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United States News Politics

Amazon Will Soon Let You Make Campaign Contributions Through Your Alexa Device (theverge.com) 47

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
On Thursday, you'll be able to make campaign donations to 2020 presidential candidates through your Amazon Alexa devices -- or at least to those candidates whom Amazon deems eligible to set up an account. From a report: If a campaign chooses to sign up for Alexa donations, you'll be able to donate to it by merely saying, "Alexa, I want to make a political contribution," or "Alexa, donate [amount] to [candidate name]." All donations will be processed through Amazon Pay, and users will receive email receipts for their contributions as well. Strangely, the feature is only available to 2020 presidential candidates Amazon defines as "principal campaign committees." It's not apparent who Amazon considers "principal" and for what reasons. The contribution will be limited between $5 to $200.
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Amazon Will Soon Let You Make Campaign Contributions Through Your Alexa Device More

Amazon Will Soon Let You Make Campaign Contributions Through Your Alexa Device

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  • Trump 2020! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by stevegee58 ( 1179505 ) on Wednesday September 18, 2019 @01:49PM (#59209664) Journal
    But will Alexa let me contribute to the Trump campaign?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by sinij ( 911942 )

      But will Alexa let me contribute to the Trump campaign?

      More interesting question would be if Alexa would let me make you contribute to the Trump campaign without you realizing it happened until you see your credit card bill.

    • Yes (Score:2, Insightful)

      by rsilvergun ( 571051 )
      don't be daft. Amazon is probably either taking a cut, getting a tax write off, or both.

      They couldn't care less about Trump's politics. He gave them a multi-billion dollar tax cut. He's slashed labor regulations for them. Publicly they'll poo poo him but privately they're just fine. Trump represents the establishment just fine.

      Now, Bernie Sanders? They're scared of him. Same for AOC. They won't let Amazon cut medical benefits for 2000 employees. They'll do medicare for all, which means no more for p
      • Wouldn't most companies be thrilled at the possibility of not having to offer health insurance to employees? In addition to the obvious per-employee savings, there would be tons of savings in bureaucracy and administrative time, paperwork, etc.

        • Wouldn't most companies be thrilled at the possibility of not having to offer health insurance to employees?

          Possibly, but companies get to deduct their share of the cost as an expense on their corporate taxes, while the employees generally do NOT get to deduct their share -- only medical expenses (including premiums) that exceed 10% of an individual's/family's Adjusted Gross Income for 2019 (7.5% for previous years) are deductible.

          • most of the ultra wealthy sit on the Board of Directors for other huge companies. Or they have friends and family. The Uber wealthy form a network of other Uber wealthy so that their interests always align and they can present a unified front against the working class. If they didn't they couldn't stay that wealthy. We wouldn't tolerate it.

            So what ends up happening is a guy like Bezos either sits on the Board of Directors for major Insurance companies or he's friends/family with someone who does. As a r
        • Sure they would, however. Bernie wants to tax share transactions by up to 5%, bye bye sharemarket which means all companies would move out of the US and list on the Singapore exchange or somewhere. Bernie wants to raise taxes by massive amounts. Bernie wants to raise wages by who knows how much. Basically Amazon would be killed by Bernie along with most US companies. Even saw Kramer the other day saying Warren must be stopped (let alone Bernie who is even crazier.) I would not be surprised if the feature by

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Merk42 ( 1906718 )
        AOC has a 0% chance of winning the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election

        • Don't you have to be 35 years old to be president and isn't she under 30?

        • She'll keep winning her House Seat, eventually raise her profile high enough to get a Senate seat, and hand her House seat off to a like minded individual. Meanwhile she'll help primary the right wing "Blue Dog" Dems who are selling you and me out to their mega donors. In this way the Overton window will shift left and we'll eventually get things like Green Jobs Programs to bring back middle class jobs and a universal healthcare system.

          The GOP showed us that battles are won overnight. You have to spend

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      But will Alexa let me contribute to the Trump legal defense fund?

      Fixed it for ya.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      But will Alexa let me contribute to the Trump campaign?

      They will switch it off for one day just to watch the Fox News commentators have brain aneurysms on live TV. Get the popcorn ready!...

    • Not only that, Amazon and Alexa will let television commercials contribute your money to the Trump campaign automatically without any actions from you!

