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eBay head honcho: Amazon drone delivery plan is 'FANTASY'

You keep farting about with flying bots; we live in the real world, says John Donahoe

The CEO of eBay has dismissed Amazon's claims that it will soon employ drones to deliver packages as a "fantasy".

In an interview with Bloomberg, John Donahoe rubbished Amazon's claims that it was about to replace its human worker drones with robots.

"We're not really focusing on long-term fantasies, we're focusing on things that will change consumers' experience today," he said when asked if he was planning to ape Amazon's plans.

Earlier this month, Jeff Bezos announced that Amazon would soon be using robotic drones, a suggestion which was quickly torn apart - although El Reg's blasting-drones-out-of-the-sky desk mooted ways US citizens could destroy Bezos' robot air force using readily available firearms.

Amazon, which is to independent high street shops what Herod was to first born children, has come under fire for the treatment of its worker drones in recent weeks after the BBC sent an undercover reporter into a distribution depot.

Various news outlets have muscled in on the action, sending unlucky drones to spend time to be unlucky drones elsewhere as "pickers" at Amazon's warehouses.

"To spend 10½ hours a day picking items off the shelves is to contemplate the darkest recesses of our consumerist desires," wrote the Grauniad's drone du jour, Caroline Cadwalladr. ®

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