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Simply put, because J.K. Rowling’s views, since first writing the series, have changed, especially after she has published the books.Likewise, her attitude as to her “ownership”, and the future direction of, Harry Potter vastly differs from the views of many Harry Potter fans, especially those fans who express their opinions online.Or, in a nutshell, I’ll title this answer “J.K. Rowling vs. the Internet”.Times have vastly changed since J.K. Rowling first outlined, planned, and began writing the Harry Potter books in the 1990’s. While most of her readership were children born, and growing up, in the 1990’s and 2000’s, and with the Internet as an increasingly important staple of the modern Western household and culture, J.K. Rowling was not.Instead, Rowling herself grew up as a member of Generation X (b. 1965), and as of the writing of this article, is 52 years old. Thus, she and her views fit more in-line with most Harry Potter fans’ parents, as opposed to the fans themselves.Due to this, there also appears to be an ever-widening generational gap between Rowling herself, and the majority of younger Harry Potter fans, the latter of whom are largely a part of the Milennial Generation. Rowling, up until recently, has proven to be more conservative than many of her fans on certain views, particularly on copyright issues, expressing her “ownership” over Harry Potter, and “fan works”.The most notable examples of this are, in chronological order:1995–1997 - The Internet begins to build global roots. The first Harry Potter book, Harry Potter and the Philospher’s Stone, is released. While J.K. Rowling was penning Harry Potter, the Internet was still in its infancy. At first, due to this, Rowling, unable to afford a computer - much less Internet - wrote and did her outlines for the books on “napkins” and pieces of printer paper at a local establishment in her area, the Elephant House.In 1995, only 0.4% of the world population, or 16 million users, had access to the the Internet; by the release of the first Harry Potter book in 1997, that number had risen to 1.7%, or 70 million users.As not many people had the Internet, Harry Potter first gained fame through “word of mouth” among reading and educational circles by publishers Bloomsbury (UK) and Scholastic (US), and was first promoted, and would later be come to seen for years to come, as a “children’s book”.1997 - 2004 - The Internet spreads rapidly on a global scale, ballooning from being used by 1.7% of the global population (70 million users) , to 12.7 % (~1 billion users). By 2002, the first social media website, Friendster, also appears online, garnering 3 million users by 2003.In 2003, both MySpace and LinkedIn launch online, beginning the rise of social media on the Internet. Online chat rooms are also popular.Included in the spread of “Internet culture”, and during the adolescence of social media, is the founding of several Harry Potter online communities for fans, including websites like SugarQuill, MuggleNet, the Leaky Cauldron, the Harry Potter Lexicon, Fanfiction.net, and others. There are also various fan communities founded on sites like LiveJournal.Meanwhile, Harry Potter becomes increasingly popular in mainstream culture as more books and films are released, transforming from a mere “children’s book series” into a “pop culture phenomenon”. For books, Chamber of Secrets is released in 1998; Prisoner of Azkaban, in 1999; Goblet of Fire, in 2000; and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in 2003.As the Internet is increasingly integrated into Western schools, and J.K. Rowling conducts online “chat room interviews” with school-children, Harry Potter fan fiction and discussion begins to appear - and spread rapidly - online, quickly dwarfing other book communities.By the present day, Harry Potter is by far the largest fandom with written and posted fanfictions on Fanfiction.net, numbering about ~787,000 works.Likewise, “BNFs”, or Big-Name Fans, begin to appear in the Harry Potter online fan community, and greatly influence many fans’ views with their postings.Some of these “BNFs”, particularly for the most popular Harry Potter fan websites, become publicly seen as the primary spokespeople for the online fan community, despite most being teenagers. They are also given opportunities to host exclusive interviews with J.K. Rowling herself, so long as they “supported Rowling’s views and vision”.The “BNFs” include names like Cassandra Claire, who posted The Draco Trilogy series of massively popular Harry Potter fanfictions, and now known today as Cassandra Clare, author of The Mortal Instruments books; Melissa Anelli, the founder of the Leaky Cauldron Harry Potter fan website; Emerson Spartz, the founder of MuggleNet; and others.However, J.K. Rowling did not seem particularly fond of the Internet herself, or online communities. In fact, the concept of the Internet itself “scared” her.From a 2003 “Behind the Scenes” interview with Steve Kloves for the Chamber of Secrets film with Rowling:“But I think I wrote that, those are the sort of details that I write because, that would scare me. I read all the time and to have to just open something and have it shriek at me. And one thing that I thought that was well done in the film, ‘Chamber of Secrets’, was the diary.Now, the diary to me is a very scary object, a really, really frightening object. This manipulative little book, the temptation particularly for a young girl to pour out her heart to a diary, which is never something I was prone to, but my sister was. The power of something that answers you back, and at the time, that I wrote that I'd never been in an Internet chat room.But I've since thought, “Well, it's very similar [to an Internet chat room].”Just typing your deepest thoughts into the ether and getting answers back, and you don't know who is answering you. And so that was always a very scary image to me, in the book, and I thought it worked very well in the film. You could understand when [Harry] started writing to see these things coming back to him, and the power of that, that secret friend in your pocket.”“My Immortal” Harry Potter fanfiction edit by DailyDot2004 - J.K. Rowling comes out publicly in support of Harry Potter fanfiction online, but only on “her terms”. As you might tell, to the then-young fan base at the time, this wouldn’t have been a problem. However, as the fan base “grew up”; more people (especially young people) came out as LGBTQA+ or different sexualities as it became more acceptable to do so publicly; and Internet use continued to spread globally, this did become an issue.To quote her agent:“J.K. Rowling's reaction is that she is very flattered by the fact there is such great interest in her Harry Potter series, and that people take the time to write their own stories. Her concern would be to make sure that it remains a non-commercial activity to ensure fans are not exploited, and it is not being published, in the strict sense of traditional print publishing.The [Harry Potter] books may be getting older, but they are still aimed at young children. If young children were to stumble on Harry Potter in a an x-rated, ‘adult content’ story, that would be a problem [for J.K. Rowling].”The rise of the Internet, especially as time went on, also continued to play an increasing role in the gap between Rowling’s views, and those of Harry Potter fans. As Internet use became more ingrained and a cornerstone in Western culture, so, too, did discussing Harry Potter by fans in online communities.According to one article:“[Fanfiction is] something that fan cultures have always been involved in. The arrival of [the Internet] means it has a greater visibility. Before the age of the Internet, it was only circulated between fans.”2005 - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (book) is published. After going on a “research trip” to an orphanage prior to the book’s release, presumably to write a believable and realistic backstory for Tom Marvolo Riddle (Lord Voldemort)’s childhood spent in one, the appalling conditions of the institutions cause Rowling’s views to begin to change.Sometime between 2005 - 2007, Rowling would go on to change her previous view, and stance, of Voldemort as a “psychopath”, developing more sympathy and empathy for his character than she had previously. Furthermore, her horror at the reality of orphanages’ terrible conditions caused her to found her primary charity, LUMOS, dedicating to “abolishing” these institutions, and reuniting children with their families.This, I believe, marks the beginning of Rowling’s changing views on a story that she once promised to herself to “stick to her original outline on”. She had been writing the story for almost a decade (10 years) at this point.It would also mark when she first began to diverge from most fans’ popular views on the Harry Potter books and characters, the latter of which would, it seem, largely remain the same, even in the decade or so to come.2007 - Rowling publishes Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the books series’ final installment. Her making public her view of Dumbledore as gay after the book’s release was also seen as contentious, especially during, and after, a period in the United States where gay marriage, and LGBTQA+ rights, were a major issue (1990’s - 2000’s). Likewise, many younger Harry Potter fans were secretly “closeted” LGBTQA+, in a period of time where it was unacceptable to be open about being “different”.A lot of fans tend to forget that Rowling’s “Dumbledore is gay” reveal was 11 years ago, when the scene for LGBTQA+ rights, and how people viewed them, was much different than it is today. Popular perception of LGBTQA+ folk from the 1990’s, when Harry Potter is set, was still changing, and would for several years to come. Only 4 years earlier, in 2004 - mid-way through the publication of the Harry Potter books - the first legal same-sex marriage in the United States had taken place in Massachusetts.Likewise, as touched upon briefly further up, there was also controversy over whether or not LGBTQA+ - or “gay” - characters, or the topic of sexuality, should be addressed in regards to Harry Potter at all. Some considered it a subject “too adult” for “a children’s series” such as Harry Potter at the time; others pressed for LGBTQA+ representation in such a popular book series.However, even in the given climate at the time, Rowling’s announcement was met with plenty of controversy - and some because gay marriage was not yet legal in most of the United States, where a large portion of the Harry Potter books’ fan base lived. Likewise, there were some rumours of Warner Brothers, the makers of the Harry Potter films, quietly “silencing” their LGBTQA+ actors from the films, for the purpose of “preserving their public image”.Only later, well after gay marriage’s legalization in the 2010’s, and after other actions of hers, would Rowling’s decision be later seen by some fans, and criticized, in an entirely different light.While Rowling’s decision was lauded by LGBTQA+ activists at the time in 2007, as of 2018, some - especially those of Generation Z, born in the mid-1990s to early-2000s - are now claiming that “Rowling did not do enough for LGBTQA+ representation” in Harry Potter.2007 - 2012 - J.K. Rowling, her legal team, and Warner Bros. file, and win, multiple lawsuits against fans trying to publish “unofficial” Harry Potter books and encyclopedias, including popular Harry Potter fan website the Harry Potter Lexicon.This was, perhaps, the first inkling of more serious and widespread Harry Potter fan discontent and disagreement with Rowling, and the first time where Rowling took major legal action against “BNFs” in the online fan community who “stepped out of line”.From a 2008 article:The librarian at the heart of the Harry Potter copyright-infringement lawsuit stood up to J. K. Rowling on Tuesday in a Manhattan courtroom, and then broke down sobbing.The librarian, Steven Jan Vander Ark, had the mild-mannered demeanor of Ron Weasley, and the intelligence, charm — and haircut — of Harry Potter…Mr. Vander Ark testified that he was a former Star Trek fan, for whom reading the first Potter book, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, in 1998 was love at first sight.On the witness stand in Federal District Court, he portrayed the famous writer as his idol, his true literary love, who had been unaccountably bewitched by the evil, money-grubbing forces of publishing, like one of Voldemort’s vassals.One day, he testified, Ms. Rowling was singling out his Harry Potter Lexicon Web site, out of “hundreds of thousands” of Potter fan sites on the Web, for praise; the next, she was accusing him of plagiarism for wanting to turn it into a book.Did he consider himself part of the “Harry Potter community?” asked David Hammer, the lawyer for RDR Books, the small Michigan publishing company that wants to publish Mr. Vander Ark’s book.“I did,” Mr. Vander Ark said, his face reddening, as he turned away from Ms. Rowling, who was sitting 10 feet away at the plaintiff’s table, listening intently.Then he burst out crying. “Sorry,” he said, regaining his composure. “It’s been difficult because there’s been a lot of criticism, obviously, and that was never the intention.”It was an emotional culmination to three hours of testimony in which Mr. Vander Ark gushed over Ms. Rowling and her work like the devoted fan that he claimed to be, and disarmingly preceded almost every answer to a question with an “Um.”Ms. Rowling, who herself came close to tears on Monday while testifying about the Harry Potter books, and Warner Brothers Entertainment, the company that produces the Potter movies, have sued RDR, based in Muskegon, to stop publication of an encyclopedia of the Potter books by Mr. Vander Ark. Ms. Rowling contends in the lawsuit that his book copies material from her own books, while adding little or no new information and insight.Mr. Vander Ark said that he and his Web site staff members, including a teacher of Greek and Latin and two other librarians, had compiled the alphabetical lexicon as a “ready reference” for Potter fans, because the books had no index or glossary.Ms. Rowling reacted to Mr. Vander Ark’s testimony Tuesday through an e-mail message from a spokeswoman, saying, “A fan’s affectionate enthusiasm should not obscure acts of plagiarism.”Likewise, in 2009, J.K. Rowling did something previously thought to be “unprecedented” for her: she joined the social media site Twitter, seemingly going back on her previous, wary views of the Internet as “dangerous”.Perhaps it was due to efforts to combat online plagiarism; or, perhaps, it was done as a way to further transition, and grow, her presence and marketing as an author, and public figure, online.In either case, this would, as it turned out, further serve to prove that Rowling’s views towards the Harry Potter books and franchise as a whole were changing, as well as what she wanted for the direction of it in the future.2012 - J.K. Rowling opens Pottermore.com, presumably in lieu of publishing an “official” Harry Potter encyclopedia. The site, done with a contract between Rowling / Pottermore LTD and Sony, first opened as an online gaming site. It proves to be massively popular with the online Harry Potter fan community, rekindling widespread interest in the series and franchise.By now, the Internet has since grown to about ~2.5 billion users, or ~36% of the global population. Despite the movies and films being over (for now), with the last Harry Potter film having been released in 2011, Harry Potter is becoming bigger than ever as a franchise. It proves to be immensely popular in merchandise and toy sales, topping that of existing, popular franchises, such as Star Wars.Likewise, the first Harry Potter theme park, which opened at Universal Studios’ Islands of Adventure theme park in Orlando, Florida, in 2010, proves to be so massively popular and successful, that it breaks a 30-year monopoly by Disney on the Orlando industry. By 2014, the second wing of the park would open, resulting in even higher park visitation, revenue, and profits.However, the Pottermore site, while popularly received, suffered from numerous delays, bugs, and issues. This, in turn, would lead to…2014 - J.K. Rowling, interviewed by Emma Watson, announces that her view of the series has changed in the infamous “Wonderland interview”. After years of Rowling working with the most popular Harry Potter fan community websites to “promote her original views and vision” for the books, including particularly emphasizing support of the Ron/Hermione and Harry/Ginny romantic pairings……J.K. Rowling, in this interview, as per online fans’ views, completely backtracked on her previous actions. To many of them, she was admitting that her “views had changed” since 2006/2007, when she had originally written Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.In the interview, she stated (excerpt):“What I will say is that I wrote the Hermione/Ron relationship as a form of [personal] wish fulfillment. That’s how it was conceived, really. For reasons that have very little to do with literature and far more to do with me clinging to the plot as I first imagined it, Hermione with Ron…I know, I’m sorry, I can hear the rage and fury it might cause some fans, but if I’m absolutely honest, distance has given me perspective on that. It was a choice I made for very personal reasons, not for reasons of credibility. Am I breaking people’s hearts by saying this? I hope not.It was a young relationship. I think the attraction itself is plausible, but the combative side of it…I’m not sure you could have got over that in an adult relationship, there was too much fundamental incompatibility. I can’t believe we are saying all of this…this is Potter heresy!In some ways, Hermione and Harry are a better fit, and I’ll tell you something very strange. When I wrote Hallows, I felt this quite strongly when I had Hermione and Harry together in the tent! I hadn’t told [Steve] Kloves that and when he wrote the script he felt exactly the same thing at exactly the same point…and actually I liked that scene in the film, because it was articulating something I hadn’t said but I had felt. I really liked it and I thought that it was right. I think you do feel the ghost of what could have been in that scene.”Rowling’s own remarriage to doctor Neil Murray, whom she compared in another interview to “Harry Potter himself” (and herself, on multiple occasions, to Hermione), seemed to have changed her initial views somewhat on her decision to pair up Ron/Hermione and Harry/Ginny.Needless to say, for the main Harry Potter fan websites - namely, the Leaky Cauldron and MuggleNet - who had worked closely with Rowling for years in promoting Ron/Hermione and Harry/Ginny, as well as countless fans who had supported these romantic pairs, Rowling’s admission was seen highly controversial at best, and a “betrayal” at worst.This further caused negative backlash by angry and upset fans against the author, which leads us to…2015 - J.K. Rowling, abandoning the “online gaming” Pottermore format, relaunches Pottermore as an “online encyclopedia” (of-sorts). This move causes widespread negative reactions, and uproar, from Harry Potter fans and the online community, which begins a downward spiral of fans beginning to view Rowling more negatively.Likewise, Rowling’s company, Pottermore LTD, which was a team hired to manage the website in lieu of Rowling herself, further designed “articles” based on the format of popular website Buzzfeed.This included the creation of “clickbait” titles in order to gain more traffic, which many fans greatly disliked, not just because the articles were misleading - promising new information on Harry Potter lore, when, in reality, there was none - but also due to the poorly-written aspects and bad quality of many of the “articles”.Many fans also criticized the website’s poor search function and formatting, which made it difficult to navigate the site, and to locate specific articles. The website’s branding of “the digital heart of the wizarding world” also greatly rankled fans, who expected much more than what the site actually provided.But the worst was yet to come…2016 - J.K. Rowling, largely giving artistic license to Jack Thorne and John Tiffany, publishes the Harry Potter and the Cursed Child script.This one is fairly self-explanatory. