I did some strategy work for a global retailer a few years ago and this kept coming up, they even have a policy that SaaS tools they acquire "can't be hosted in AWS".

Their reasoning seemed a bit paranoid, but it wasn't that Amazon would secretly start mining their data there without telling them, it's that this retailer would invest 10's (even 100's) of millions of dollars in tools and infrastructure on AWS and then AWS would change their terms and conditions to allow them to look at/share data 'legally' and the retailer would be so in the hole in terms of investment/technology they couldn't leave/stop them without losing millions. They saw it as risk mitigation.

I think it's _incredibly_ unlikely this would ever happen, but if you combine that with "I don't want to give one of our biggest competitors a cent" it ends up with policies like this

Saw the same with French retailers.

Amazon absolutely looks at whatever data they legally can, because, well, they’re Amazon. Leveraging their market position to the maximum effect is not only what they do, it’s basically guaranteed.

My comment is sitting at -3 and I'm genuinely curious what people find disagreeable about it? Its a maybe cynical position but I think well earned by Amazon?

It’s a conspiracy theory. I doubt very seriously that Amazon is going to the AWS department to look at competitors data and that’s assuming a company concerned about security is not doing encryption at rest.

Even discounting that, you're still giving your biggest competitor money.

They don’t need to look into your data to get valuable information.

Simple stuff that shows up on your bill, such as the amount of data transfer, the sizes of your databases and how they change, etc is enough.

I doubt there are laws that prevent them from doing deep dives into your data but that’s not really the concern. I don’t expect them to do that.

However, when it comes to trying to solve problems, create bespoke apps, as a retailer you will probably be far more comfortable sharing the information about your data with a Microsoft rep than an AWS rep helping you build that bespoke solution.

Even metadata will be useful information and most likely not covered under laws. For example, peak load, usage patterns, spends etc.

Aren't there laws to prevent this?

Potentially yes but when have big tech ever played by the rules though. Its hard to name a single FAANG company that hasn't used terrible/outright illegal practises to get to the top.