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Chas ( 5144 )

      Alexa: I'm sorry! I can't do that Steve!

      Either that or:

      Alexa: Right away Steve! (And actually donates to the other camaigns.

    • Ask Alexa to send negative $100 to the (t)Rump campaign (and hope the devs did not use an absolute value function on the contribution input).

  • Excellent (Score:4, Funny)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Wednesday September 18, 2019 @02:01PM (#59209706)

    Time to start my campaign for Elizabeth Warlen and Joe Bliden, I'm sure Alexa will be happy to throw some funds my way over mis-pronunciations as drunken people attempt to donate.

  • when it allows me to ask for a donation.

  • But, hey, so far they're illegal hosting ads in BC and WA so we all know they don't care about laws

  • Seriously though, there's an easy answer to the question

    It's not apparent who Amazon considers "principal" and for what reasons.

    If you qualify for federal funding from the FEC you should be considered a "principal" candidate.

  • Perfect (Score:3)

    by argStyopa ( 232550 ) on Wednesday September 18, 2019 @02:25PM (#59209846) Journal

    ...and I'm SURE nobody will track this data, right?

    I can't wait for people to donate via Alexa, to the candidate best advocating digital privacy. Alexa replies "Are you sure you want me to process this? Because if you think about it, that's pretty stupid."

  • ... Voting was done with ratings, and interactive TV (devices of the time) was the mechanism for transmitting a whole host of things.

    BTW that was supposed to be a Dystopia :/

  • If folks can give cash at the drop of the hat, then I would expect even more attempts to keep people in a state of frenzied outrage. 2 minutes of hate ever quarter hour to guarantee maximum contributions.

    It'll be great for the pols raking in the bucks right up to the point that the hate and rage they generate gets so out of control that everything gets burned to the ground.

    But I suppose they'll still have their private compounds and armed guards and such, so they'll be fine.

  • I was just telling my friend the other day that there are nowhere near enough obstacles preventing candidates from succeeding in national politics. Hopefully this idea will catch on; adding 'approval of home IoT device vendors' to the laundry list of hurdles a candidate must overcome to reach national relevance is exactly what we needed.

  • Great, now political ads on TV or the radio will try to trigger Alexa to donate on your behalf. They may as well have walked up and emptied your wallet on the street.

  • Wait until their AI gets ahold of this... (Score:3)

    by Weirsbaski ( 585954 ) on Wednesday September 18, 2019 @03:26PM (#59210156)
    Me: Alexa, buy 10 pounds of manure
    Alexa: Your donation of $10 has been sent to $CANDIDATE

  • now there will be political ads on tv commanding alexa to donate to them. everyone who owns an elexa better make sure to have a pin on their alexa to keep from unwanted commands to donate.

  • Principal Campaign Committee (Score:3)

    by Nicholas Schumacher ( 21495 ) on Wednesday September 18, 2019 @03:46PM (#59210268) Homepage

    The Principal Campaign Committee is not something that Amazon came up with - it is defined in law (2 USC 432(e)) - and it is just the Committee that the candidate has designated as the Principal committee for their campaign (Other committees can be authorized to work for the candidate or fund raise - but only one can be set as the Principal)

  • This is yet another reason why I refuse to use any of these assistants. The "Democrats" and "Republicans" get more than enough from their shared corporate owners.

    If these jackasses want me to vote for them, THEY need to pay ME.

  • It is fairly obvious that a Verge author did not bother with any research between discovering something interesting and opining on it.

    Principal Campaign Committee is defined by the IRS [irs.gov]:

    A principal campaign committee is the political campaign committee designated by a candidate for Congress as the candidate's principal campaign committee for purposes of the Federal Election Campaign Act (2 U.S.C. 432(e)).

    It is not something Amazon arbitrarily made up.

  • If it would let me donate without getting on a list of people who donated, that would be very nice. Once in a while, I feel like I might want to help someone out, and it might be worth the money, but it's never worth the years of spam afterwards.
  • "Alexa, donate $200 to
    That'll be part of every single political ad in the future.

  • Sure Amazon wants to know who you donate to and how much. If it isn't for the candidate they want, they can use this information to help raise equal funds for the candidate they want. Why spend a lot on a candidate, when you can have inside information and donate just enough!

    Listen people, STOP giving these big companies all your information, FFS!

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