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which was later revealed to be largely “ghostwritten” for Rowling on the part of Thorne and Tiffany, received an enormous amount of backlash and negative criticism from Harry Potter fans and the online community.The main reason for fan backlash? Not only was the work widely regarded as “unfaithful”, and wildly inconsistent, with how most fans popularly viewed the original Harry Potter books - and for good reason - but it was later admitted by Thorne that he had based a large part of the story “off of his own personality and experiences”, practically imposing his own life over that of Harry Potter, the main character, in the play.To many fans, because J.K. Rowling chose not to solely write the script herself, and allowed Thorne and Tiffany to have what they saw as “too much creative control”, this served to further sour the once-rosy view that many fans held of Rowling.Likewise, Rowling herself, who had previously been documented by fans as liking “black Hermione” or “race-bent Hermione” art shared from Tumblr on her official Twitter account, agreed on the casting of a black actress, Noma Dumezweni, as Hermione Granger in the on-stage production of Cursed Child.Again, this decision - and Rowling’s later defense of it - proved to be extremely controversial amongst fans, many of whom “always saw Hermione as white”.To complicate matters even further, Rowling was also heavily criticized by a sub-section of Harry Potter fans on her portrayal of Native American and African wizards and witches in her “expanded lore” essays “A History of Magic in North America”, which were posted on Pottermore as promotion for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them.2018 - 20 Years Later - J.K. Rowling vs. the Fans - “Who ‘owns’ Harry Potter?”Given all of the above, it’s easy to see how, when, and why the Harry Potter fandom “began to turn” on J.K. Rowling.Based on what I’ve personally seen, in my experience with the online Harry Potter fan community, the most recent examples of Pottermore (“A History of Magic in North America”) and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child merely brought to light a dispute between Rowling and her fans that had been brewing for a long time.To quote longtime Harry Potter fan, and now author of YA works like Fangirl and Carry On!, among other books, Rainbow Rowell…“When I wrote Fangirl, I had to explain what fanfiction was to a lot of people, and I don’t have to explain that much [today]. That will continue because the Harry Potter generation is growing up. The Harry Potter generation is the generation where fanfiction really became a big deal. Even if you weren’t writing fanfiction yourself, you know it’s there, you’re just much more fluent in the internet.” (Source)Rowell herself got her start in the Harry Potter online fan community, writing non-canon fanfiction that paired Harry Potter with Draco Malfoy, one of Rowell’s preferred characters.However, J.K. Rowling has publicly written, and expressed her disapproval, of “Draco Malfoy fans” - and particularly, women who like Draco Malfoy - on Pottermore.“Draco [Malfoy] remains a person of dubious morality in the seven published [Harry Potter] books, and I have often had cause to remark on how unnerved I have been by the number of girls who fell for this particular fictional character (although I do not discount the appeal of Tom Felton, who plays Draco brilliantly in the films and, ironically, is about the nicest person you could meet). Draco has all the dark glamour of the anti-hero; girls are very apt to romanticise such people.All of this left me in the unenviable position of pouring cold, common sense on ardent readers’ daydreams, as I told them, rather severely, that Draco was not concealing a heart of gold under all that sneering and prejudice, and that no, he and Harry were not destined to end up best friends.” - J.K. Rowling (Source)Likewise, writer Victoria Lee, author of The Fever King, who also explored being LGBTQA+ and sexuality through writing “slash” (same-sex) pairings in Harry Potter fanfiction and fan roleplays, had this to say of growing up in the fandom in her 2019 article “Harry Potter and the Conspiracy of Queers: Discovering Myself in Fandom and Roleplay”.“The golden days of Harry Potter fandom is one of those phenomena you had to see to believe. Harry Potter obsession swept through the culture–everyone knew their Hogwarts House (mine is Ravenclaw, by the way). Everyone had a theory on whether Snape was good or bad. Everyone had a favorite possible ending.Harry Potter, to us, was possibility: maybe there really was magic hiding behind the mundane veneer of our real lives. Maybe one day we’d be able to leave our boring schools, turn our backs on the mean girls who bullied us, and escape into a world where we had extraordinary powers and would be taught how to use them.Perhaps Harry Potter was especially appealing to queer kids. In that world, we could imagine no one caring who you loved or what gender you were. People at Hogwarts would be way too busy drinking pumpkin juice and transforming chairs into birds to worry about being homophobic.We lived out these possible-lives online, through fandom. For me–in the roleplaying games, as well as in my fanfics–I had something like a brand. I only ever played queer people. Across the board, regardless of my characters’ genders, everyone was always very, very gay.Fandom in those days was rife with The Gay. Slash fanfiction—fic involving same-gender couples—wasn’t some niche interest, it was mainstream. And everyone that I personally knew who was writing slash at the time was queer.Slash was one of the first places I explored my fluid gender and sexual identities. I could write characters—importantly, I could write male characters—who shared my identities, who liked people of all genders, who were confident and proud in their sexualities.My mind exploded into this world and I created all these lives stitched into the fabric of Harry Potter’s setting and characters. I made Remus Lupin and Sirius Black shamelessly queer. I had Gellert Grindelwald say I prefer men in eighteen ninety-fuckin’-nine, and what of it? My characters weren’t hiding their identities.I had memorized the stretch of forty-one lines in Order of the Phoenix during which Remus Lupin’s eyes remained “fixed on Sirius”–proof positive of their love. I had underlined (twice) the part where Dumbledore told Harry, “You cannot imagine how his ideas caught me, Harry, inflamed me. […] Grindelwald and I, the glorious young leaders of the revolution.”As far as I and about a gazillion other people were concerned, this was Rowling whispering through the pages, it’s true, they’re in love, they were just like you.But to a certain extent, there was a separation: those characters were just that—characters. They weren’t me. And as gratifying as it was to write fanfic about queer Draco Malfoy, the truth was…it hurt, in a way, to write dramatic and passionate romances for these characters when I’d never get to have that for myself.Or, not in the same way. I still saw my future the way a fourteen-year-old Southern girl is taught to see her future: go to college, meet your husband, marry young, have a house and two kids by twenty-eight. No dramatic and passionate romances for me.[…] I’d never heard [the term ‘bigender’] before. I went back online, to my slash-loving queer Harry Potter community, and floated that word on tumblr. And it turned out I wasn’t alone. Those same friends who wrote gay fanfic, who role played queerified HP characters online, had also discovered something about themselves in the process. Ginny and Luna made me realize I’m gay, someone said in my askbox. Someone else: Harry/Draco fic was the first time I got to feel like a man. Or, I don’t know what gender I am, but I know it’s not the one I was born with.A whole new set of terms presented themselves to me, buoyed into my inbox from the mouths of these queer slash fanatics: nonbinary, genderfluid, genderqueer.Would I have figured out I was bigender without Harry Potter? Definitely. But it might have taken me that much longer—or I might have wasted even more time worrying about whether my identity was real. As the Harry Potter kids informed me, no cis person spends this much time agonizing over their gender.Back in fandom days, we didn’t need anyone to tell us if the Harry Potter characters were gay or not. They just were.They were gay because we said so, they were gay and in love and they were going to have brilliant, happy lives. Harry Potter fandom took a set of books that were almost aggressively straight and cisgender and colored them in with rainbow ink. We wrote our own stories in new iterations over and over, each RPG character or one-shot fic one step closer to embracing our own queer identities. If these characters can be happy, so can I.Recently, JK Rowling has come forward to retroactively canonize some of these relationships: Albus Dumbledore was gay, she said first, but the relationship wasn’t physical. Only then she came back years later to say actually, the relationship was physical, and passionately so. As a teen reader, this kind of confirmation of queerness in Harry Potter would have made me unspeakably happy. I’d have seen it as validation of my identity from the author of my favorite book series.But as an adult queer, I have come to expect more from the media I consume. It’s not enough to say the characters were gay—I want to see them be gay on the page. I want true representation of the entire spectrum of queerness, written in ink. That’s the kind of representation queer fanfic writers created for ourselves in the heyday of Harry Potter fandom, and it’s the representation we’ve come to demand from the original source material.Queer readers deserve to see ourselves depicted in literature. Transformative works like fanfiction will always be an important and wonderful part of exploring a fandom—but one thing that might have helped my teenage self come to terms with their gender and sexual identities earlier isn’t more fanfic…it’s more queer characters depicted in canonical media, as casually as cisgender straight characters have been since forever.If I could give my fourteen-year-old self anything, it would be this: the gift of opening a book and discovering a character who identified as both male and female, who was both bisexual and bigender—and who was, above all, proud.”This, among other disputes with Rowling, is what helped motivate fans, Rainbow Rowell and Victoria Lee included, to turn their Harry Potter fan works into original works. Ones where they, and not Rowling, can write their own narratives.Namely, the primary dispute, in regards to the Harry Potter books themselves, is thus: “Who ‘owns’ the legacy of Harry Potter, as a franchise, and its future direction? J.K. Rowling, the original author who wrote the series, and continues to write content…or the Harry Potter fans, who support the franchise with their money?”From the timeline provided above, the process of divergence has been on years in the making, taking over a decade to come to an impasse between author and fans.With the original Harry Potter fans “growing up” and maturing, so, too, have they increasingly come to view Harry Potter not as a “children’s book series”, but as an “adult one”, too. Meanwhile, Rowling still largely sees the original Harry Potter books as “for children”, seeking to write more “adult” themes into the spin-off Fantastic Beasts film franchise.To revisit the “generational gap” as well, it’s clear that J.K. Rowling, who grew up in a more “conservative” time, has vastly different views of Harry Potter than Milennial fans do.The primary reason for this? Technology. Specifically, the rise of the Internet and social media in modern society. As opposed to the time Rowling grew up in, Milennial Harry Potter fans are now much greater in number and vocal ability, thanks to growing up using (and forming communities on) the Internet.To quote a 2015 source:The Internet seems to be a good leveler of digital use, at least within the US. While fewer than 60% of senior citizens (ages >65) are conversant with and use the Internet in 2014, the percentages are comparable for all other age groups; 92% for teens, 97% for young adults (18-29 years), 94% for the mid-lifers (30-49) and 88% for older adults (50-64).How the internet is used also varies among age groups. While teenagers and young adults under age 30 use the Internet to find information, socialize, play, shop and perhaps conduct business, older users visit government websites or seek financial information online. However this gap is narrowing, according to Pew Research, and activities such as emails and search engines being increasingly used by all age groups that are online.Social media is another area where there is an age difference. While the percentage of adults who use social media (72%) is not that different from the youngsters in it (81%), there is a difference in the type of social media applications that is favored. Youngsters (teens and young adults) seem more prevalent in social media applications such as Facebook and Twitter, while adults dominate Tumblr, Instagram and Pinterest.Adults are largely passive or semi-active users of social media, as seen in that adults typically add contacts only on request, while adolescents actively seek new friendships.Adolescents use the social media platform as a conversation space and an outlet for self-expression, aimed largely at building new relationships, while adults use social media to maintaining existing relationships. Adults have fewer contacts with a third of the adults in social media admitting to having family as their main contact group. Contrast this with the fact that only 10 and 15% of adolescents reported to have family in their social media contact list.The type of material people post on social media sites differs as well. A surprising observation has been that teens post fewer photos on social media sites (like Instagram, for instance) than adults. Teens also post more selfies than adults, which is directly related to the fact that they click more selfies than adults. Teens also appear to post material that depict “mood/emotion” and “follow/like” topics, which are geared towards attracting more followers. Adults however, post under topics that included “arts/photos/design,” “locations,” “nature” and “social/people.”It is generally believed that young people are risky users of social network sites, because they apparently share more information about themselves than is safe and care little about their privacy. This contention is backed by countless examples of catastrophic outcomes of such exposures. However, the media frenzy around such incidents belies the real situation.Youngsters, especially teens, have been found to make better use of the privacy settings provided by social network sites compared to adults. This is probably because they tend to separate their offline identity from their online identity in order to manage their reputation.While the relationship between age and technology use is, if not always as expected, not really shocking, there is a growing disparity in the tech industry - the generators of technology.According to a survey by PayScale, the median age of workers at many of the most successful companies in the technology industry hovers well below 35.Older companies had a higher median age, and younger companies had medium age of 30 or younger. This is despite the fact that the people who heralded the IT revolution are now in their forties (40’s) and beyond. This disparity has been attributed to the change in technology tools and platform over the years.It can be argued that the comfort level that the younger generation has with technology is manifesting itself in them helping find newer ways to improve productivity and efficiency of our lives. What this bodes for the future of human-kind can only be speculated at this point, but it certainly portends to be an unprecedented chapter in the history of civilization.

