1. Who They Are
Amazon.com, Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN), headquartered in Seattle, Washington, is the world's largest online retailer and, through Amazon Web Services (AWS), the world's largest cloud-computing provider. Founded by Jeff Bezos, executive chairman; Andy Jassy — who built and led AWS — has been CEO since 2021. Author Vahid Razavi worked inside AWS as a Senior Alliances Manager, and his first book, Ethics in Tech and Lack Thereof: Sleeping Under the Cell Tower (MyAWSStory.com), is a first-person account of that experience.
2. What the Books Document
Ethics in Tech and Lack Thereof documents the author's journey from founding the cloud startup BizCloud — through a trademark lawsuit brought by CSC that forced him to share his company's name — into employment at AWS, and the institutional silence, metric-driven dehumanization, and personal cost he found inside the company. Source: MyAWSStory.com — the full book, free
No Ethics in Big Tech (Chapter Thirteen, "The Empire's Trail of Blood") documents AWS's role in military cloud infrastructure, stating: "Without Amazon Web Services, the Israeli military's intelligence infrastructure does not function at its current scale." The book documents Project Nimbus, the $1.2 billion joint cloud contract signed by Amazon and Google with the Israeli government in 2021, and the worker protests it produced.
Chapter Eight documents warehouse working conditions, including the December 2024 Senate HELP Committee investigation findings summarized below, and the internal safety study Project Soteria.
3. Verified Fines, Penalties and Settlements (2020 – present)
| Date | Authority / Case | Amount | Basis | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 25, 2025 | US FTC — FTC v. Amazon.com, No. 2:23-cv-00932-JHC (W.D. Wash.) | $2.5 billion ($1B civil penalty + $1.5B consumer refunds) | Deceiving ~35 million consumers into Prime subscriptions via manipulative "dark pattern" designs and obstructing cancellation (ROSCA) | Settled on day two of jury trial; largest civil penalty in FTC history; no admission of wrongdoing; refunds of up to $51 per customer |
| Jul 16, 2021 | CNPD, Luxembourg (EU) | €746 million | GDPR violations in targeted-advertising consent — then the largest GDPR fine ever issued | Upheld by the Administrative Tribunal on March 18, 2025; overturned on Amazon's further appeal by the Administrative Court in early 2026 — reported here in full |
| 2023 | US OSHA | $100,000+ proposed citations | Ergonomic hazards exposing warehouse workers to injury | Contested by Amazon; cited in Senate report as evidence penalties are too small to change behavior |
Sources: CNBC on the FTC Prime settlement · NPR on the settlement and trial testimony · Luxembourg CNPD official statement · ICLG on the 2026 appellate reversal
Note: the FTC chair who brought the Prime case, Lina Khan, publicly called the $2.5 billion figure "a drop in the bucket" relative to Amazon's roughly $2.4 trillion market value — approximately 0.1 percent.
4. The Warehouse Record — US Senate Findings
On December 15–16, 2024, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, chaired by Senator Bernie Sanders, released a 160-page report, "The 'Injury-Productivity Trade-off': How Amazon's Obsession with Speed Creates Uniquely Dangerous Warehouses," based on an 18-month investigation, seven years of injury data, and interviews with more than 130 Amazon workers. Key findings:
Amazon warehouses recorded over 30 percent more injuries than the warehousing-industry average in 2023, and the Committee found Amazon manipulated and cherry-picked injury data to appear safer than it is.
Amazon discouraged injured workers from seeking outside medical care and rejected internal recommendations — including the internal study Project Soteria — that would have reduced injuries, because of their projected effect on speed and output.
The Committee concluded existing OSHA fines are too small to alter the behavior of a company earning over $17 billion in a single quarter. Amazon disputes the report's findings and methodology; its response is linked below in keeping with this project's full-record standard.
Sources: Full Senate HELP Committee report (PDF) · Sen. Sanders press release, Dec 16, 2024 · Amazon's public response
In December 2024 the Teamsters launched what the union called the largest strike against Amazon in US history, covered contemporaneously on NoEthicsInBigTech.com. Source: NoEthicsInBigTech.com
5. Open Litigation and Pending Investigations
FTC v. Amazon (monopoly case, filed September 2023, W.D. Wash., Judge John Chun): the FTC and a coalition of state attorneys general allege Amazon illegally maintains monopoly power over online marketplaces — punishing sellers who offer lower prices elsewhere and coercing use of its logistics. Amazon won partial dismissal in 2024; trial is scheduled for early 2027. Potential remedies include structural relief. Source: CNBC reporting on trial scheduling
New Jersey filed a state antitrust suit alleging Amazon unlawfully wielded power over its delivery contractors (reported 2026).
Project Nimbus: sustained worker, shareholder and human-rights pressure over the Amazon–Google $1.2 billion Israeli government cloud contract continues, documented in Chapter Thirteen of No Ethics in Big Tech together with the book's sourcing on the role of hyperscale cloud in the Gaza war.
Global outsourced-labor exposure: the jurisdictional precedents set against Meta in Nairobi (see the Meta fact sheet) apply pressure across the outsourced moderation and data-labeling model on which Amazon and the AI industry also rely.
6. Associations Noted in the Books
Jeff Bezos (founder, executive chairman), Andy Jassy (CEO; the executive who built AWS during the period the author worked there), and AWS leadership are profiled in separate executive fact sheets. CSC — the company whose trademark suit against BizCloud opens the author's first book — and its successor DXC Technology are profiled separately. Associations are noted for context; every company and person is documented on its own record.
Legal Disclaimer
This document is published as journalism and commentary in the public interest, protected as free speech and freedom of the press under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. It compiles information from public records, court filings, government announcements, parliamentary and congressional investigations, and reporting by established news organizations, together with the documented first-person accounts and analysis published in the books No Ethics in Big Tech and Ethics in Tech and Lack Thereof by Vahid Razavi.
Where a fine, judgment, or settlement is described, its status (paid, under appeal, overturned, or pending) is stated as reported by the issuing authority or by reputable press as of the verification date above. Allegations in open lawsuits and investigations are exactly that — allegations — and every party is entitled to the presumption of innocence unless and until a competent court rules otherwise. Where a company or executive has prevailed in court, that outcome is reported here as well, because the credibility of this project rests on stating the record in full. Opinions and characterizations drawn from the books are the protected opinion of the author. Corrections supported by documentation are welcome via NoEthicsInBigTech.com/contact.
Research Credit
Deep research, source verification, and document preparation for this fact sheet were performed by Claude, the AI assistant built by Anthropic, working under the direction of author Vahid Razavi. Every fine amount, case citation, and status line above was checked against the primary or press source listed beside it on the verification date. This is a living document; new rulings, fines, and investigations will be added as they are verified.