the Amazon Services forum announces that, while the legislation was being passed, the company “absorbed this increase”, however now the law has been implemented they
“will be increasing Referral fees, Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) fees, monthly FBA storage fees and Multichannel Fulfilment (MCF) fees by 2% in the UK to reflect this additional cost”
UK businesses who rely on goods from Amazon will now have to fork out for the rise, with the government not getting a penny from Amazon’s coffers. The government should take this tax policy failure into account before considering the rumoured online sales tax for a moment longer…
Guido doesn’t want to pay extra taxes “to save the High Street”. In fact it seems quite obvious that millions of people like getting cheaper goods delivered direct to their door. Of course rivals want to handicap their competitors in their own self-interest. Perhaps politicians should side with consumers rather than producers for once?
Converting high streets into residential streets might even help with high-priced housing costs in urban areas. Which will please younger voters!
Margaret Hodge is calling for people to join her in boycotting Amazon over their tax arrangements:
“I hope people take a leaf out of my book and stop using Amazon. I don’t use them at all… If we stop using Amazon then they may understand how angry their customers are.”
You can read more about Hodge’s strong and principled views on Amazon in her book Called to Account, for sale on Amazon:
“I don’t use them at all…”
The moment the presenter realizes S3 is down. #AWS #S3 #Amazon pic.twitter.com/S8gY1J9lrH
— Ian Sherwood (@ian_surewould) February 28, 2017
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the plumbing that makes a lot of the internet work, not just for Amazon but for a lot of other big companies – our daily Guidogram email didn’t go out last night because it relied on AWS. It was by one of those cosmic ironies also the day Amazon’s marketing people had decided to call “AWSome Day”. The above video is of a hapless Amazon booster discovering he can’t make his presentation about the brilliance of the AWS cloud because it was down. Even the geek’s website isitdownrightnow.com, used for checking if internet services are down, relied on AWS:
Rivals have not wasted any time, in Guido’s inbox this morning was an offer from Google Cloud Services:
AWS going down for a few hours reminded people that there is no such thing as “the cloud”. There are just other people’s computers…
Amazon has released a beta of Lumberyard, a free game engine and software development tool that runs on Amazon’s AWS cloud computing platform. AWS is a multi-billion revenue generator for Amazon and most tech start-ups use it.
Clause 57 of the terms and conditions deals with a common video-game scenario. It has a few acceptable use exceptions that don’t read like the usual legalese:
However, this restriction will not apply in the event of the occurrence (certified by the United States Centers for Disease Control or successor body) of a widespread viral infection transmitted via bites or contact with bodily fluids that causes human corpses to reanimate and seek to consume living human flesh, blood, brain or nerve tissue and is likely to result in the fall of organized civilization.
It seems that in the event of a properly certified zombie apocalypse the platform will be available to actually shoot ’em up…
Amazon have unveiled their latest plans for hybrid drones for rapid parcel delivery in a new advert narrated by Jeremy Clarkson. The drones are expected to be capable of flying 15 miles at speeds of over 55mph. Guido has no doubt they will be coming to an Amazon Original TV series near you soon…