Amazo Customer Care 9679824416 NNumber Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more, Inc.[8] (/ˈæməzɒn/ AM-ə-zon) is an American multinational technology company based in Seattle, Washington, which focuses on e-commerce, cloud, along with Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Facebook.[9][10][11][12] The company has been referred to as "one of the most influential economic and cultural forces in the world", as well as the world's most valuable brand.[13][14]Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more, Inc.Amazon logo.svgLogo since 2000Amazon Spheres 05.jpgThe Amazon Spheres, part of the Amazon headquarters campus in SeattleTrade nameAmazonFormerlyCadabra, Inc. (1994–95)TypePublicTraded asNASDAQ: AMZNNASDAQ-100 componentS&P 100 componentS&P 500 componentISINUS0231351067IndustryCloud computinge-commerceartificial intelligenceconsumer electronicsdigital distributionself-driving carsFoundedJuly 5, 1994; 26 years agoBellevue, Washington, U.S.FounderJeff BezosHeadquartersSeattle, Washington, U.S.Area servedWorldwideKey peopleJeff Bezos (President, CEO, and Chairman)Andy Jassy (CEO-elect)Brian Olsavsky (Senior VP and CFO)ProductsEchoFire TabletFire TVFire OSKindleServicesAmazon.comAmazon AlexaAmazon AppstoreAmazon MusicAmazon PrimeAmazon Prime VideoAmazon Web ServicesRevenueIncrease US$386.064 billion (2020)Operating incomeIncrease US$22.9 billion (2020)Net incomeIncrease US$21.331 billion (2020)Total assetsIncrease US$321.2 billion (2020)Total equityIncrease US$93.404 billion (2020)Number of employeesIncrease 1,298,000 (Dec. 2020)[1]U.S.: 810,000 (Oct. 2020)[2]SubsidiariesA9.comAbeBooksAlexa http://InternetAmazon.com ServicesAmazon AirAmazon BooksAmazon FreshAmazon Game StudiosAmazon Lab126Amazon LogisticsAmazon PharmacyAmazon PublishingAmazon RoboticsAmazon StudiosAWSAudibleBody LabsBook DepositoryComiXologyDigital Photography ReviewGoodreadsGraphiqIMDbPillPackRingSouq.comTwitch InteractiveWhole Foods MarketWootZapposWebsiteOnline Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & moreFootnotes / references[1][3][4][5][6][7]Amazon was founded by Jeff Bezos in Bellevue, Washington, on July 5, 1994. It started as an online marketplace for books but expanded to sell electronics, software, video games, apparel, furniture, food, toys, and jewelry. In 2015, Amazon surpassed Walmart as the most valuable retailer in the United States by market capitalization.[15] In 2017, Amazon acquired Whole Foods Market for US$13.4 billion, which substantially increased its footprint as a physical retailer.[16] In 2018, its two-day delivery service, Amazon Prime, surpassed 100 million subscribers worldwide.[17]Amazon is known for its disruption of well-established industries through technological innovation and mass scale.[18][19][20] It is the world's largest online marketplace, AI assistant provider, live-streaming platform and cloud computing platform[21] as measured by revenue and market capitalization.[22] Amazon is the largest Internet company by revenue in the world.[23] It is the second largest private employer in the United States[24] and one of the world's most valuable companies. As of 2020, Amazon has the highest global brand valuation.[25]Amazon distributes downloads and streaming of video, music, and audiobooks through its Prime Video, Amazon Music, Twitch, and Audible subsidiaries. Amazon also has a publishing arm, Amazon Publishing, a film and television studio, Amazon Studios, and a cloud computing subsidiary, Amazon Web Services. It produces consumer electronics including Kindle e-readers, Fire tablets, Fire TV, and Echo devices. Its acquisitions over the years include Ring, Twitch, Whole Foods Market, and IMDb.Amazon has been criticized for practices including technological surveillance overreach,[26] a hyper-competitive and demanding work culture,[27] tax avoidance,[28] and anti-competitive behavior.[29][30]HistoryFurther information: History of AmazonThe company's largest campus outside the United States was inaugurated in Hyderabad, India in September 2019.Jeff Bezos founded Amazon in July 1994. He chose Seattle because of technical talent as Microsoft is located there.[31] In May 1997, Amazon went public. It began selling music and videos in 1998, at which time it began operations internationally by acquiring online sellers of books in United Kingdom and Germany. The following year, Amazon began selling items including video games, consumer electronics, home improvement items, software, games, and toys.In 2002, Amazon launched Amazon Web Services (AWS), which provided data on website popularity, Internet traffic patterns and other statistics for marketers and developers. In 2006, Amazon grew its AWS portfolio when Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2), which rents computer processing power as well as Simple Storage Service (S3), that rents data storage via the Internet, were made available. That same year, Amazon started Fulfillment by Amazon which managed the inventory of individuals and small companies selling their belongings through the company internet site. In 2012, Amazon bought Kiva Systems to automate its inventory-management business, purchasing Whole Foods Market supermarket chain five years later in 2017.[32]In January 2021, Amazon invested with over $278 million by opening two new centers in Italy (Novara and Modena) and creating over 1100 jobs.[33]On February 2, 2021, Amazon announced that Jeff Bezos would be stepping down as CEO and transition to Executive Chair of Amazon's board in Q3 of 2021. Andy Jassy, who is currently CEO of AWS, will replace Bezos as CEO of the company.[34][35]Board of directorsAmazon founder Jeff Bezos in 2016As of September 2020, the board of directors is:[36]Jeff Bezos, President, CEO, and ChairmanKeith B. Alexander, CEO IronNet Cybersecurity, former NSA DirectorRosalind Brewer, Group President, and COO, StarbucksJamie Gorelick, partner, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale, and DorrDaniel P. Huttenlocher, Dean of the Schwarzman College of Computing at the Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyJudy McGrath, former CEO, MTV NetworksIndra Nooyi, former CEO, PepsiCoJon Rubinstein, former Chairman, and CEO, Palm, Inc.Thomas O. Ryder, former Chairman, and CEO, Reader's Digest AssociationPatty Stonesifer, President, and CEO, Martha's TableWendell P. Weeks, Chairman, President, and CEO, Corning Inc.Merchant partnershipsIn 2000, U.S. toy retailer Toys "R" Us entered into a 10-year agreement with Amazon, valued at $50 million per year plus a cut of sales, under which Toys "R" Us would be the exclusive supplier of toys and baby products on the service, and the chain's website would redirect to Amazon's Toys & Games category. In 2004, Toys "R" Us sued Amazon, claiming that because of a perceived lack of variety in Toys "R" Us stock, Amazon had knowingly allowed third-party sellers to offer items on the service in categories that Toys "R" Us had been granted exclusivity. In 2006, a court ruled in favor of Toys "R" Us, giving it the right to unwind its agreement with Amazon and establish its own independent e-commerce website. The company was later awarded $51 million in damages.[37][38][39]In 2001, Amazon entered into a similar agreement with Borders Group, under which Amazon would comanage Barnes & Noble Welcomes Borders® Bookstore Customers as a co-branded service.[40] Borders pulled out of the arrangement in 2007, with plans to also launch its own online store.[41]On October 18, 2011, Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more announced a partnership with DC Comics for the exclusive digital rights to many popular comics, including Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, The Sandman, and Watchmen. The partnership has caused well-known bookstores like Barnes & Noble to remove these titles from their shelves.[42]In November 2013, Amazon announced a partnership with the United States Postal Service to begin delivering orders on Sundays. The service, included in Amazon's standard shipping rates, initiated in metropolitan areas of Los Angeles and New York because of the high-volume and inability to deliver in a timely way, with plans to expand into Dallas, Houston, New Orleans and Phoenix by 2014.[43]In June 2017, Nike confirmed a "pilot" partnership with Amazon to sell goods directly on the platform.[44][45][46] This pilot ended in November 2019.[47]As of October 11, 2017, AmazonFresh sold a range of Booths branded products for home delivery in selected areas.[48]In September 2017, Amazon ventured with one of its sellers JV Appario Retail owned by Patni Group which has recorded a total income of US$ 104.44 million (₹ 759 crore) in financial year 2017–18.[49]In November 2018, Amazon reached an agreement with Apple Inc. to sell selected products through the service, via the company and selected Apple Authorized Resellers. As a result of this partnership, only Apple Authorized Resellers may sell Apple products on Amazon effective January 4, 2019.[50][51]LogisticsAmazon uses many different transportation services to deliver packages. Amazon-branded services include:Amazon Air, a cargo airline for bulk transport, with last mile delivery handled either by Amazon Flex, Amazon Logistics, or the United States Postal Service.Amazon Flex, a smartphone app that enables individuals to act as independent contractors, delivering packages to customers from personal vehicles without uniforms. Deliveries include one or two hour Prime Now, same or next day Amazon Fresh groceries, and standard Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more orders, in addition to orders from local stores that contract with Amazon.[52]Amazon Logistics, in which Amazon contracts with small businesses (which it calls "Delivery Service Partners") to perform deliveries to customers. Each business has a fleet of approximately 20-40 Amazon-branded vans, and employees of the contractors wear Amazon uniforms. As of December 2020, it operates in the United States, Canada, Italy, Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom.[53]Amazon Prime Air is an experimental drone delivery service.Amazon directly employs people to work at its warehouses, bulk distribution centers, staffed "Amazon Hub Locker+" locations, and delivery stations where drivers pick up packages. As of December 2020, it is not hiring delivery drivers as employees.[54]Rakuten Intelligence estimated that in 2020 in the United States, the proportion of last-mile deliveries was 56% by Amazon's directly contracted services (mostly in urban areas), 30% by the United States Postal Service (mostly in rural areas), and 14% by UPS.[55] The USPS is used to deliver packages to at least some unstaffed Amazon Lockers, according to on-site signage.Products and servicesMain article: List of Amazon products and servicesOnline Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more's product lines available at its website include several media (books, DVDs, music CDs, videotapes and software), apparel, baby products, consumer electronics, beauty products, gourmet food, groceries, health and personal-care items, industrial & scientific supplies, kitchen items, jewelry, watches, lawn and garden items, musical instruments, sporting goods, tools, automotive items and toys & games.[citation needed] In August 2019, Amazon applied to have a liquor store in San Francisco, CA as a means to ship beer and alcohol within the city.[56] Amazon has separate retail websites for some countries and also offers international shipping of some of its products to certain other countries.[57] In November 2020, the company started an online delivery service dedicated to prescription drugs. The service provides discounts up to 80% for generic drugs and up to 40% for branded drugs for Prime subscribe users. The products can be purchased on the company's website or at over 50,000 bricks-and-mortar pharmacies in the United States.[58]Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more has a number of products and services available, including:AmazonFreshAmazon PrimeAmazon Web ServicesAlexaAppstoreAmazon DriveEchoKindleFire tabletsFire TVVideoKindle StoreMusicMusic UnlimitedAmazon Digital Game StoreAmazon StudiosAmazonWirelessSubsidiariesSee also: List of Amazon locationsAmazon owns over 40 subsidiaries, including Audible, http://Diapers.com, Goodreads, IMDb, Kiva Systems (now Amazon Robotics), Shopbop, Teachstreet, Twitch and Zappos.[59]http://A9.comhttp://A9.com, a company focused on researching and building innovative technology, has been a subsidiary since 2003.[60]Amazon MaritimeAmazon Maritime, Inc. holds a Federal Maritime Commission license to operate as a non-vessel-owning common carrier (NVOCC), which enables the company to manage its own shipments from China into the United States.[61]Annapurna LabsIn January 2015, Amazon Web Services acquired Annapurna Labs, an Israel-based microelectronics company reputedly for US$350–370M.[62][63][64]Unlock a listen for every momentUnlock a listen for every moment is a seller and producer of spoken audio entertainment, information and educational programming on the Internet. Audible sells digital audiobooks, radio and television programs and audio versions of magazines and newspapers. Through its production arm, Audible Studios, Audible has also become the world's largest producer of downloadable audiobooks. On January 31, 2008, Amazon announced it would buy Audible for about $300 million. The deal closed in March 2008 and Audible became a subsidiary of Amazon.[65]Beijing Century Joyo Courier ServicesBeijing Century Joyo Courier Services is a subsidiary of Amazon and it applied for a freight forwarding license with the US Maritime Commission. Amazon is also building out its logistics in trucking and air freight to potentially compete with UPS and FedEx.[66][67]Brilliance AudioBrilliance Audio is an audiobook publisher founded in 1984 by Michael Snodgrass in Grand Haven, Michigan.[68] The company produced its first 8 audio titles in 1985.[68] The company was purchased by Amazon in 2007 for an undisclosed amount.[69][70] At the time of the acquisition, Brilliance was producing 12–15 new titles a month.[70] It operates as an independent company within Amazon.In 1984, Brilliance Audio invented a technique for recording twice as much on the same cassette.[71] The technique involved recording on each of the two channels of each stereo track.[71] It has been credited with revolutionizing the burgeoning audiobook market in the mid-1980s since it made unabridged books affordable.[71]ComiXologyComiXology is a cloud-based digital comics platform with over 200 million comic downloads as of September 2013. It offers a selection of more than 40,000 comic books and graphic novels across Android, iOS, Fire OS and Windows 8 devices and over a web browser. Amazon bought the company in April 2014.[72]CreateSpaceCreateSpace, which offers self-publishing services for independent content creators, publishers, film studios, and music labels, became a subsidiary in 2009.[73][74]EeroEero, stylized as eero, is a company that manufactures mesh-capable routers. The company was founded in 2015 and is based in San Francisco. Amazon announced it would buy Eero in 2019.GoodreadsMain article: GoodreadsGoodreads is a "social cataloging" website founded in December 2006 and launched in January 2007 by Otis Chandler, a software engineer, and entrepreneur, and Elizabeth Khuri. The website allows individuals to freely search Goodreads' extensive user-populated database of books, annotations, and reviews. Users can sign up and register books to generate library catalogs and reading lists. They can also create their own groups of book suggestions and discussions. In December 2007, the site had over 650,000 members and over 10 million books had been added. Amazon bought the company in March 2013.[75]Health NavigatorIn October 2019, Amazon finalized the acquisition of Health Navigator, a startup developing APIs for online health services. The startup will form part of Amazon Care, which is the company's employee healthcare service. This follows the 2018 purchase of PillPack for under $1 billion, which has also been included into Amazon Care.[76]JungleeJunglee is a former online shopping service provided by Amazon that enabled customers to search for products from online and offline retailers in India. Junglee started off as a virtual database that was used to extract information from the Internet and deliver it to enterprise applications. As it progressed, Junglee started to use its database technology to create a single window marketplace on the Internet by making every item from every supplier available for purchase. Web shoppers could locate, compare and transact millions of products from across the Internet shopping mall through one window.[77]Amazon acquired Junglee in 1998, and the website Junglee.com was launched in India in February 2012[78] as a comparison-shopping website. It curated and enabled searching for a diverse variety of products such as clothing, electronics, toys, jewelry and video games, among others, across thousands of online and offline sellers. Millions of products are browsable, the client selects a price, and then they are directed to a seller. In November 2017, Amazon closed down Junglee.com and the former domain currently redirects to Amazon India.[79]Kuiper SystemsMain article: Kuiper SystemsKuiper Systems LLC, is a subsidiary of Amazon, set up to deploy a broadband satellite internet constellation with an announced 3,236 Low Earth orbit satellites to provide satellite based Internet connectivity.[80][81][82]PillPackPillPack is an online pharmacy specializing in shipping pre-sorted medications in by-day packets. It was acquired by Amazon in June 2018.Lab126Main article: Amazon Lab126Lab126, developers of integrated consumer electronics such as the Kindle, became a subsidiary in 2004.[83]RingMain article: Ring Inc.Ring is a home automation company founded by Jamie Siminoff in 2013. It is primarily known for its WiFi powered smart doorbells, but manufactures other devices such as security cameras. Amazon bought Ring for US$1 billion in 2018.[84]ShelfariShelfari was a social cataloging website for books. Shelfari users built virtual bookshelves of the titles which they owned or had read and they could rate, review, tag and discuss their books. Users could also create groups that other members could join, create discussions and talk about books, or other topics. Recommendations could be sent to friends on the site for what books to read. Amazon bought the company in August 2008.[75] Shelfari continued to function as an independent book social network within the Amazon until January 2016, when Amazon announced that it would be merging Shelfari with Goodreads and closing down Shelfari.[85][86]SouqMain article: تسوق اون لاين الاجهزة الالكترونية ، الملابس ، الكمبيوترات، موبايلاتتسوق اون لاين الاجهزة الالكترونية ، الملابس ، الكمبيوترات، موبايلات is the largest E-Commerce platform in the Middle East based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. On March 28, 2017, Amazon confirmed it would be acquiring تسوق اون لاين الاجهزة الالكترونية ، الملابس ، الكمبيوترات، موبايلات for $580 million.[87] تسوق اون لاين الاجهزة الالكترونية ، الملابس ، الكمبيوترات، موبايلات is now a subsidiary of Amazon, and acts as Amazon's arm into the Middle East region.TwitchMain article: Twitch (service)Twitch at the Electronic Entertainment ExpoTwitch is a live streaming platform for video, primarily oriented towards video gaming content. The service was first established as a spin-off of a general-interest streaming service known as http://Justin.tv. Its prominence was eclipsed by that of Twitch, and http://Justin.tv was eventually shut down by its parent company in August 2014 in order to focus exclusively on Twitch.[88] Later that month, Twitch was acquired by Amazon for $970 million.[89] Through Twitch, Amazon also owns Curse, Inc., an operator of video gaming communities and a provider of VoIP services for gaming.[90] Since the acquisition, Twitch began to sell games directly through the platform,[91] and began offering special features for Amazon Prime subscribers.[92]The site's rapid growth had been boosted primarily by the prominence of major esports competitions on the service, leading GameSpot senior esports editor Rod Breslau to have described the service as "the ESPN of esports".[93] As of 2015, the service had over 1.5 million broadcasters and 100 million monthly viewers.