[Column] Is Coupang much more poisonous than Amazon?

Following a sequence of employee deaths and the delays in severance pay to logistics middle staff, a large private information breach has now occurred at Korean e-commerce big Coupang. 

Coupang has positioned itself as a data-driven firm that makes use of synthetic intelligence to investigate logistics, suggestions and distributors. The buying and behavioral information of tens of thousands and thousands of consumers, together with the AI suggestion and optimization techniques constructed upon it, is Coupang’s aggressive edge. This core asset has now been compromised.

The leak of over 33.7 million items of Coupang customers’ private data is very large in scale, doubtlessly affecting three out of each 4 adults in South Korea straight or not directly. Nonetheless, the larger downside is the corporate’s ill-considered post-incident response. The leak reportedly started as early as June, but Coupang claims it remained unaware of it for practically 5 months. Even after the breach got here to mild, the corporate has tried to muddy the difficulty by referring to it as an “publicity” fairly than a “leak.”

This 12 months alone, eight Coupang employees have died, but the corporate has persistently evaded accountability, remaining silent even amid controversies over overwork deaths and office accidents. Critics level out that the administration has prioritized lobbying politicians throughout parliamentary hearings and reacting to controversies after the actual fact, resulting in extreme vulnerabilities in safety and security. Coupang is successfully turning right into a poisonous enterprise that locations its customers and employees at risk because it holds shopper comfort hostage.

The investing precept of ESG, shorthand for “environmental, social, and governance,” has lengthy been a sizzling subject. Corporations obtain sustainable progress not by prioritizing income above all else, however by contemplating the atmosphere and the well-being of their employees. Whereas Amazon, the US firm Coupang fashions itself after, has positioned ESG as a core technique, emphasizing local weather motion, Coupang has successfully ignored it as a aim.

In fact, Amazon additionally faces criticism for quite a few points in governance and social influence: excessive harm charges amongst warehouse employees, vehement opposition to unions, and AI-based work surveillance techniques. However, it has established an institutional framework for sustainable progress, together with inserting local weather, human rights and labor points below board oversight and publishing annual reviews.

Patagonia, usually cited because the textbook firm for ESG, goes past danger administration by making ESG the very motive for its existence. In 2022, founder Yvon Chouinard declared, “Earth is now our solely shareholder,” and introduced basic modifications to the corporate’s possession construction. By championing the message to devour much less and selling “purchase much less, put on longer” as its model technique, the corporate’s income have really elevated.

Coupang has deeply penetrated Koreans’ lives with the highly effective comfort of its early morning supply service. However it can’t proceed whereas turning a blind eye to labor and social accountability. We are able to not tolerate an organization that outsources its dangers to society.

By Han Gui-young, director of the Hankyoreh Human and Digital Analysis Institute

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