Will Amazon pay a GDPR fine?

19.09.2018

Amazon’s reputation gets undermined. Bribery appeared to be a major issue among Amazon employees who have allegedly been selling customers’ personal information. Amazon staff members took bribes and misused sensitive data violating user rights. “Price list” included confidential details purchase, negative feedback removal and re-appearance of blocked accounts. The prices ranged from $80 to $2000.

The investigation concerns mostly Chinese employees as many incidents were discovered in China. Although there were a few US-based employees involved. Will Amazon pay for bribes and leakage of potentially profitable for commerce customer data in accordance with the GDPR stringent requirements is unclear due to China’s predominance in violation activity. If the company has to pay a fine the penalties will amount the fixed 4% of the revenue.

The scope of the crime is to be assessed – the number of user records and the bribery-sourced income are to be determined. 

Amazon has already been familiar with handling adverse situations and fighting status detrimental to the company’s reputation. The cases which revealed selling personal data, managing malicious accounts and fabricating reviews don’t contribute to the brand’s popularity.