[94]On August 10, 2020, Amazon announced the rebranding of Twitch Prime, the live-streaming site, renaming it Prime Gaming [1] in another attempt to crack the video game market after failing a big-budget game effort. With Twitch Prime, users will be given a free subscription to Twitch, with free games from small studios and discounts for larger titles like Grand Theft Auto and League of Legends.[95]On November 2, 2020, Twitch announced a virtual flagship conference and named it GlitchCon instead of TwitchCon to be held on November 14. The main aim of the conference will be to bring its numerous, disparate communities of streamers and fans together where they can be real life confidants.[96]Whole Foods MarketWhole Foods Market store in Ann Arbor, MichiganWhole Foods Market is an American supermarket chain exclusively featuring foods without artificial preservatives, colors, flavors, sweeteners, and hydrogenated fats.[97]On August 23, 2017, it was reported that the Federal Trade Commission approved the merger between Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more and Whole Foods Market.[98] The following day it was announced that the deal would be closed on August 28, 2017.[99]Supply chainAmazon first launched its distribution network in 1997 with two fulfillment centers in Seattle and New Castle, Delaware. Amazon has several types of distribution facilities consisting of crossdock centers, fulfillment centers, sortation centers, delivery stations, Prime now hubs, and Prime air hubs. There are 75 fulfillment centers and 25 sortation centers with over 125,000 employees.[100][101] Employees are responsible for five basic tasks: unpacking and inspecting incoming goods; placing goods in storage and recording their location; picking goods from their computer recorded locations to make up an individual shipment; sorting and packing orders; and shipping. A computer that records the location of goods and maps out routes for pickers plays a key role: employees carry hand-held computers which communicate with the central computer and monitor their rate of progress. Some warehouses are partially automated with systems built by Amazon Robotics.Amazon.fr : livres, DVD, jeux vidéo, musique, high-tech, informatique, jouets, vêtements, chaussures, sport, bricolage, maison, beauté, puériculture, épicerie et plus encore ! fulfillment center in Lauwin-Planque, Francecompra online de electrónica, libros, deporte, hogar, moda y mucho más. fulfillment center in San Fernando de Henares, SpainLow Prices in Electronics, Books, Sports Equipment & more fulfillment center in Glenrothes, Scotland, UKGünstige Preise für Elektronik & Foto, Filme, Musik, Bücher, Games, Spielzeug & mehr fulfillment center in Graben, GermanyAmazon | 本, ファッション, 家電から食品まで | アマゾン fulfillment center in Ichikawa, JapanAmazon fulfillment center in Macon, Georgia, U.S.WebsiteOnline Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & moreOnline Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more-Logo.svgLogo since 2000ScreenshotOnline Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more screenshot.jpegHomepageType of siteE-commerceAvailable inArabicEnglishFrenchGermanSpanishSwedishItalianChineseJapanesePortugueseDutchTurkishOwnerAmazonURLOnline Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more (original U.S. site)CommercialYesRegistrationOptionalLaunched1995; 26 years agoCurrent statusActiveWritten inC++ and Java[102]The domain Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more attracted at least 615 million visitors annually by 2008;[103] by the beginning of 2016, over 130 million customers were visiting the U.S. website each month.[104] The company has invested heavily in a massive amount of server capacity for its website, especially to handle the excessive traffic during the Christmas holiday season.[105] According to Alexa Internet rankings, Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more is the third most popular website in the United States and the 14th most popular website worldwide.Results generated by Amazon's search engine are partly determined by promotional fees.[106] The company's localized storefronts, which differ in selection and prices, are differentiated by top-level domain and country code:Region Country Domain name SinceAmericas Brazil Compre livros, Kindle, Echo, Fire Tv e mais. December 2012Canada Low Prices - Fast Shipping - Millions of Items June 2002Mexico Precios bajos - Envío rápido - Millones de productos August 2013United States Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more July 1995Asia China 亚马逊中国 z.cn, 一站放心购全球 September 2004India Online Shopping site in India: Shop Online for Mobiles, Books, Watches, Shoes and More June 2013Japan Amazon | 本, ファッション, 家電から食品まで | アマゾン November 2000Singapore Shop Online for Electronics, Computers, Books, Toys, DVDs, Baby, Grocery, & more July 2017Turkey Amazon.com.tr: Elektronik, bilgisayar, akıllı telefon, kitap, oyuncak, yapı market, ev, mutfak, oyun konsolları ürünleri ve daha fazlası için internet alışveriş sitesi September 2018United Arab Emirates Welcome to Amazon.ae Shop Online in UAE for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Grocery & more May 2019Saudi Arabia تسوق اون لاين الاجهزة الالكترونية ,الملابس , الكمبيوترات, البقالة و اكثر - سوق.كوم الان اصبحت أمازون June 2020Europe France Amazon.fr : livres, DVD, jeux vidéo, musique, high-tech, informatique, jouets, vêtements, chaussures, sport, bricolage, maison, beauté, puériculture, épicerie et plus encore ! August 2000Germany Günstige Preise für Elektronik & Foto, Filme, Musik, Bücher, Games, Spielzeug & mehr October 1998Italy elettronica, libri, musica, fashion, videogiochi, DVD e tanto altro November 2010Netherlands Groot aanbod, kleine prijzen in o.a. Elektronica, boeken, sport en meer November 2014Spain compra online de electrónica, libros, deporte, hogar, moda y mucho más. September 2011Sweden Låga priser på Elektronik, Böcker, Sportutrustning & mer October 2020United Kingdom Low Prices in Electronics, Books, Sports Equipment & more October 1998Oceania Australia Shop online for Electronics, Apparel, Toys, Books, DVDs & more November 2017ReviewsSee also: Criticism of Amazon § Amazon reviewsAmazon allows users to submit reviews to the web page of each product. Reviewers must rate the product on a rating scale from one to five stars. Amazon provides a badging option for reviewers which indicate the real name of the reviewer (based on confirmation of a credit card account) or which indicate that the reviewer is one of the top reviewers by popularity. Customers may comment or vote on the reviews, indicating whether they found a review helpful to them. If a review is given enough "helpful" hits, it appears on the front page of the product. In 2010, Amazon was reported as being the largest single source of Internet consumer reviews.[107]When publishers asked Bezos why Amazon would publish negative reviews, he defended the practice by claiming that Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more was "taking a different approach ... we want to make every book available—the good, the bad and the ugly ... to let truth loose".[108]There have been cases of positive reviews being written and posted by public relations companies on behalf of their clients[109] and instances of writers using pseudonyms to leave negative reviews of their rivals' works.Content search"Search Inside the Book" is a feature which allows customers to search for keywords in the full text of many books in the catalog.[110][111] The feature started with 120,000 titles (or 33 million pages of text) on October 23, 2003.[112] There are about 300,000 books in the program. Amazon has cooperated with around 130 publishers to allow users to perform these searches.[citation needed]To avoid copyright violations, Amazon does not return the computer-readable text of the book. Instead, it returns a picture of the matching page, instructs the web browser to disable printing and puts limits on the number of pages in a book a single user can access. Additionally, customers can purchase online access to some of the same books via the "Amazon Upgrade" program.[citation needed]Third-party sellersAmazon derives many of its sales (around 40% in 2008) from third-party sellers who sell products on Amazon.[113] Associates receive a commission for referring customers to Amazon by placing links to Amazon on their websites if the referral results in a sale. Worldwide, Amazon has "over 900,000 members" in its affiliate programs.[114] In the middle of 2014, the Amazon Affiliate Program is used by 1.2% of all websites and it is the second most popular advertising network after Google Ads.[115] It is frequently used by websites and non-profits to provide a way for supporters to earn them a commission.[116] Amazon reported over 1.3 million sellers sold products through Amazon's websites in 2007. Unlike eBay, Amazon sellers do not have to maintain separate payment accounts; all payments are handled by Amazon.[citation needed]Associates can access the Amazon catalog directly on their websites by using the Amazon Web Services (AWS) XML service. A new affiliate product, aStore, allows Associates to embed a subset of Amazon products within another website, or linked to another website. In June 2010, Amazon Seller Product Suggestions was launched (rumored to be internally called "Project Genesis") to provide more transparency to sellers by recommending specific products to third-party sellers to sell on Amazon. Products suggested are based on customers' browsing history.[117] In 2019, Amazon launched a bigger local online store in Singapore to expand its product selection in the face of intensifying competition with competitors in the region.[118]In July 2019 the 3rd U.S. City Court of Appeals in Philadelphia ruled that Amazon can be held accountable for faulty third-party sales.[119] The decision ran counter to a past lower court ruling that had favored Amazon. Heather Oberdorf had sued the company in 2016 over a dog leash that snapped, causing permanent loss of vision in one eye. If upheld, the decision would expose Amazon and similar platform businesses to strict liability lawsuits for defective products, which represents a major change in the law.[120] The panel sent the case back to the lower court, to decide whether the leash was actually defective.[121]Amazon sales rankThe Amazon sales rank (ASR) provides an indication of the popularity of a product sold on any Amazon locale. It is a relative indicator of popularity that is updated hourly. Effectively, it is a "best sellers list" for the millions of products stocked by Amazon.[122] While the ASR has no direct effect on the sales of a product, it is used by Amazon to determine which products to include in its bestsellers lists.[122] Products that appear in these lists enjoy additional exposure on the Amazon website and this may lead to an increase in sales. In particular, products that experience large jumps (up or down) in their sales ranks may be included within Amazon's lists of "movers and shakers"; such a listing provides additional exposure that might lead to an increase in sales.[123] For competitive reasons, Amazon does not release actual sales figures to the public. However, Amazon has now begun to release point of sale data via the Nielsen BookScan service to verified authors.[124] While the ASR has been the source of much speculation by publishers, manufacturers, and marketers, Amazon itself does not release the details of its sales rank calculation algorithm. Some companies have analyzed Amazon sales data to generate sales estimates based on the ASR,[125] though Amazon states:Please keep in mind that our sales rank figures are simply meant to be a guide of general interest for the customer and not definitive sales information for publishers—we assume you have this information regularly from your distribution sources— Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more Help[126]Multi-level sales strategyAmazon employs a multi-level e-commerce strategy. Amazon started by focusing on business-to-consumer relationships between itself and its customers and business-to-business relationships between itself and its suppliers and then moved to facilitate customer-to-customer with the Amazon marketplace which acts as an intermediary to facilitate transactions. The company lets anyone sell nearly anything using its platform. In addition to an affiliate program that lets anyone post Amazon links and earn a commission on click-through sales, there is now a program which lets those affiliates build entire websites based on Amazon's platform.[127]Some other large e-commerce sellers use Amazon to sell their products in addition to selling them through their own websites. The sales are processed through Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more and end up at individual sellers for processing and order fulfillment and Amazon leases space for these retailers. Small sellers of used and new goods go to Amazon Marketplace to offer goods at a fixed price.[128]In November 2015, Amazon opened a physical Amazon Books store in University Village in Seattle. The store is 5,500 square feet and prices for all products match those on its website.[129] Amazon will open its tenth physical book store in 2017;[130] media speculation suggests Amazon plans to eventually roll out 300 to 400 bookstores around the country.[129]In June 2018, it was reported that Amazon planned to open brick and mortar bookstores in Germany.[131]In September 2020, Amazon launched Luxury Stores on its mobile app, where Oscar de la Renta become the first and only label to partner with the firm.[132]FinancesOnline Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more is primarily a retail site with a sales revenue model; Amazon takes a small percentage of the sale price of each item that is sold through its website while also allowing companies to advertise their products by paying to be listed as featured products.[133] As of 2018, Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more is ranked 8th on the Fortune 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations by total revenue.[134]For the fiscal year 2018, Amazon reported earnings of US$10.07 billion, with an annual revenue of US$232.887 billion, an increase of 30.9% over the previous fiscal cycle. Since 2007 sales increased from 14.835 billion to 232.887 billion, thanks to continued business expansion.[135]Amazon's market capitalization went over US$1 trillion again in early February 2020 after the announcement of the fourth quarter 2019 results.[136] Amazon's total employees now number 798,000.[136]Year Revenuein mil. USD$ Net incomein mil. USD$ Total Assetsin mil. USD$ Employees2007[137] 14,835 476 6,485 17,0002008[138] 19,166 645 8,314 20,7002009[139] 24,509 902 13,813 24,3002010[140] 34,204 1,152 18,797 33,7002011[141] 48,077 631 25,278 56,2002012[142] 61,093 −39 32,555 88,4002013[143] 74,452 274 40,159 117,3002014[144] 88,988 −241 54,505 154,1002015[145] 107,006 596 64,747 230,8002016[146] 135,987 2,371 83,402 341,4002017[147] 177,866 3,033 131,310 566,0002018[148] 232,887 10,073 162,648 647,5002019[149] 280,522 11,588 225,248 798,0002020[150] 386,064 21,331 321,195 1,298,000ControversiesIt has been suggested that sections about criticism of Amazon be split out and merged into the article titled Criticism of Amazon, which already exists. (Discuss)Main article: Criticism of AmazonSince its founding, the company has attracted criticism and controversy for its actions, including: supplying law enforcement with facial recognition surveillance tools;[151] forming cloud computing partnerships with the CIA;[152] leading customers away from bookshops;[153] adversely impacting the environment;[154] placing a low priority on warehouse conditions for workers; actively opposing unionization efforts;[155] remotely deleting content purchased by Amazon Kindle users; taking public subsidies; seeking to patent its 1-Click technology; engaging in anti-competitive actions and price discrimination;[29][30] and reclassifying LGBT books as adult content.[156][157] Criticism has also concerned various decisions over whether to censor or publish content such as the WikiLeaks website, works containing libel and material facilitating dogfight, cockfight, or pedophile activities. In December 2011, Amazon faced a backlash from small businesses for running a one-day deal to promote its new Price Check app. Shoppers who used the app to check prices in a brick-and-mortar store were offered a 5% discount to purchase the same item from Amazon.[158] Companies like Groupon, eBay and http://Taap.it countered Amazon's promotion by offering $10 off from their products.[159][160]The company has also faced accusations of putting undue pressure on suppliers to maintain and extend its profitability. One effort to squeeze the most vulnerable book publishers was known within the company as the Gazelle Project, after Bezos suggested, according to Brad Stone, "that Amazon should approach these small publishers the way a cheetah would pursue a sickly gazelle."[106] In July 2014, the Federal Trade Commission launched a lawsuit against the company alleging it was promoting in-app purchases to children, which were being transacted without parental consent.[161] In 2019, Amazon banned selling skin-lightening and racist products that might affect the consumer's health.[162]Environmental impactIn 2018, Amazon emitted 44.4 million metric tons of CO2.[163]In September 2019, Amazon workers organized a walk-out as part of the Global Climate Strike.[164][165] An internal group called Amazon Employees for Climate Justice said over 1,800 employees in 25 cities and 14 countries committed to participating in the action to protest Amazon's environmental impact and inaction to climate change.[164] This group of workers petitioned Jeff Bezos and Amazon with three specific demands: to stop donating to politicians and lobbyists that deny climate change, to stop working with fossil fuel companies to accelerate oil and gas extraction, and to achieve zero carbon emissions by 2030.[166][165]Amazon has introduced the Shipment Zero program, however Shipment Zero has only committed to reducing 50% of its shipments to net zero by 2030. Also, even that 50% does not necessarily mean a decrease in emissions compared to current levels given Amazon's rate of growth in orders.[167]That said, Amazon's CEO has also signed the Climate Pledge, in which Amazon would meet the Paris climate agreement goals 10 years ahead of schedule, and would be carbon-neutral by 2040. Besides this pledge, it also ordered 100 000 electric delivery trucks from Rivian.[168]Amazon funds both climate denial groups including the Competitive Enterprise Institute and politicians denying climate change including Jim Inhofe.[169][170]In November 2018, a community action group opposed the construction permit delivered to Goodman Group for the construction of a 160,000 square metres (1,700,000 sq ft) logisitics platform Amazon will operate at Lyon–Saint-Exupéry Airport. In February 2019, Étienne Tête filed a request on behalf of a second regional community action group asking the administrative court to decide whether the platform served a sufficiently important public interest to justify its environmental impact. Construction has been suspended while these matters are decided.