Amazon Faces $1 Billion Lawsuit in UK For 'Favouring Its Own Products' (reuters.com) 28
Amazon is facing a lawsuit in Britain for damages of up to 900 million pounds ($1 billion) over allegations the online marketplace abused its dominant position by favouring its own products, lawyers said. From a report: Consumer rights advocate Julie Hunter plans to bring the collective action on behalf of British consumers who have made purchases on Amazon since October 2016, lawyers representing her said. The proposed case - which Amazon said was "without merit" - would be the latest mass action against a tech giant to be filed at London's Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT).
Law firm Hausfeld, which represents Hunter, said on Thursday that Amazon has breached competition law by using "a secretive and self-favouring algorithm" to promote its own products through the "Buy Box" feature on its website. Hunter said in a statement: "Far from being a recommendation based on price or quality, the Buy Box favours products sold by Amazon itself, or by retailers who pay Amazon for handling their logistics. Other sellers, however good their offers might be, are effectively shut out."
Law firm Hausfeld, which represents Hunter, said on Thursday that Amazon has breached competition law by using "a secretive and self-favouring algorithm" to promote its own products through the "Buy Box" feature on its website. Hunter said in a statement: "Far from being a recommendation based on price or quality, the Buy Box favours products sold by Amazon itself, or by retailers who pay Amazon for handling their logistics. Other sellers, however good their offers might be, are effectively shut out."
And that's only half the problem (Score:2)
What they actually do is watch whether the products you sell via them are successful, pick off the ones that are, offer them themselves and rate their own products higher than yours, essentially poaching your business.
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Yes. And they're sitting next to each other on the shelf. Not with the store brand at the front, and the other brands at the back.
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The problem is, theres no regulations stating outright that you cannot do this sort of thing - its a "guilty after the fact" situation, based on marketing and competition law, which is fluffy in nature and you generally only know you are in trouble when someone decides you are.
In this case, Amazon should drop the market place entirely - but they probably wouldnt be allowed to do that either because of competition law....
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All amazon has to do is make some algorithms designed to show people what they want instead of what amazon wants, done. That's literally the only thing they have to change in this case. I have never, ever wanted to see a bunch of Amazon basics garbage before whatever I was actually looking for.
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No. The store brands are sitting in the most prominent placement. Did you know that placement drives sales? This is similar to Amazon. The other items were still on the site. The user could still buy them. But they were not placed as prominently. Just like a supermarket.
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Yes, but it's not the other shops that are suing them. She is suing on behalf of consumers, i.e. she claims that Amazon's practices can be demonstrated to have cost consumers money in a way that is considered unfair.
It's certainly a novel legal argument. The hope is probably that they will settle.
There was a similar thing with the VW emissions cheating scandal. Under UK law you can only sue for your actual losses, and it's practically impossible to prove that you lost any money due to them fiddling their em
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Under UK law you can only sue for your actual losses, and it's practically impossible to prove that you lost any money due to them fiddling their emissions numbers.
The way to proceed is for governments to sue them, not individuals. And they did, and that's why owners got money. The suit could conceivably be for $infinity moneys because it's impossible to put the pollution back in the tailpipe, which is what kept VAG from playing more games with the courts.
Amazon: Service or Store? (Score:3)
Obviously yes it's a blatant conflict of interest if you start with the assumption that stores are or ought to be neutral "honest brokers."
I think that's the key point. Nobody expects a grocery store to treat other brands exactly the same as it does its own - they may get displayed side-by-side but the store sets the price and it is always higher for the non-store brand. However, nobody seems to have a problem with that since they have bought the brand item from the manufacturer and are trying to make a profit from it.
However, with a service like financial advice, if you claim to be an independent financial advisor in the UK there are (or
I'm literally laughing my ass off (Score:3)
Re:I'm literally laughing my ass off (Score:4, Informative)
EU members as well as the EU itself regularly fines european companies for breaking rules, laws and regulations. You only hear about the US ones due to US centric news sources etc. In fact, if you were to look through the databases listing fines and such that have been handed out, Google, Microsoft, Apple etc are, if anything, given overly lenient punishments compared to their size.
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It's no secret that the EU is a protectionist organization that seeks to advantage its own companies and regards American companies as unwelcome hostile entities. [spiegel.de]
"The German intelligence agency used the selectors to surveil telephone and fax numbers as well as email accounts belonging to American companies like Lockheed Martin, the space agency NASA, the organization Human Rights Watch, universities in several U.S. states and military facilities like the U.S. Air Force, the Marine Corps and the Defense I
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You mean, just like the nazi states of america, where NSA and CIA do not just the same thing, but also deliberately sabotage infrastructure, distribute child porn to discredit opponents, no matter if they are economical, political, or just journalists. Never mind that you have protectionist laws such as the Jones Act etc. The nazi american armed forces are regularly used for the purpose of armed robbery and piracy on a grand scale.
Is your self-awareness so impaired that you don't even think about whether yo
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If only it were that easy to get rid of one's backside!
Too funny (Score:1)
So, we're objecting to the idea that Ford Motor Company should sell...Fords?
I take it that the only proper place to buy a Ford should be the Rolls Royce company? Or maybe the guys who make Lamborghinis? And is the Rolls Royce company forbidden from selling Rolls Royces? Maybe they should be required to sell Schwinn....
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You know, I actually agree with this. (Score:4, Interesting)
Ordinarily I am entirely in favor of the Free Market, and I think Amazon should have every right to highlight or showcase either their own products or the products they are being paid to endorse without any obligation to act similarly for other products.
However, what Amazon actually does here is really kind of scummy.
It's one thing to highlight their products when they are being presented as "featurred" or not in any particular order, or none have been filtered out by other preferences.
But if I click on a button that says to present the items in, say, order of price... I better damn well not see a whole bunch of featured products that are more expensive showing up before the less expensive ones, or if I have a filter that excludes things by price I should not see them at all. But "mysteriously", I often do.
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But if I click on a button that says to present the items in, say, order of price... I better damn well not see a whole bunch of featured products that are more expensive showing up before the less expensive ones, or if I have a filter that excludes things by price I should not see them at all. But "mysteriously", I often do.
Amazon is by far not the only site to do this. Ebay, Aliexpress, Mercari, NewEgg, Walmart, even Google Shopping all do this.
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You give Amazon too much slack, I think. They need to decide if they are a marketplace or a vendor. To be both is a conflict of interest. If you are a marketplace, and you compete against your market vendors, you are creating an unlevel playing field. It would be like a shopping mall leasing space to a sunglasses store, and then setting up it's own sunglasses store completely surrounding the tenant's shop.
Not to worry chaps, (Score:1)
Like every supermarket? (Score:2)
They also 'abuse their marketplace' by putting their own products in eye-height while forcing customers to rob on their knees to see the competition in the shelf.
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No supermarket I go to does this. The most popular products are always at a convenient height. The store brands are ALSO at that height. The stuff above and below is less popular. People actually buy store brands, so the idea that they're overpromoted is nonsense.
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"The most popular products are always at a convenient height."
By 'popular' you mean popular to the supermarket bean-counters, because the margin is bigger.