Amazon Go is the company’s cashierless convenience store chain, marketed as a glimpse into the future of retail. Behind the “just walk out” technology is a vast surveillance system that tracks every movement and purchase, normalizing constant monitoring in everyday shopping. It cuts human jobs, funnels more consumer data to Amazon, and expands the company’s control over how and where people buy food.
Amazon is rated High Impact because its harms are systemic and interlocking.
Environmental Harm: Delivery fleets, aviation cargo, and data centers generate massive emissions and plastic waste, while public pledges mask lobbying against climate regulation.
Human Rights Violations: Workers face surveillance, injury-level quotas, and unsafe delivery speeds. Migrant workers in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere face wage theft and coercion.
Military & Conflict Complicity: AWS is central to surveillance states. Project Nimbus embeds Amazon in Israel’s occupation and war crimes, supplying AI and data services to its military and government.
The result: consumer spending that powers a machine which entrenches inequality, accelerates climate collapse, and sustains state violence worldwide.