[154]Amazon considered making an option for Prime customers to have packages delivered at the most efficient and environmentally-friendly time (allowing the company to combine shipments with the same destination) but decided against it out of fear customers might reduce purchases.[171] Since 2019, the company has instead offered customers an "Amazon Day" option, where all orders are delivered on the same day, emphasizing customer convenience, and it occasionally offers Prime customers credits in return for selecting slower and less expensive shipping options.[171]Selling counterfeit, unsafe and discarded itemsThe selling of counterfeit products by Amazon has attracted widespread notice, with both purchases marked as being fulfilled by third parties and those shipped directly from Amazon warehouses being found to be counterfeit. This has included some products sold directly by Amazon itself and marked as "ships from and sold by Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more".[172] Counterfeit charging cables sold on Amazon as purported Apple products have been found to be a fire hazard.[173][174] Such counterfeits have included a wide array of products, from big ticket items to every day items such as tweezers, gloves,[175] and umbrellas.[176] More recently, this has spread to Amazon's newer grocery services.[177] Counterfeiting was reported to be especially a problem for artists and small businesses whose products were being rapidly copied for sale on the site.[178]One Amazon business practice that encourages counterfeiting is that, by default, seller accounts on Amazon are set to use "commingled inventory". With this practice, the goods that a seller sends to Amazon are mixed with those of the producer of the product and with those of all other sellers that supply what is supposed to be the same product.[179]In June 2019, Buzzfeed reported that some products identified on the site as "Amazon's choice" were low quality, had a history of customer complaints, and exhibited evidence of product review manipulation.[180]In August 2019, The Wall Street Journal reported that they had found more than 4,000 items for sale on Amazon's site that had been declared unsafe by federal agencies, had misleading labels, or had been banned by federal regulators.[181]In the wake of the WSJ investigation, three U.S. senators – Richard Blumenthal, Ed Markey, and Bob Menendez – sent an open letter to Jeff Bezos demanding him to take action about the selling of unsafe items on the site. The letter said that "Unquestionably, Amazon is falling short of its commitment to keeping safe those consumers who use its massive platform."[182] The letter included a number of questions about the company's practices and gave Bezos a deadline to respond by September 29, 2019, saying "We call on you to immediately remove from the platform all the problematic products examined in the recent WSJ report; explain how you are going about this process; conduct a sweeping internal investigation of your enforcement and consumer safety policies; and institute changes that will continue to keep unsafe products off your platform."[182] Earlier in the same month, senators Blumenthal and Menendez had sent Bezos a letter about the Buzzfeed report.[182]In December 2019, The Wall Street Journal reported that some people were literally retrieving trash out of dumpsters and selling it as new products on Amazon. The reporters ran an experiment and determined that it was easy for a seller to set up an account and sell cleaned up junk as new products. In addition to trash, sellers were obtaining inventory from clearance bins, thrift stores, and pawn shops.[183][184]In August 2020, an appeals court in California ruled that Amazon can be held liable for unsafe products sold on its website. A California woman had bought a replacement laptop battery that caught fire and caused her to receive third-degree burns.[185]Tax avoidanceMain article: Amazon taxAmazon's tax affairs were investigated in China, Germany, Poland, South Korea, France, Japan, Ireland, Singapore, Luxembourg, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom, United States and Portugal.[186] According to a report released by Fair Tax Mark in 2019, Amazon is the worst offender of tax avoidance, having paid an 12% effective tax rate between 2010-2018, in contrast with 35% corporate tax rate in the US during the same period. Amazon countered that it had an 24% effective tax rate during the same period.[187]Comments by Donald Trump and Bernie SandersIn early 2018, President Donald Trump repeatedly criticized Amazon's use of the United States Postal Service and its prices for the delivery of packages, stating, "I am right about Amazon costing the United States Post Office massive amounts of money for being their Delivery Boy," Trump tweeted. "Amazon should pay these costs (plus) and not have them bourne [sic] by the American Taxpayer."[188] Amazon's shares fell by 6 percent as a result of Trump's comments. Shepard Smith of Fox News disputed Trump's claims and pointed to evidence that the USPS was offering below-market prices to all customers with no advantage to Amazon. However, analyst Tom Forte pointed to the fact that Amazon's payments to the USPS are not made public and that their contract has a reputation for being "a sweetheart deal".[189][190]Throughout the summer of 2018, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders criticized Amazon's wages and working conditions in a series of YouTube videos and media appearances. He also pointed to the fact that Amazon had paid no federal income tax in the previous year.[191] Sanders solicited stories from Amazon warehouse workers who felt exploited by the company.[192] One such story, by James Bloodworth, described the environment as akin to "a low-security prison" and stated that the company's culture used an Orwellian newspeak.[193] These reports cited a finding by New Food Economy that one third of fulfilment center workers in Arizona were on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).[194] Responses by Amazon included incentives for employees to tweet positive stories and a statement which called the salary figures used by Sanders "inaccurate and misleading". The statement also charged that it was inappropriate for him to refer to SNAP as "food stamps".[192] On September 5, 2018, Sanders along with Ro Khanna introduced the Stop Bad Employers by Zeroing Out Subsidies (Stop BEZOS) Act aimed at Amazon and other alleged beneficiaries of corporate welfare such as Walmart, McDonald's and Uber.[195] Among the bill's supporters were Tucker Carlson of Fox News and Matt Taibbi who criticized himself and other journalists for not covering Amazon's contribution to wealth inequality earlier.[196][197]On October 2, 2018, Amazon announced that its minimum wage for all American employees would be raised to $15 per hour. Sanders congratulated the company for making this decision.[198]Opposition to trade unionsMain article: Amazon worker organizationA sticker expressing an anti-Amazon message is pictured on the back of a street sign in Seattle.Amazon has opposed efforts by trade unions to organize in both the United States and the United Kingdom. In 2001, 850 employees in Seattle were laid off by Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more after a unionization drive. The Washington Alliance of Technological Workers (WashTech) accused the company of violating union laws, and claimed Amazon managers subjected them to intimidation and heavy propaganda. Amazon denied any link between the unionization effort and layoffs.[199] Also in 2001, Low Prices in Electronics, Books, Sports Equipment & more hired a US management consultancy organization, The Burke Group, to assist in defeating a campaign by the Graphical, Paper and Media Union (GPMU, now part of Unite the Union) to achieve recognition in the Milton Keynes distribution depot. It was alleged that the company victimized or sacked four union members during the 2001 recognition drive and held a series of captive meetings with employees.[200]An Amazon training video that was leaked in 2018 stated "We are not anti-union, but we are not neutral either. We do not believe unions are in the best interest of our customers or shareholders or most importantly, our associates."[201] Two years later, it was found that Whole Foods was using a heat map to track which stores had the highest levels of pro-union sentiment. Factors including racial diversity, proximity to other unions, poverty levels in the surrounding community and calls to the National Labor Relations Board were named as contributors to "unionization risk".[202]In early 2020, an Amazon internal documents were leaked, it said that Whole Foods has been using an interactive heat map to monitor its 510 locations across the U.S. and assign each store a unionization risk score based on such criteria as employee loyalty, turnover rate and racial diversity. Data collected in the heat map suggest that stores with low racial and ethnic diversity, especially those located in poor communities, are more likely to unionize.[203][204]Working conditionsFormer employees, current employees, the media, and politicians have criticized Amazon for poor working conditions at the company.[205][206][207] In 2011, it was publicized that workers had to carry out tasks in 100 °F (38 °C) heat at the Breinigsville, Pennsylvania warehouse. As a result of these inhumane conditions, employees became extremely uncomfortable and suffered from dehydration and collapse. Loading-bay doors were not opened to allow in fresh air because of concerns over theft.[208] Amazon's initial response was to pay for an ambulance to sit outside on call to cart away overheated employees.[208] The company eventually installed air conditioning at the warehouse.[209]Some workers, "pickers", who travel the building with a trolley and a handheld scanner "picking" customer orders can walk up to 15 miles (24 kilometres) during their workday and if they fall behind on their targets, they can be reprimanded. The handheld scanners give real-time information to the employee on how quickly or slowly they are working; the scanners also serve to allow Team Leads and Area Managers to track the specific locations of employees and how much "idle time" they gain when not working.[210][211]In a German television report broadcast in February 2013, journalists Diana Löbl and Peter Onneken conducted a covert investigation at the distribution center of Amazon in the town of Bad Hersfeld in the German state of Hessen. The report highlights the behavior of some of the security guards, themselves being employed by a third party company, who apparently either had a neo-Nazi background or deliberately dressed in neo-Nazi apparel and who were intimidating foreign and temporary female workers at its distribution centers. The third party security company involved was delisted by Amazon as a business contact shortly after that report.[212][213][214][215]In March 2015, it was reported in The Verge that Amazon would be removing non-compete clauses of 18 months in length from its US employment contracts for hourly-paid workers, after criticism that it was acting unreasonably in preventing such employees from finding other work. Even short-term temporary workers have to sign contracts that prohibit them from working at any company where they would "directly or indirectly" support any good or service that competes with those they helped support at Amazon, for 18 months after leaving Amazon, even if they are fired or made redundant.[216][217]A 2015 front-page article in The New York Times profiled several former Amazon employees[218] who together described a "bruising" workplace culture in which workers with illness or other personal crises were pushed out or unfairly evaluated.[15] Bezos responded by writing a Sunday memo to employees,[219] in which he disputed the Times's account of "shockingly callous management practices" that he said would never be tolerated at the company.[15]In an effort to boost employee morale, on November 2, 2015, Amazon announced that it would be extending six weeks of paid leave for new mothers and fathers. This change includes birth parents and adoptive parents and can be applied in conjunction with existing maternity leave and medical leave for new mothers.[220]In mid-2018, investigations by journalists and media outlets such as The Guardian reported poor working conditions at Amazon's fulfillment centers.[221][222] Later in 2018, another article exposed poor working conditions for Amazon's delivery drivers.[223]In response to criticism that Amazon does not pay its workers a livable wage, Jeff Bezos announced beginning November 1, 2018, all US and UK Amazon employees will earn a $15 an hour minimum wage.[224] Amazon will also lobby to make $15 an hour the federal minimum wage.[225] At the same time, Amazon also eliminated stock awards and bonuses for hourly employees.[226]On Black Friday 2018, Amazon warehouse workers in several European countries, including Italy, Germany, Spain and the United Kingdom, went on strike to protest inhumane working conditions and low pay.[227]The Daily Beast reported in March 2019 that emergency services responded to 189 calls from 46 Amazon warehouses in 17 states between the years 2013 and 2018, all relating to suicidal employees. The workers attributed their mental breakdowns to employer-imposed social isolation, aggressive surveillance, and the hurried and dangerous working conditions at these fulfillment centers. One former employee told The Daily Beast "It's this isolating colony of hell where people having breakdowns is a regular occurrence."[228]On July 15, 2019, during the onset of Amazon's "Prime Day" sale event, Amazon employees working in the United States and Germany went on strike in protest of unfair wages and poor working conditions.[229][230]In March 2020, during the coronavirus outbreak when the government instructed companies to restrict social contact, Amazon's UK staff was forced to work overtime to meet the demand spiked by the disease. A GMB spokesperson said the company had put "profit before safety".[231] GMB has continued to raise concerns regarding "gruelling conditions, unrealistic productivity targets, surveillance, bogus self-employment and a refusal to recognise or engage with unions unless forced", calling for the UK government and safety regulators to take action to address these issues.[232]In August 2019, BBC reported on Amazon's Twitter ambassadors. Their constant support for and defense of Amazon and its practices have led many Twitter users to suspect that they are in fact bots, being used to dismiss the issues effecting Amazon workers.[233]In its 2020 statement to its US shareholders, Amazon stated that "we respect and support the Core Conventions of the International Labour Organization (ILO), the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, and the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights". Operation of these Global Human Rights Principles has been "long-held at Amazon, and codifying them demonstrates our support for fundamental human rights and the dignity of workers everywhere we operate".[234]On November 27, 2020, Amnesty International said, workers in working for Amazon have faced great health and safety risks since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. On Black Friday, one of Amazon's busiest periods, company failed to ensure the key safety features in France, Poland, the United Kingdom and USA. Workers have been risking their health and lives to ensure essential goods are delivered to consumer doorsteps, helping Amazon achieve record profits.[235]On January 6, 2021, Amazon said that it is planning to build 20,000 affordable houses by spending $2 billion in the regions where the major employments are located.[236]On January 24, 2021, Amazon said that it was planning to open a pop-up clinic hosted in partnership with Virginia Mason Franciscan Health in Seattle in order to vaccinate 2,000 persons against COVID-19 on the first day.[237]In February 2021, Amazon said that it was planning to put cameras in its delivery vehicles. Although many drivers were upset of this decision, Amazon said that the videos were only be sent in certain circumstances.[238]Conflict of interest with the CIA and DODIn 2013, Amazon secured a US$600 million contract with the CIA, which poses a potential conflict of interest involving the Bezos-owned The Washington Post and his newspaper's coverage of the CIA.[239] Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies, said, "It's a serious potential conflict of interest for a major newspaper like The Washington Post to have a contractual relationship with the government and the most secret part of the government."[240] This was later followed by a US$10 billion contract with the U.S. Department of Defense.[152]Seattle head tax and houselessness servicesIn May 2018, Amazon threatened the Seattle City Council over an employee head tax proposal that would have funded houselessness services and low-income housing. The tax would have cost Amazon about $800 per employee, or 0.7% of their average salary.[241] In retaliation, Amazon paused construction on a new building, threatened to limit further investment in the city, and funded a repeal campaign. Although originally passed, the measure was soon repealed after an expensive repeal campaign spearheaded by Amazon.[242]Nashville Operations Center of ExcellenceThe incentives given by the Metropolitan Council of Nashville and Davidson County to Amazon for their new Operations Center of Excellence in Nashville Yards, a site owned by developer Southwest Value Partners, have been controversial, including the decision by the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development to keep the full extent of the agreement secret.[243] The incentives include "$102 million in combined grants and tax credits for a scaled-down Amazon office building" as well as "a $65 million cash grant for capital expenditures" in exchange for the creation of 5,000 jobs over seven years.[243]The Tennessee Coalition for Open Government called for more transparency.[243] Another local organization known as the People's Alliance for Transit, Housing, and Employment (PATHE) suggested no public money should be given to Amazon; instead, it should be spent on building more public housing for the working poor and the homeless and investing in more public transportation for Nashvillians.[244] Others suggested incentives to big corporations do not improve the local economy.[245]In November 2018, the proposal to give Amazon $15 million in incentives was criticized by the Nashville Firefighters Union and the Nashville chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police,[246] who called it "corporate welfare."