Amazon Allegedly Tweaked Search Algorithm to Boost Its Own Products

August 1, 2018

Allegations suggest Amazon manipulated product search algorithm to prioritize in-house products, potentially violating the company's customer-first principle. This raises concerns about safe and secure AI practices within companies. For those interested in shaping responsible AI governance and ensuring trustworthy AI through harm prevention mechanisms, JOIN US.

This incident serves as an important example of the need for HISPI Project Cerebellum TAIM to Measure AI impact and Govern its use effectively.

Matched TAIM controls

Suggested mapping from embedding similarity (not a formal assessment). Browse all TAIM controls

MAP 1.6 — similarity 0.668, rank 1. TAIM detail and related incidents →
MAP 4.1 — similarity 0.661, rank 2. TAIM detail and related incidents →
GOVERN 6.1 — similarity 0.659, rank 3. TAIM detail and related incidents →

Alleged deployer: amazon
Alleged developer: amazon
Alleged harmed parties: small-businesses-on-amazon, amazon-customers

Source

Data from the AI Incident Database (AIID). Cite this incident: https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/251

Data source

Incident data is from the AI Incident Database (AIID).

When citing the database as a whole, please use:

McGregor, S. (2021) Preventing Repeated Real World AI Failures by Cataloging Incidents: The AI Incident Database. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-21). Virtual Conference.

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