Retail CEOs Press Congress To Toughen Rules for Online Sellers

The chief executive officers of companies including Target and Best Buy called on Congress to approve legislation aimed at forcing online marketplaces to beef up measures designed to fight the sale of stolen or counterfeit goods. From a report: Passage of the so-called Inform Consumers Act would help retailers and law enforcement crack down on a "significant uptick" in organized theft, the Retail Industry Leaders Association said in a letter Thursday to Congressional leaders. The CEOs of Home Depot, Levi Strauss & Co. and more than a dozen other companies also signed their names in support. "In the current environment, criminal networks and unscrupulous businesses have exploited a system that protects their anonymity to sell unsafe, stolen, or counterfeit products with little legal recourse," the group and the CEOs said in the letter. "This lack of transparency on particular third-party marketplaces has allowed criminal activity to fester."

Fencing laws?

[splutty]

There are already laws for companies/individuals who fence stuff. I tried finding what's different here, but nothing seems to be, other than an added "With computers online."

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Re: Fencing laws?

[hunter44102]

Spoken like a guy who's never been in the police force. You liberals have solutions to everything you know -nothing- about other than what you are spoon fed by liberal media.

Re:

[ArmoredDragon]

They have qualified immunity meaning that they can get away with anything, even murder, if they claim it was in support of enforcing the law

That didn't seem to work for Derek Chauvin.

Re:

[Agripa]

Not sure what you're referring to, but if you're talking about the laws to fix cash bail and change it to making bail dependent upon danger to the public, rather based upon a cash deposit, then that's a fucking stupid idea. Bail should be dependent upon the flight right and danger someone is to the public.

Bail is to make sure someone shows up for court. Stop violating the 6th Amendment and the problem will be solved because they will be in prison if that is where they are suppose to be.

Re:Fencing laws?

[CohibaVancouver]

This is one of the things that amazes me about the USA.

Instead the richest nation in the world wanting to address the things that turn people into criminals - Childhood poverty, drug addition, lack of education and opportunity - So many Americans like you instead want to spend BILLIONS upon billions of tax dollars locking more and more people up for longer and longer.

It's crazy.

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[JackieBrown]

Instead the richest nation in the world wanting to address the things that turn people into criminals - Childhood poverty, drug addition, lack of education and opportunity - So many Americans like you instead want to spend BILLIONS upon billions of tax dollars locking more and more people up for longer and longer..

Why is it an either or choice?

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[Can'tNot]

Because it's a two party system. Everything is an either or choice.

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[CohibaVancouver]

Why is it an either or choice?

Because doing both - Spending billions to address childhood poverty, drug addition, lack of education and opportunity AND spending billions locking more and more people up for longer and longer - Costs you twice as much.

You do the first thing (like they do in the Nordics) and you don't have to spend on the second.

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[MachineShedFred]

Yeah, because having a panicked shop owner using deadly force with a gun that they have probably not spent a whole lot of time at the range with (because the gun is at the shop), and has less ammunition than the number of people coming in to commit property crime is a horrible fucking idea.

Never mind that any bullets that miss are going into adjacent stores or into common areas in a busy shopping mall filled with bystanders and that basically everywhere, deadly force is not legally useable to defend propert

The transition is going to hurt

[way2trivial]

But, the end effect might be worth it. I imagine courtesy would return as well..

what makes people not steal? murder? the understanding that a punishment might occur
-- this just, adjusts the balance of what punishments might occur

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[cayenne8]

Yeah, because having a panicked shop owner using deadly force with a gun that they have probably not spent a whole lot of time at the range with (because the gun is at the shop), and has less ammunition than the number of people coming in to commit property crime is a horrible fucking idea.

This isn't rocket surgery.

I have a conceal license, and if these criminals come rushing in at us with crowbars and sledge hammers, I think that would likely qualify for a self defense shooting.

deadly force is not legall

Re:

[MachineShedFred]

I also have a concealed carry license, so please don't act like I'm some anti-gun crusader out to take away all your guns and then shame you for having them in the first place.

You had no response to the problem of stray rounds going right past people and into innocent civilians. If you're amped up on adrenaline, your hands are going to shake. This isn't shooting holes in paper at the range, you're lining up another human being's chest in front of the iron sights and giving the trigger a squeeze. There ar

Re:

[cayenne8]

You had no response to the problem of stray rounds going right past people and into innocent civilians

Well, of course you have to consider the area you are firing into and be cognizant of what's behind your target, I kinda assumed that goes without saying.

If you're amped up on adrenaline, your hands are going to shake. This isn't shooting holes in paper at the range, you're lining up another human being's chest in front of the iron sights and giving the trigger a squeeze. There are psychological effects he

Re:

[MachineShedFred]

As a point of information, there are 12 states with a duty to retreat, with the exception of if you are in your own home (Castle doctrine).

Of the remaining 38 states, 8 of them only have "stand your ground" case law or jury instructions, which means they may as well be duty-to-retreat states because that could be overturned in your trial just as easily as not.

30 states have duly enacted statutes that say there is no duty to retreat from an attacker if you are in a location you are lawfully allowed to be pre

Re:

[cayenne8]

What percentage of the increased homicides were justified?

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[serviscope_minor]

There are already laws for companies/individuals who fence stuff. I tried finding what's different here, but nothing seems to be, other than an added "With computers online."

Yes and?