[247] In February 2019, another $15.2 million in infrastructure was approved by the council, although it was voted down by three council members, including Councilwoman Angie Henderson who dismissed it as "cronyism".[248]Facial recognition technology and law enforcementWhile Amazon has publicly opposed secret government surveillance, as revealed by Freedom of Information Act requests it has supplied facial recognition support to law enforcement in the form of the Rekognition technology and consulting services. Initial testing included the city of Orlando, Florida, and Washington County, Oregon. Amazon offered to connect Washington County with other Amazon government customers interested in Rekognition and a body camera manufacturer. These ventures are opposed by a coalition of civil rights groups with concern that they could lead to an expansion of surveillance and be prone to abuse. Specifically, it could automate the identification and tracking of anyone, particularly in the context of potential police body camera integration.[151][249][250] Because of the backlash, the city of Orlando publicly stated it will no longer use the technology, but may revisit this decision at a later date.[251]Access to NHS dataThe UK government awarded Amazon a contract that gives the company free access to information about healthcare published by the UK's National Health Service.[252] This will, for example, be used by Amazon's Alexa to answer medical questions, although Alexa also uses many other sources of information. The material, which excludes patient data, could also allow the company to make, advertise and sell its own products. The contract allows Amazon access to information on symptoms, causes and definitions of conditions, and "all related copyrightable content and data and other materials". Amazon can then create "new products, applications, cloud-based services and/or distributed software", which the NHS will not benefit from financially. The company can also share the information with third parties. The government said that allowing Alexa devices to offer expert health advice to users will reduce pressure on doctors and pharmacists.[253]Collection of data and surveillanceOn February 17, 2020, a Panorama documentary highlighted the amount of data collected by the company and the move into surveillance causing concerns of politicians and regulators in the US and Europe.[254][255]Antitrust complaintsOn June 11, 2020, the European Union announced that it will be pressing charges against Amazon over its treatment of third-party e-commerce sellers.[256]In July 2020, Amazon along with other tech giants Apple, Google and Facebook were accused of maintaining harmful power and anti-competitive strategies to quash potential competitors in the market.[257] The CEOs of respective firms appeared in a teleconference on July 29, 2020 before the lawmakers of the U.S. House Antitrust Subcommittee.[258] In October 2020, the antitrust subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives released a report accusing Amazon of abusing a monopoly position in ecommerce to unfairly compete with sellers on its own platform.[259]Anti-vaccination and non-scientific cancer 'cures'Anti-vaccination and non evidence-based cancer 'cures' have routinely appeared high in Amazon's books and videos. This may be due to positive reviews posted by supporters of untested methods, or gaming of the algorithms by truther communities, rather than any intent on Amazon's part.[260][261]Wired magazine found that Amazon Prime Video was full of 'pseudoscientific documentaries laden with conspiracy theories and pointing viewers towards unproven treatments'.[262]U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) expressed concern that Amazon was “surfacing and recommending products and content that discourage parents from vaccinating their children.” Amazon subsequently removed five anti-vaccination documentaries.[263] Amazon also removed 12 books that unscientifically claimed bleach could cure conditions including malaria and childhood autism. This followed an NBC News report about parents who used it in a misguided attempt to reverse their children's autism.[264]Response to COVID-19 pandemicHazard pay and overtimeAmazon introduced new policies to reward frontline workers for continuing to come into work during the crisis. One of these policies, announced on March 16, 2020 was a temporary $2-per-hour rise in pay. This policy expired in June 2020.[265] Amazon also announced a policy of unlimited, unpaid time off that lasted until April 30, 2020.[266]Additional hiring as a result of pandemicIn response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Amazon introduced temporary restrictions on the sale of non-essential goods. In March 2020, it hired some 100,000 more staff in the US to help deal with essential items such as food and medical equipment. It also reported that it was so busy that it was unable to bring on board new customers and therefore had to have a waiting list. In April, the firm announced that it was going to hire up to 75,000 workers to help deal with increased demand.[267] In September 2020, the company announced it would hire an additional 100,000 workers in the United States and Canada.[268]Employee protests during COVID-19During the pandemic there have been protests by the Amazon workers at warehouses in the US, France, and Italy. The BBC reported that there were confirmed coronavirus cases in more than 50 locations.[267] The reason for the protests is the company policy to "run normal shifts" despite many positive cases of the virus.[269] According to the UNI Global Union, "Amazon cannot act like this is business as usual. We are facing a deadly virus that has already taken the lives of thousands of people and paralyzed the world's economy. If distribution centers are not safe for workers right now, they should be closed immediately."[269] In Spain, the company has faced legal complaints over its policies.[270] Despite workers at 19 warehouses in the US having tested positive for COVID-19, Amazon did not shut down warehouses, only doing so when forced by the government or because of protests. A group of US Senators wrote an open letter to Bezos in March 2020, expressing concerns about worker safety.[271]An Amazon warehouse protest on March 30, 2020, in Staten Island led to its organizer, Christian Smalls, being fired. Amazon defended the decision by saying that Smalls was supposed to be in self-isolation at the time and leading the protest put its other workers at risk.[270] Smalls has called this response "ridiculous".[272] The New York state attorney general, Letitia James, is considering legal retaliation to the firing which she called "immoral and inhumane."[270] She also asked the National Labor Relations Board to investigate Smalls' firing. Smalls himself accuses the company of retaliating against him for organizing a protest.[272] At the Staten Island warehouse, one case of COVID-19 has been confirmed by Amazon; workers believe there are more, and say that the company has not cleaned the building, given them suitable protection, or informed them of potential cases.[271] Smalls added specifically that there are many workers there in risk categories, and the protest only demanded that the building be sanitized and the employees continue to be paid during that process.[272] Derrick Palmer, another worker at the Staten Island facility, told The Verge that Amazon quickly communicates through text and email when they need the staff to complete mandatory overtime, but have not been using this to tell people when a colleague has contracted the disease, instead waiting days and sending managers to speak to employees in person.[271] Amazon claim that the Staten Island protest only attracted 15 of the facility's 5,000 workers,[273] while other sources describe much larger crowds.[271]On April 14, 2020, two Amazon employees were fired for "repeatedly violating internal policies", after they had circulated a petition about health risks for warehouse workers internally.[274]On May 4, Amazon vice president Tim Bray resigned "in dismay" over the firing of whistle-blower employees who spoke out about the lack of COVID-19 protections, including shortages of face masks and failure to implement widespread temperature checks which were promised by the company. He said that the firings were "chickenshit" and "designed to create a climate of fear" in Amazon warehouses.[275]In a Q1 2020 financial report, Jeff Bezos announced that Amazon expects to spend $4 billion or more (predicted operating profit for Q2) on COVID-19-related issues: personal protective equipment, higher wages for hourly teams, cleaning for facilities, and expanding Amazon's COVID-19 testing capabilities. These measures intend to improve the safety and well-being of hundreds of thousands of the company's employees.[276]From the beginning of 2020 until September of the same year, the company declares that the total number of workers who have contracted the infection is 19,816.[277]Closure in FranceThe SUD (trade unions) brought a court case against Amazon for unsafe working conditions. This resulted in a French district court (Nanterre) ruling on April 15, 2020, ordering the company to limit, under threat of a €1 million per day fine, its deliveries to certain essential items, including electronics, food, medical or hygienic products, and supplies for home improvement, animals, and offices.[278] Instead, Amazon immediately shut down its six warehouses in France, continuing to pay workers but limiting deliveries to items shipped from third-party sellers and warehouses outside of France.[279] The company said the €100,000 fine for each prohibited item shipped could result in billions of dollars in fines even with a small fraction of items misclassified.[280] After losing an appeal and coming to an agreement with labor unions for more pay and staggered schedules, the company reopened its French warehouses on May 19.[279]LobbyingAmazon lobbies the United States federal government and state governments on multiple issues such as the enforcement of sales taxes on online sales, transportation safety, privacy and data protection and intellectual property. According to regulatory filings, Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more focuses its lobbying on the United States Congress, the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Reserve. Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more spent roughly $3.5 million, $5 million and $9.5 million on lobbying, in 2013, 2014 and 2015, respectively.[281]Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more was a corporate member of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) until it dropped membership following protests at its shareholders' meeting on May 24, 2012.[282]In 2014, Amazon expanded its lobbying practices as it prepared to lobby the Federal Aviation Administration to approve its drone delivery program, hiring the Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld lobbying firm in June.[283] Amazon and its lobbyists have visited with Federal Aviation Administration officials and aviation committees in Washington, D.C. to explain its plans to deliver packages.[284] In September 2020 this moved one step closer with the granting of a critical certificate by the FAA.[285]In 2019 it spent $16.8m and had a team of 104 lobbyists, up from $14.4m and 103 lobbyists in 2018.[286]See alsoAmazon Breakthrough Novel AwardAmazon Flexible Payments ServiceAmazon MarketplaceAmazon Standard Identification Number (ASIN)Camelcamelcamel – a website that tracks the prices of products sold on Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & moreList of book distributorsInternal carbon pricingStatistically improbable phrases – Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more's phrase extraction technique for indexing booksReferencesInline XBRL Viewerhttps://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/1018724/000101872421000004/amzn-20201231.htm#i75de98b9097f40f3b5884e541f532421_73. 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"Missing wages, grueling shifts, and bottles of urine: The disturbing accounts of Amazon delivery drivers may reveal the true human cost of 'free' shipping". http://www.businessinsider.com."Amazon to raise wages for more than 350,000 employees". ABC News. October 2, 2018. Retrieved January 3, 2019.Partington, Richard (October 2, 2018). "Amazon raises minimum wage for US and UK employees". http://Theguardian.com. Retrieved January 3, 2019.Soper, Spencer (October 3, 2018). "Amazon Warehouse Workers Lose Bonuses, Stock Awards for Raises". http://Bloomberg.com. Retrieved October 4, 2018.Hamilton, Isobel Asher (November 23, 2018). "'We are not robots': Thousands of Amazon workers across Europe are striking on Black Friday over warehouse working conditions". Business Insider. Retrieved November 24, 2018.Zahn, Max; Paget, Sharif (March 11, 2019). "'Colony of Hell': 911 Calls From Inside Amazon Warehouses". The Daily Beast. Retrieved March 13, 2019.Chen, Michelle (July 16, 2019). "Amazon Prime Day deals aren't worth the moral cost of exploiting their workers". NBC News. Retrieved July 17, 2019.Business, Amy Woodyatt and Barbara Wojazer, CNN. "Amazon workers go on strike in Germany as Prime Day begins". CNN. Retrieved July 15, 2019.Jones, Lora (March 17, 2020). "Amazon staff told to work overtime as virus hits". BBC News. Retrieved March 17, 2020.GMB, Government must stand up to Amazon on workers’ rights, published October 14, 2020, accessed November 15, 2020"'Fake' Amazon ambassadors baited on Twitter". BBC News. August 16, 2019. Retrieved December 14, 2020.Amazon, Notice of 2020 Annual Meeting of Shareholders & Proxy Statement, published for Annual Meeting, May 27, 2020, accessed November 15, 2020"Black Friday rush must not cost Amazon workers their health and safety". Amnesty International. Retrieved November 27, 2020.Reuters Staff (January 6, 2021). "Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more to spend $2 billion in homebuilding near key U.S. offices". Reuters. Retrieved January 6, 2021.Reuters Staff (January 22, 2021). "Amazon to open pop-up COVID-19 vaccine clinic in Seattle headquarters". Reuters. Retrieved January 22, 2021.Business, Matt McFarland, CNN. "Amazon is putting cameras in its delivery vans and some drivers aren't happy". CNN. Retrieved February 26, 2021."The CIA, Amazon, Bezos and the Washington Post : An Exchange with Executive Editor Martin Baron". The Huffington Post. January 8, 2014.Streitfeld, David; Haughney, Christine (August 17, 2013). "Expecting the Unexpected From Jeff Bezos". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved February 20, 2019."Amazon puts high-profile Seattle plans on ice over proposal to tax large employers". The Seattle Times. May 2, 2018. Retrieved May 3, 2018."'Show of force': Business-backed opponents of Seattle head tax outspent supporters 2 to 1". The Seattle Times. July 13, 2018. Retrieved July 17, 2018.Reicher, Mike (January 4, 2019). "Tennessee wants to keep its incentives offer for Amazon's HQ2 secret for 5 years". The Tennessean. Retrieved January 6, 2019.White, Peter (December 13, 2018). "Will Amazon be Naughty or Nice?". Tennessee Tribune. Retrieved December 21, 2018. PATHE does not want Metro to give Amazon a dime. They want the city to build at least 5,000 more affordable homes to address the "Amazon effect" on the local housing market. And they want a new transit referendum that focuses on the needs of working people and better public bus service.Mazza, Sandy (November 19, 2018). "Did Tennessee taxpayers get a good deal with $102M Amazon payment?". The Tennessean. Retrieved February 11, 2019.Koehn, Alexandra (November 29, 2018). "Metro employees feel 'left behind' after no pay raise". News Channel 5. Retrieved December 12, 2018."Nashville police union: Amazon getting 'corporate welfare'". AP News. November 30, 2018. Retrieved February 10, 2019.Garrison, Joey (February 6, 2019). "Nashville council approves $15M in infrastructure work for future home of Amazon hub". The Tennessean. Retrieved February 10, 2019."Yes, Amazon is tracking people". http://Washingtonexaminer.com."Amazon Teams Up With Government to Deploy Dangerous New Facial Recognition Technology". http://Aclu.org."Orlando Stops Using Amazon's Face-Scanning Tech Amid Spying Concerns". http://Newsweek.com. June 26, 2018."Alexa, what is hidden behind your contract with the NHS?". Privacy International. December 6, 2019. Archived from the original on January 25, 2020. Retrieved January 24, 2020."NHS gives Amazon free use of health data under Alexa advice deal". The Guardian. December 8, 2019. Retrieved January 24, 2020."Panorama - Amazon: What They Know About Us" – via http://www.bbc.co.uk."Amazon: How Bezos built his data machine". BBC News.Pop, Valentina; Schechner, Sam (June 11, 2020). "Amazon to Face Antitrust Charges From EU Over Treatment of Third-Party Selles". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved June 11, 2020."Tech bosses grilled over claims of 'harmful' power". BBC News. July 30, 2020. Retrieved July 30, 2020.Business, Brian Fung, CNN. "Congress grilled the CEOs of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google. Here are the big takeaways". CNN. Retrieved July 30, 2020.How Are Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google Monopolies? House Report Counts The WaysNaughton, John (August 8, 2020). "How Amazon puts misinformation at the top of your reading list". The Guardian. Retrieved August 11, 2020."How Amazon's Algorithms Curated a Dystopian Bookstore". Wired. May 3, 2019. Retrieved May 11, 2020."Amazon Prime Video is full of dodgy documentaries pushing dangerous cancer 'cures'". Wired. June 3, 2019. Retrieved August 11, 2020."House Rep. Schiff calls Amazon's anti-vaccination content 'direct threat to public health' in letter to Bezos". CNBC. March 1, 2019. Retrieved August 11, 2020."Amazon removes books promoting dangerous bleach 'cures' for autism and other conditions". NBC News. May 28, 2019. Retrieved August 11, 2020.Rey, Jason Del (May 13, 2020). "Amazon extends bonus pay for front-line workers but says it ends in June". Vox. Retrieved June 3, 2020.Davis, Charles. "Amazon set to end 'unlimited unpaid time off' policy". Business Insider. Retrieved June 3, 2020."Amazon hiring spree as orders surge under lockdown". BBC News. April 14, 2020. Retrieved April 14, 2020."Amazon to Hire 100,000 in U.S. and Canada". September 14, 2020."Amazon workers protest over normal shifts despite Covid-19 cases". Financial Times. Retrieved March 19, 2020."Amazon workers strike over virus protection". BBC News. March 31, 2020. Retrieved March 31, 2020.Dzieza, Josh (March 30, 2020). "Amazon warehouse workers walk out in rising tide of COVID-19 protests". The Verge. Retrieved March 31, 2020."New York AG Denounces 'Immoral and Inhumane' Firing of Amazon Worker Who Led Protest Over Lack of Coronavirus Protections". Common Dreams. Retrieved March 31, 2020.Rubin, Ben Fox. "Amazon fires warehouse worker who organized Staten Island protest". CNET. Retrieved March 31, 2020.Paul, Kari (April 14, 2020). "Amazon fires two employees who condemned treatment of warehouse workers". the Guardian. Retrieved April 15, 2020.Paul, Kari (May 4, 2020). "Amazon executive resigns over company's 'chickenshit' firings of employee activists". The Guardian. Retrieved May 7, 2020."Amazon Q1 2020 Earnings Release" (PDF). April 30, 2020."Amazon says more than 19,000 workers got Covid-19". http://cnbc.com. October 1, 2020.Olivia Détroyat (April 16, 2020). "Amazon ferme ses entrepôts pour cinq jours en France". Le Figaro (in French)."Amazon is reopening its warehouses in France after dispute with workers ends". May 19, 2020.Amazon loses appeal against worker safety ruling in France that prompted it to close"Amazon's Lobbying Expenditures". http://Opensecrets.org.Parkhurst, Emily (May 24, 2012). "Amazon shareholders met by protesters, company cuts ties with ALEC". http://Bizjournals.com.Romm, Tony. "In Amazon's shopping cart: D.C. influence". http://Politico.com. Politico. Retrieved August 7, 2014.Kang, Cecilia (December 27, 2015). "F.A.A. Drone Laws Start to Clash With Stricter Local Rules". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved February 20, 2019.Business, Matt McFarland, CNN. "Amazon gets closer to drone delivery with FAA approval". CNN. Retrieved September 4, 2020."Client Profile: Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more". Centre for Responsive Politics. Retrieved February 4, 2020.Further readingBrandt, Richard L. (2011). One Click: Jeff Bezos and the Rise of Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more. New York: Portfolio Penguin. ISBN 978-1-59184-375-7.Daisey, Mike (2002). 21 Dog Years. Free Press. ISBN 0-7432-2580-5.Friedman, Mara (2004). Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more for Dummies. Wiley Publishing. ISBN 0-7645-5840-4.Marcus, James (2004). Amazonia: Five Years at the Epicenter of the http://Dot.Com Juggernaut. W. W. Norton. ISBN 1-56584-870-5.Spector, Robert (2000). Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more – Get Big Fast: Inside the Revolutionary Business Model That Changed the World. HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-662041-4.Stone, Brad (2013). The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon. New York: Little Brown and Co. ISBN 978-0-316-21926-6. OCLC 856249407.External linksWikimedia Commons has media related to Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more.Official website Edit this at WikidataAmazon (company) companies grouped at OpenCorporatesBusiness data for Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more, Inc.:

