As of late March 2018, Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) has surpassed Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) to become the world's second most valuable company next to Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL). This news follows a roughly year-long surge that increased Amazon's stock market value by $350 billion and saw its expansion into new markets, like brick-and-mortar grocery. This past Monday, Wall Street saw a dramatic tech sell-off partly due to the political backlash that ensued from the news that roughly 50 million Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) users' leaked personal data had been misused by Cambridge Analytica, a data firm that harvests user data and has ties to President Donald Trump.
The tech-sell off triggered the formation of two categories of tech companies in the minds of investors: companies that are vulnerable to similar issues as Facebook, and companies that are impervious to such data privacy issues. Investors sold stocks of the former class of tech companies under pressure - which included Alphabet, in light of its reliance on personal data for advertisement targets, and Twitter, which declined over 10% on Monday. This trend raises worries that regulators will also begin cracking down on similar tech companies, which they may justify through "guilt by association."
On the other hand, this also raises questions about the personal data Amazon collects on its users. Experts speculate that, no matter what, this data will never be as personal as the data Facebook collects, as Amazon is unconcerned with its users' political views and friend networks.
Amazon's stock market value is now $768 billion, whereas Alphabet, Google's parent company, is at $762.5 billion. Over the past year, Amazon's stock has surged 85%, and already increased 35% since the start of 2018. As a result, investors have crowded into Amazon and bet on its rising cloud computing business. Investors believe that the cloud computing business will enable Amazon to provide the cash needed for its original content investments, physical stores, warehouses and data centers.