We all know Walmart, the American multinational retail corporation, especially if you have been to the US. The immensity of the store, the feeling you get when you are inside and see products ranging from toys, to laundry detergents to guns. When I was a kid it felt like a day out, I was fascinated by all the different products they offer. You can surely say that there is something for everyone. Being there physically and enjoying the vast amount of area you can cover is a great experience.

Walmart is a family-owned business, headquartered in Betonville, Arkansas, and is controlled by the Walton family. It is the largest grocery retailer in the US. Walmart extended operations overseas. Operations were successful in the United Kingdom, South America, China and Canada whereas operations in Germany and South Korea failed.

Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart said the following “The secret of successful retailing is to give your customers what they want. And really, if you think about it from your point of view as a customer, you want everything: a wide assortment of good-quality merchandise; the lowest possible prices; guaranteed satisfaction with what you buy; friendly, knowledgeable service; convenient hours; free parking; a pleasant shopping experience.” This statement describes exactly how I experienced Walmart in the past.

Walmart wants to change its course by spending more on e-commerce while slowing down on opening new stores. The reason why they are doing this is to catch up with Amazon and thus become a more significant competitor. CEO of Walmart, Doug McMillon, said that the company will look more like an e-commerce company in the future. Walmart made a serious start with this by closing a 3.3 billion dollar purchase for Jet.com, an online retail startup, and it also doubled the investment in JD.com, the 2nd biggest e-commerce player in China.

Walmart has weaknesses that it needs to attend to in order to compete with their biggest competitor, Amazon. Walmart needs to expand their warehouses or increase the quantity owned. They should also be looking for ways to reduce shipping costs, this can be accomplished by working with Jet.

E-commerce has many advantages to organizations, consumers and society, many to which I agree. For me personally, I would prefer going to an actual store where you actually have a feel of products. The experience of going to Walmart and looking around, even though you are not looking for something specifically, is great and will be lost if you shop online. That is why I will always be a fervent supporter of shopping in actual stores.

Under the 2008 amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and other laws can intelligence agencies, such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and National Security Agency (NSA), ask U.S. phone and Internet companies to violate the privacy of their customers by giving them data. In doing so the data should aid foreign intelligence-gathering efforts for multiple reasons such as prevention of terrorists attacks.

Former employees reported that Yahoo simply complied with the demand from the US government to search every incoming mail for a certain set of characters. Yahoo said in a statement that “Yahoo is a law abiding company, and complies with the laws of the United States”.

Whether other email service providers have received a requests for domestic surveillance is unsure. A Google spokesman told he would say ‘No way’ if they received a request. While a spokesman from Microsoft said the following: “We have never engaged in the secret scanning of email traffic like what has been reported today about Yahoo.” Whether they had received a request for surveillance or not is not commented on. A Facebook spokesman said that “Facebook has never received a request like the one described in these news reports from any government, and if we did we would fight it”. Twitter reacted accordingly by saying “We’ve never received a request like this, and were we to receive it we’d challenge it in a court”.

Spying demands don’t fall favorably with the customers. Apple refused to break-in into an encrypted iPhone that was used in the San Bernadino terrorist attack that killed 14 people and seriously injured 22 more. While tech companies become better every day at encrypting data, requests for spying will increase. Apple, as do others, believe that customers expect from tech companies to stand up to novel spying demands.

Some argue that users’ security will be hurt when complying with an order to check all email traffic. I personally don’t find it strange that intelligence agencies ask companies such as Yahoo for their assistance. All companies that interact with user created information should, if asked be able to carry out these sort of actions but it should be in the open. If a company is turning over information, they should give a copy of the order and the data they have to the person that created it, person that received it and the person that requested it. This cloak and dagger stuff is the reason why so many people out there now distrust governments and organisations.

Sources:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-04/yahoo-admits-secretly-hacking-customer-accounts-us-intelligence