Q. Which presidents were not elected to serve a second term and why? What party were they affiliated with?George HW Bush: What makes a one-term president?The 10 One Term Presidents of the United States6 Little Words Helped Make George H.W. Bush (A 1-Term) PresidentThe most successful one-term presidentWhy George H. W. Bush Is America’s Greatest One-Term PresidentGeorge HW Bush: What makes a one-term president?Image copyright AFP/GETTYSince 1933, only three men have failed to secure a second term as presidentThe late George HW Bush was the last US president to lose a re-election campaign. What sets single-term presidents apart?George Herbert Walker Bush was a war hero, a congressman, an ambassador, the head of the CIA, Ronald Reagan's number two and, between 1989 and 1993, the most powerful man in the world.He also enjoyed a more dubious distinction - membership of the small group of sitting presidents who have stood for re-election and lost.Since 1933, only Bush, Jimmy Carter and Gerald Ford have been beaten in a general election while occupying the White House.Image copyright Getty IMAGESIn modern US politics, incumbent presidents tend to win re-electionEvery other incumbent president - including Bush's son, George Walker Bush, who served from 2001 to 2009 - has been endorsed by the public when they have stood on their party's ticket.It is a quirk of no small significance in a nation where eras are defined in the popular imagination by their presidents - from the thwarted promise of John F Kennedy's early 1960s to the cynicism and paranoia of the Nixon years and the thrusting optimism of Ronald Reagan's 1980s.For voters and historians alike, the question of whether the head of state serves just four or the maximum eight years has huge symbolic value.Donald Trump will be under pressure to run again and retain power come to the 2020 election.In a 2010 ranking of all 44 presidents by 238 eminent scholars for Siena College Research Institute, there were no single-term presidents in the top 10.The highest-rated incumbent to have been defeated in a re-election campaign was John Adams in 17th place. Kennedy, in 11th place, was assassinated a year before he could return to the polls and James K Polk, in 12th, did not seek a second term.Why do presidents serve two terms?Image copyright Getty IMAGESBush served "four more years" under Ronald ReaganSince World War Two, eight sitting US presidents have been re-elected to serve a second term, while only three have failed in a general election.The presidency offers an unrivaled platform to attract airtime, raise campaign funds and set the policy agenda.Sitting presidents, too, tend to escape bruising battles for their party's nomination - although not George HW Bush, who faced a grueling primary challenge for his place on the Republican ticket from Pat Buchanan.In addition, they have the rare ability to make a compelling claim - that they know what it is like to take decisions from inside the Oval Office."People feel some comfort knowing who is going to be in charge, even if they don't love that person," says Julian E Zelizer, professor of history and public affairs at Princeton University.This carries added contemporary significance after Barack Obama's two terms.Obama's own historical legacy appeared to be as important an election issue as any other, to both the president and his opponents alike, ahead of the 2012 ballot.Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell famously declared in 2010 that his "number-one priority" was to make Obama, a Democrat, a "one-term president".In the same year, Obama himself told Diane Sawyer of ABC News: "I'd rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president."Defenders of Bush, the 41st president, put him in the former category.His time in office coincided with the fall of the Berlin Wall and his popularity soared in the wake of the first Gulf War.However, a protracted economic recession on his watch saw him break a pledge not to raise taxes, provoking fierce hostility from within his own Republican party. With Ross Perot, a third-party candidate, splitting the vote in the 1992 election, Bush's attempts to win re-election were thwarted by the charismatic Bill Clinton.Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, believes Bush was a victim both of timing and the US's system of fixed-term presidencies."Margaret Thatcher could call an election to capitalize on the Falklands War, but George HW Bush couldn't do that to capitalize on the first Persian Gulf War," Sabato says."If he could have done that, he would have won."Image copyright GETTY IMAGESGeorge and Barbara Bush in the 1960sGeorge HW Bush: a political life1966: Wins seat in House of Representatives1971: Nixon installs him as UN ambassador1974: Heads newly established mission in Beijing1976: Ford makes him CIA director1981-1989: Ronald Reagan's vice-president1989-1993: President of the US; leads the US into first Gulf War; copes with the collapse of communism in Eastern BlocFor Sabato, recent one-term presidents have been the victim more of adverse circumstances than of their own weaknesses.Carter was unfortunate enough to take office at a time when the global economy was in turmoil while Ford - who assumed office after Nixon's impeachment - only had two and a half years to make an impact, Sabato insists."Events put them in a bad position at the wrong time," he says.It's a perspective that is flatly rejected by Robert W Merry, author of Where They Stand: The American Presidents in the Eyes of Voters and Historians.In a democracy the customer - that is, the voter - is usually right, Merry argues.He notes that with only a handful of exceptions - Grover Cleveland, John Quincy Adams - defeated presidents are rarely judged more favorably by historians than by the electorate which rejected them."The American people are very unsentimental in their judgments," he says. "If you look back at one-term presidents, it's pretty hard to miss the reality that their performance was not quite there."Presidents get the blame and they get the credit. I'm uncomfortable with the idea that they are innocent bystanders."As a result, he has little time for any suggestion that Bush was under-appreciated by the American public."I think he was a fine man, but he was an in-basket president," Merry says. "He responded to stimuli that came to him. He didn't have an agenda to change America in any particular way."Certainly, Franklin D Roosevelt, Reagan, and Obama all inherited economies in dire straits and all won re-election.What is not in doubt is that, in an average year, an incumbent enjoys significant advantages over a challenger in a US election, thanks to the visibility and prestige of their office.But that raises the question of what difference a second term actually makes, in practice, to a president's legacy.Image copyright THE WHITE HOUSEOne-term father, two-term sonRe-elected presidents are, of course, freed from the requirement to face the voters again, which may offer them some leeway. The very fact they have been endorsed twice at the polls can enhance their authority.But they face the same institutional barriers and separation of powers as in their first four years - the mid-term elections, the need to win Congress's support for legislation."The president has some more leeway to make decisions in a second term, but they begin to lose their starch," says Zelizer."You find fewer people who are willing to take a job in their administration for a two-year tenure. It's harder to maintain forward momentum."As a result, he says, the defining policies of most presidents tend to occur in their first term.In Sabato's view, George HW Bush should not be regarded as a one-term president but as the president who spearheaded a three-term dynasty."He had a son who served two terms and served them only eight years after his own," he says."I don't think there's any question they viewed it as a personal vindication of the 1992 defeat."And given the unpopularity of George W Bush when he left office, it would appear that many people may believe Bush Senior's one term made him a better president than his two-term son.The 10 One Term Presidents of the United Statesby Tom Murse Updated June 04, 2018There have been nearly a dozen one-term presidents who ran for second terms but were denied by voters, but only three one-term presidents since World War II. The most recent one-term president who lost his re-election bid was George H.W. Bush, a Republican who lost to Democrat Bill Clinton in 1992.Is four years enough time for new presidents to prove themselves to be Commanders in Chief worthy of being elected to a second term? Considering the complexity of the congressional legislative process, it can be hard for a president to enact real, visible changes or programs in only four years. As a result, it is easy for challengers, like Clinton, in defeating incumbent George H. W. Bush, to ask Americans, “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?”Who are the other one-term presidents in the history of the United States? Who are the other modern one-term presidents? Why did voters turn their backs on them? Here's a look at America's one term presidents - those who ran for, but lost, re-election - through history.George H.W. BushHulton Archive / Getty ImagesRepublican George H.W. Bush was the 41st president of the United States, serving from 1989 to 1993. He lost a campaign for re-election in 1992 to Democrat William Jefferson Clinton, who went on to serve two full terms.Bush's official White House biography describes his re-election loss this way: Despite unprecedented popularity from this military and diplomatic triumph, Bush was unable to withstand discontent at home from a faltering economy, rising violence in inner cities, and continued high deficit spending. "In 1992 he lost his bid for reelection to Democrat William Clinton."Jimmy CarterBettmann / Contributor / Getty ImagesDemocrat Jimmy Carter was the 39th president of the United States, serving from 1977 to 1981. He lost a campaign for re-election in 1980 to Republican Ronald Reagan, who went on to serve two full terms.Carter's White House biography blames several factors for his defeat, not the least of which was the hostage-taking of U. S. embassy staff in Iran, which dominated the news during the last 14 months of Carter's administration. "The consequences of Iran's holding Americans captive, together with continuing inflation at home, contributed to Carter's defeat in 1980. Even then, he continued the difficult negotiations over the hostages."Iran released the 52 Americans the same day Carter left office.Gerald FordDavid Hume Kennerly / Hulton ArchiveRepublican Gerald R. Ford was the 38th president of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977. He lost a campaign for re-election in 1976 to Democrat Jimmy Carter, who went on to serve one term."Ford was confronted with almost insuperable tasks," his White House biography states. "There were the challenges of mastering inflation, reviving a depressed economy, solving chronic energy shortages, and trying to ensure world peace." In the end, he could not overcome those challenges.In reality, Gerald Ford never even wanted to be president. When President Richard Nixon’s vice president Spiro Agnew resigned in 1973, Ford was appointed vice president by Congress. When President Nixon later resigned rather than face impeachment for his involvement in the Watergate scandal, Ford—who had never run for the office—ended up serving as president for the remainder of Nixon’s term. “I am acutely aware that you have not elected me as your president by your ballots, and so I ask you to confirm me as your president with your prayers,” Ford found himself having to ask the American people.Herbert HooverStock Montage / Getty ImagesRepublican Herbert Hoover was the 31st president of the United States, serving from 1929 to 1933. He lost a campaign for re-election in 1932 to Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt, who went on to serve three full terms.The stock market crashed within months of Hoover's first election in 1928, and the United States plunged into The Great Depression. Hoover became the scapegoat four years later."At the same time he reiterated his view that while people must not suffer from hunger and cold, caring for them must be primarily a local and voluntary responsibility," his biography reads. "His opponents in Congress, who he felt were sabotaging his program for their own political gain, unfairly painted him as a callous and cruel President."William Howard TaftStock Montage / Getty ImagesRepublican William Howard Taft was the 27th president of the United States, serving from 1909 to 1913. He lost a campaign for re-election in 1912 to Democrat Woodrow Wilson, who went on to serve two full terms."Taft alienated many liberal Republicans who later formed the Progressive Party, by defending the Payne-Aldrich Act which unexpectedly continued high tariff rates," Taft's White House biography reads. "He further antagonized progressives by upholding his secretary of the interior, accused of failing to carry out [former President Theodore] Roosevelt's conservation policies."When the Republicans nominated Taft for a second term, Roosevelt left the GOP and lead the Progressives, guaranteeing the election of Woodrow Wilson.Benjamin HarrisonStock Montage / Getty ImagesRepublican Benjamin Harrison was the 23rd president of the United States, serving from 1889 to 1893. He lost a campaign for re-election in 1892 to Democrat Grover Cleveland, who went on to serve two full terms, though not consecutively.Harrison's administration suffered politically after a substantial Treasury surplus evaporated, and prosperity seemed about to disappear as well. The 1890 congressional elections swept in Democrats, and Republican leaders decided to abandon Harrison even though he had cooperated with Congress on party legislation, according to his White House biography. His party renominated him in 1892, but he was defeated by Cleveland.Grover ClevelandStock Montage / Getty Images*Democrat Grover Cleveland was the 22nd and 24th president of the United States, having served from 1885 to 1889, and 1893 to 1897. So he doesn't technically qualify as a one term president. But because Cleveland is the only president to serve two non-consecutive four-year terms, he holds an important place in U.S. history, having lost his initial bid for re-election in 1888 to Republican Benjamin Harrison."In December 1887 he called on Congress to reduce high protective tariffs," his bio reads. "Told that he had given Republicans an effective issue for the campaign of 1888, he retorted, 'What is the use of being elected or re-elected unless you stand for something?'"Martin Van BurenStock Montage / Getty ImagesDemocrat Martin Van Buren served as the eighth president of the United States, serving from 1837 to 1841. He lost a campaign for re-election in 1840 to Whig William Henry Harrison, who died shortly after taking office."Van Buren devoted his inaugural address to a discourse upon the American experiment as an example to the rest of the world. The country was prosperous, but less than three months later the panic of 1837 punctured the prosperity," his White House biography reads."Declaring that the panic was due to recklessness in business and overexpansion of credit, Van Buren devoted himself to maintaining the solvency of the national Government." Still, he lost re-election.John Quincy AdamsStock Montage / Getty ImagesJohn Quincy Adams was the sixth president of the United States, serving from 1825 to 1829. He lost a campaign for re-election in 1828 to Andrew Jackson after his Jacksonian opponents accused him of corruption and public plunder - "an ordeal," according to his White House biography, "Adams did not easily bear."John AdamsStock Montage / Getty ImagesFederalist John Adams, one of America's Founding Fathers, was the second president of the United States, having served from 1797 to 1801. "In the campaign of 1800 the Republicans were united and effective, the Federalists badly divided," Adams' White House biography reads. Adams lost his re-election campaign in 1800 to Democratic-Republican Thomas Jefferson.Don’t feel too sorry for one-term presidents. They get the same nice presidential retirement package as two-term presidents including a