"with computers online" changes the scale at which this can occur. It also changes the practicalities massively. Without being "with computers online" no shop could practically operate like Amazon where the shelves are full of a mix of their goods and random vendors selling blatantly illegal shit (be it counterfeit or illegal fi

Re:

[Voyager529]

Yes and?

"with computers online" changes the scale at which this can occur. It also changes the practicalities massively.

I think the point the GP was making is that we don't need a law that makes fencing even more illegal than it already is. The scale and practicalities mean that the nature of enforcement needs to shift so that existing laws are applied to internet counterfeiting, but it doesn't mean that we need an entirely new set of laws to address an old problem.

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[serviscope_minor]

I think the point the GP was making is that we don't need a law that makes fencing even more illegal than it already is.

Well clearly we do because it's not even obvious IF Amazon can be prosecuted under the old laws. The thing is the loopholes Amazon are using weren't plugged before because they were small and no one cared. "on a computer online" changes the scale to make them more than big enough to be worth plugging.

I think the GP is labouring under the misapprehension that "on a computer online" is a mea

Re:

[LynnwoodRooster]

If you're using Amazon marketplace, it's not Amazon who's selling the product and they're exempt from penalty. Making them carry the weight of being an accessory to the crime will force Amazon to really tighten up on fraudulent sales.

not sure if sarcasm or not

[way2trivial]

Ever been to a large flea market? seen street vendors in NYC?

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[serviscope_minor]

Yes and they're tiny compared to a 1.7 trillion dollar company.

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[snowshovelboy]

There are already laws for companies/individuals who fence stuff. /quote?

Like what? Do they apply to amazon and ebay?

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[ereshkigal20]

Fencing stolen goods does not apply where the goods are not stolen, just not described accurately (with fraudulent intent). I suspect there may be other laws that could apply but obviously are not being applied. Where local authorities don't enforce good behavior (and clearly in China they are not preventing local folks from selling fake devices on the net) the best you might hope for is someone filtering sellers, or maybe devices. This is onerous where the devices are made slightly different (change price

That's rich

[IWantMoreSpamPlease]

"The CEOs of Home Depot, Levi Strauss & Co..."
Those companies have their stuff made in places like China that....
"...have exploited a system that protects their anonymity to sell unsafe, stolen, or counterfeit products with little legal recourse..."

So here's a thought, CEOs...make in domestically, cut down on that counterfeiting you are whining about

Product certification

[backslashdot]

Two obvious ways to solve this .. most obvious way is via blockchain, every jeans pair has an NFT and when you buy it you immediately verify and purchase the NFT which verifies who made that. A more convoluted non-blockchain solution might be that when an item is sold online, the browser can verify the sale via a ping to the manufacture. So for example, if I bought a pair of Levis from Abracadabra Jeans Shop online .. the vendor can inform the manufacturer through an API call that their product unique ident

Everybody wants small government

[rsilvergun]

until they need the cops to show up and protect their property.

So it's really just an tax grab

[what2123]

"High-volume third-party sellers are defined as vendors who have made 200 or more discrete sales in a 12-month period amounting to $5,000 or more." That's pretty low in terms of sales. I sold two things on ebay last year for more than 5,000 combined. Does that mean I'm now a high-volume third party seller? That is a joke. Even the 200 sales is peanuts. I would expect to see this on places with 10's of 1000s in monthly revenue, not 5K for a year. -2123

Re:

[what2123]

In my hast and annoyance I read the "200 or" as 200 sales OR $5,000 in total sales. I apologize if my own frustrations confused or annoyed anyone else. Looks like I would not be a "high-volume" seller. That said 200 still seems very low in terms of total sales.

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[suutar]

That would seem to cover pretty much any shop that's able to make rent in any given strip mall, from Goodwill to CVS.

Online products should have to say where it's made

[schwit1]

All new products should have to state near the top of the description what country the product was made in. Retailers should also have filters to filter out or in specific countries of origin. China would not like this.

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[IWantMoreSpamPlease]

It's a nice thought, but what's to stop a counterfeit good from counterfeiting the country of origin as well?

In other words, how do we enforce the certification of country of manufacture?

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[MachineShedFred]

Yeah, because we all know that counterfeiters would never lie about the origin of the product while lying about other aspects of the product, such as brand, capabilities, safety certifications, environmental certifications, etc.

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[fermion]

How do you classify a computer. Where it was assembled by low wage workers, or the country high wage technicians who created the components. As we saw from the supply chain issues when texas went dark, most everything at least partly comes from texas.

The agreement seems to be that this uptick in theft if due to a change in law. It now requires like a thousand dollars in theft for the cops to care. This makes it profitable for organized crime to hire people to steal, then aggregates the thefts. In terms of

this is aimed at amazon/facebook

[way2trivial]

all of whom are 'only a venue' and make it impossible to connect marketplace sellers with actual people when the sellers want to obfuscate their identities ... ebay not so much, but still a component of it

Faked goods oft are not stolen but still frauds

[ereshkigal20]

I suggest anyone try buying a USB stick (particularly a large capacity one). So many are offered at low prices, it is about impossible to find one that is real. Fake capacity reporting in the electronics is common so you are sold a, say, 256GB USB stick but it may hold only 16gb or some such, and just corrupt its data if you try to store more. Selling thing that fake their abilities is a problem that has little to do with brand name (though some do fake well known brands), but many just sell devices that cl

Reading...

[stikves]

We cannot compete with online sellers for better prices, and better service. So *would you kindly* take them off the equation. Say 'to level the playing field' or something.

Remember, we are the ones doing donations to your campaigns, not them.

Sincerely,
Big Business.