yearly pension, a staffed office, and several other allowances and benefits.In 2016, Congress passed a bill that would have cut the pensions and allowances given to former presidents. However, President Barak Obama, soon to be a former president himself, vetoed the bill.And Perhaps Lyndon Johnson?President Lyndon B. Johnson Signs the Voting Rights Act. Bettmann / Getty ImagesWhile President Lyndon B. Johnson served for six years, from 1963 to 1969, he could actually be considered a one-term president. Elected as President John F. Kennedy’s vice president in 1960, Johnson became president through succession after Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963.Elected to his own first term in 1964, Johnson succeeded in convincing Congress to pass many of his Great Society proposals for sweeping social domestic programs. However, under growing criticism for his handling of the Vietnam War, Johnson stunned the nation with two surprise announcements on March 31, 1968: he would cease all U.S. bombing of North Vietnam and seek a negotiated end to the war, and he would not run for reelection to a second term.Updated by Robert Longley6 Little Words Helped Make George H.W. Bush (A 1-Term) PresidentRON ELVINGVice President George H.W. Bush accepts the Republican nomination for president in 1988. In that speech, he laid out a promise that he would later break, hurting his chance at re-election and changing his party.Rarely have six words meant so much, and so many different things, to so many.They rang out in the Superdome in New Orleans in August 1988 as the vice president of the United States, George H.W. Bush, accepted the Republican nomination for president:"Read my lips: no new taxes."And the crowd, as they say, went wild. A roar had been building, even in that vast and airy stadium, as Bush built up to his payoff line:"My opponent won't rule out raising taxes. But I will. And the Congress will push me to raise taxes, and I'll say no. And they'll push, and I'll say no, and they'll push again, and I'll say, to them, 'Read my lips: no new taxes.' "There were other memorable moments in that address, drafted by a speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan named Peggy Noonan. The soon-to-be-famous "thousand points of light" were mentioned, along with a reference to a "kinder and gentler nation." Both would follow George H.W. Bush for the rest of his life.POLITICSWhat We All Forget (If We Ever Knew) About The Political Career of Bush 41But it was the "read my lips" quip that ignited the convention and caught the attention of the media. Tough-guy talk was not Bush's usual métier. It was far more associated with Reagan, the movie actor, who, as a politician, borrowed from film scripts from time to time. A few years earlier, Reagan had delighted his fans by quoting from a Clint Eastwood movie, where a cop with a very large gun taunted a criminal crawling toward a weapon nearby:"Go ahead," said Dirty Harry. "Make my day."So when Reagan was confronting Democrats and other "tax increasers" in Congress, he lifted that line to dramatize his veto threat.YouTubeWhere the phrase came from"Read my lips" sounded like a movie, but it wasn't from one of Clint's. William Safire researched the phrase for his column for the New York Times Sunday Magazine. Safire was a lexicographer as well as a political columnist and former speechwriter for President Richard Nixon.He found the first widely public use of the phrase in a song title in 1957 (by Joe Greene) and later in a 1978 album title (by singer Tim Curry) and several song titles in the 1980s. It then migrated into the world of sports and sports clichés, from which it was a short leap to political speech.A Reagan aide used it in 1981 about the release of American hostages held by Iran, and even by Sen. Al Gore of Tennessee used it in congressional questioning.Safire concluded, the phrase simply meant "Listen closely" or "Get this straight."What was important, though, was that it sounded tough. Bush, all too often, did not. In fact, his campaign had suffered from a perception problem regarding his virility.Newsweek had pictured the former World War II fighter pilot and college baseball player on a boat on its cover with the headline, "Fighting the 'Wimp Factor.' " That's something the editor of that article now says he was wrong about, but in the 1988 campaign, it was a narrative that stuck — and Bush's principal task of his New Orleans convention speech was to dispel that image tout suite.George Bush wades through a crowd in Houston after his victory speech in the 1988 presidential election.Mike Spague/AFP/Getty ImagesIt helped ... then probably hurt"Read my lips" succeeded, probably beyond their fondest dreams. Polls showed that after the convention, Bush had a lead over Democrat Michael Dukakis. But if it improved Bush's chances of being elected that year, it may also have ruined his chances of being re-elected in 1992.That was because less than two years after making the no-tax pledge, Bush found himself in circumstances in which he no longer felt he could keep it. Locked in budget negotiations with the majority Democrats in the House and Senate, Bush felt he had to allow higher rates on some existing taxes or the Gramm-Rudman deficit-reduction bill would shut down important services of the government.So he signed off on a compromise involving revenues as well as spending restraints. Democrats exulted at having forced him to renege. Conservatives seethed. A young Newt Gingrich, elevated to the No. 2 spot in the House Republican leadership the previous year, made no secret of his displeasure. He insisted any option was preferable to any new revenue.That position helped inspire a major Republican challenger to Bush's renomination in 1992. He was Patrick Buchanan, a former communications director for Reagan and a familiar commentator on TV. He announced his campaign for president in December 1991, saying he was running "because, we Republicans, can no longer say it is all the liberals' fault. It was not some liberal Democrat who said, 'Read my lips: no new taxes,' then broke his word to cut a seedy backroom budget deal with the big spenders on Capitol Hill."Reagan and Bush had won two landslides on a platform that was anti-communist, anti-abortion and anti-tax. Global events had greatly diminished the communist threat by 1990, and Bush devoted little of his time and energy to the abortion issue. That left taxes, and for Bush to abandon that citadel as well was an outrage to many on the right. Buchanan gave Bush enough heartburn in the early primaries that the president actually apologized for his tax shift in several interviews in the spring of 1992.But whether he would have done differently in retrospect is another question. In July 1990, the federal government was taking on a new obligation to bail out those harmed in the collapse of the savings and loan industry. The annual budget deficit was already $200 billion a year, and the cumulative national debt had grown from $1 trillion in 1980 (when Reagan and Bush were first elected) to $2.7 trillion.NPR POLITICS PODCASTIn that same month, the economy was slipping into a recession that was sure to reduce revenues. And Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was about to invade neighboring Kuwait, which would trigger the first Persian Gulf War.Bush knew the time had come to get the nation's fiscal house in order, or something like it. His 1990 compromise began a decade of relatively responsible budgeting that, combined with moves made by the Clinton administration in 1993, enabled the federal government to harvest considerable revenue from the personal computer boom of that decade.As the year 2000 approached, the stock market was booming and the annual budget deficit was nearing zero. Nonetheless, the risk Bush knowingly took with the budget deal turned out to be worse than he realized. He fought off the Gingrich critique and the Buchanan challenge and was renominated in 1992. But he received less than 38 percent of the popular vote in November.The winner was Clinton, who profited from depressed GOP turnout with nearly one-fifth of the popular vote going to a third-party candidate, businessman H. Ross Perot, who ran against the budget deficit and the national debt.The most successful one-term presidentGeorge H. W. Bush “gave the nation its most successful one-term presidency.” He “was the best one-term president the country has ever had, and one of the most underrated presidents of all time.”So said two not impartial sources — the late president’s vice president, Dan Quayle, and his Houston friend and secretary of state, who was with him at the end, James Baker. But their assessments are entirely defensible.The toughest one-term competitor to Bush has to be James K. Polk, who achieved all four of his goals — gaining the Oregon Territory and the Pacific Coast, establishing an independent Treasury, and lowering tariffs. But Polk’s acquisitions left the country with a problem — slavery in the territories — that it wasn’t able to solve without civil war. He left his successors a nation and world headed toward broad sunlit uplands.Ryan Zinke leaves Trump administration amid Justice Department investigationPolk was the original “dark horse” presidential candidate, and when George H.W. Bush started running for president in the 1980 cycle, he was, too — a successful oilman who had lost two Senate races and in between served two terms in the House.His brief campaign autobiography minimized, perhaps with his characteristic modesty, the value of his experience in appointive office. As ambassador to the U.N., he was not clued in on Richard Nixon’s opening to China; he was unaware of the Cultural Revolution while serving 13 months in Beijing; he was CIA director for just 11 months. But his network of friends and cousins — all those notes dashed off on stationery! — propelled him to victories in the Iowa caucuses, Northeastern primaries, and second place on Ronald Reagan’s ticket.Bush probably, as he said at Reagan’s funeral, learned more about issues and certainly about world leaders as vice president than he had ever known before. The result was his masterful navigation as president of choppy currents and sudden storms: uniting Germany but not humiliating Mikhail Gorbachev after the Berlin Wall fell; assembling an international coalition and winning the Gulf War.This despite his pushing against disassembling existing structures — the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia. They unraveled anyway, but mostly peacefully. It’s useful to have a steady balance wheel in a time of revolutionary upheaval.On domestic policy, he was more of an innovator than people think. The teenager who signed up to be a Navy pilot and the young husband who left leafy Greenwich for the desert wastes of West Texas oilfields pushed successfully for policies others hadn’t considered.Such as the Americans with Disabilities Act. This wasn’t a handout but, like the G.I. Bill which paid his tuition at Yale, opened opportunities for people to help themselves.The 1990 Clean Air Act was perhaps the last authentically bipartisan environment initiative. The FIRREA law mopping up the savings and loan mess was costly, producing one-third of the budget deficit, but also necessary and self-liquidating.Liberal journalists who have been praising Bush this week ridiculed him as a clueless preppie whose success was handed down to him — absurd given the risks he took in the Pacific and Texas. They’re still attacking him as a racist for his 1988 campaign ads that accurately attacked his opponent for defending for nine years the policy of granting weekend furloughs for prisoners sentenced to life without parole — a policy for which there is no rational argument.So why was this mostly successful president defeated resoundingly for a second term? One reason is that he broke his “read my lips” promise and agreed with Democrats to raise taxes. The tax increase fueled enthusiasm for Pat Buchanan’s insurgent primary campaign. And the NAFTA trade deal with Mexico — another original Bush initiative — helped Ross Perot make a different conservative case against him.But one other factor, I suspected then and believe now, was decisive: I think Bush was ready to retire. He had accomplished most of his goals, including some that had seemed impossible. He had enlisted in the Navy exactly 50 years before and spent more than 20 of the intervening years in public service.He had been elected president at age 64, older with one exception than all but three other past presidents when first elected (Harrison, Buchanan, Taylor) and two when re-elected (Jackson, Eisenhower). But the exception was conspicuous: Ronald Reagan, who had just carried 44 and 49 states at ages 69 and 73.In politics, success can be as fatal as a failure. Achieve some original bipartisan goals and neither party may want you anymore. Demonstrate mastery of foreign policy and voters may conclude they don’t need it anymore. Gracefully retire and Americans may gratefully if belatedly give thanks, as they have this past week.Why George H. W. Bush Is America’s Greatest One-Term PresidentBy David MarcusDECEMBER 6, 2018As we reflect upon the life and presidency of George H. W. Bush, it is only natural to wonder where he falls in the pantheon of our 45 presidents. These kinds of rankings are subjective and capricious, but nonetheless enjoyable and perhaps useful in helping us think about what we want from a president.As we look back over Bush’s four years in office, the decades have shined up the diamond. At his funeral yesterday, the speakers spoke of his myriad successes and accomplishments. After this most recent examination of his term, there appears to be a strong argument that H. W. Bush was the most successful one-term president in American history.Twenty-two of our 45 presidents have served only one term. For my purposes, I am only considering those who were not assassinated and who lost re-election after serving their first term. No Harry Truman, no John F. Kennedy, and no Lyndon Baines Johnson. That still leaves a few contenders.The ContendersTruly great men have been one-term presidents. John Adams, without whom we might still have kings and queens on our money, was a one-term president. But his was a presidency mired in political strife and controversy and, frankly, some illiberal tactics that make Trump calling the press the enemy of the people look like one of those CNN apples and banana ads. A great man is not always a great president.When I posited last night on Twitter that a strong argument could be made for Bush being the greatest one-term president I discovered an unfound corner of the Internet. Apparently, James Polk Twitter is a real thing, and these folks aren’t kidding. Almost every response I received was from a conservative claiming Polk is the greatest one-term president. I barely remembered that he’d been a president.Yes, Polk presided over the vast expansion of the United States from sea to shining sea. We may owe America the beautiful in some way to Polk, but surely we also owe him in no small part the Civil War. Polk created a tinderbox without thinking to provide water buckets. Ten years after H. W. Bush’s presidency, the United States was the global hegemonic superpower. Ten years after Polk’s, it was mired in a bloody battle it was lucky to survive.Another contender is William Howard Taft. He did, after all, fill six — count them, six — Supreme Court vacancies. He continued Teddy Roosevelt’s anti-corporate crusades. He had a fairly successful presidency that probably should have earned him a second term. But not unlike Bush, he faced a third-party candidacy, from that same Teddy Roosevelt and his new Progressive Party. Eighty years later, Ross Perot and the Reform Party would derail Bush in much the same way.The Case For BushFew presidents have ever been inaugurated into a world as dangerously in flux as Bush was. Certainly Abraham Lincoln. But the closer analogy is Truman. Truman took power as the United States was successfully completing World War II. In accomplishing that, he became the only man to ever launch a nuclear strike. Afterward, he had to help create a new Europe, one divided, in which a wall bifurcated Germany.H.W. Bush was president when that wall fell. Today we look back and think, Hey, we won the Cold War, great job, everybody. But we forget that suddenly thousands of nuclear weapons were under the control of a post-Soviet government about as well-organized as a Marx Brothers routine. Meanwhile, who knows what the future of Germany was to be? Was that really a gang we wanted to get back together? He healed the world with his kind and gentle soul. And we take that for granted far too much.H. W. Bush, the former head of the CIA and former ambassador to the United Nations, was the right man at the right time. As former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney made clear in his eulogy yesterday, Bush was absolutely essential in creating a new world order. Whatever you think of that, it has not plunged the world back into global war.In domestic policy, Bush ushered through the Americans with Disabilities Act, creating improved access to services and facilities for millions of Americans. This legislation sent the message that America is for everyone, that doors will not be closed. It was a piece of legislation that is still improving the lives of many Americans and making us a better country.Why He LostIf he was so good, why did he lose? Two and a half words: H. Ross Perot. Whether Perot cost Bush the 1992 election is a political science question for the ages. Well, I’m here to tell you, Perot cost Bush the election. Perot is without question the most overlooked and ignored political figure of the late 20th century. He and his Reform Party tapped into a constituency that never went away.Both parties ignored this faction, who were skeptical of globalism, immigration, and foreign adventures. Neoliberalism was the tonic that crafted the hairdos of both parties. But the Reformists lingered. They were enough to knock Bush out of office in ’92, but they weren’t enough to win until Donald Trump grafted the Reform agenda onto the GOP and defeated his son.Whether the Reform Party coup over the Republican Party is a good thing is an argument for another day. Maybe Bush and his sons are the last Republicans of their ilk. I doubt it. Time will tell.One thing seems clear: No one-term president had as smooth, successful, and meaningful a presidency as did George Herbert Walker Bush. It may be a dubious honor, but maybe not. Bush did what he thought was right, even when it meant going back on his sacred word about taxes. He did what he thought was right, and usually, it was. For Bush, one term should be enough to list him among the great presidents. We would be lucky to see his like again.David Marcus is the Federalist's New York Correspondent and the Artistic Director of Blue Box World, a Brooklyn based theater project. Follow him on Twitter, @BlueBoxDave.