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Jeff Bezos can’t promise Amazon employees don’t access independent seller data

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Re: Jeff Bezos can’t promise Amazon employees don’t access independent seller data

#181

Post by didibus »

pwdisswordfish2 wrote: post #166
dahfizz wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your assumption is that Amazon, the middleman, must exist. You don't think stores should exist? How do you justify that? >If Best Buy, a brick and mortar, were anything like Amazon, they would be under investigation as well. I don't see how they are so different. Both are stores that sell third and first party items. BB even does significant online business. Care to explain?

Many sellers on Amazon have their own stores, be they brick and mortar and/or website. Amazon in these cases is just a middleman processing sales that the third parties are already capable of making themselves. They simply lack the web traffic. This is not true of all the brands carried by Best Buy. Many do not do direct-to-consumer sales. There are less obvious differences such as the contract terms agreed between b…

> They simply lack the web traffic

How would they acquire it? Amazon is normally their answer to "I'm trying to sell, but don't have the web traffic". Seems like if they could get the traffic without Amazon, they'd leave the platform, like Nike did.

Re: Jeff Bezos can’t promise Amazon employees don’t access independent seller data

#182

Post by ghthor »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #149
salawat wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's a game where the politicians are in charge, subpoenaing the businessmen to come answer their questions, under their rules, at penalty of perjury. >Of course the businessmen do their best to present their side, but let's not pretend it's an even playing field. Your response is odd. The fact perjury is a possible outcome if a knowingly misleading answer is given doesn't change the equation of the fundamental soci…

> Congresspeople are not fishing for soundbites. I mean, if you watch the questioning, it's very clear that they are. Look at e.g. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez' questioning of Mark Zuckerberg.

Just because some of the elected officials act like children, doesnt mean they all do.

Re: Jeff Bezos can’t promise Amazon employees don’t access independent seller data

#183

Post by Larrikin »

nordsieck wrote: post #25
dblohm7 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only that, but often times Costco's Kirkland branded item is made by the same supplier as the adjacent name brand.

> often times Costco's Kirkland branded item is made by the same supplier as the adjacent name brand. That's true for basically all store brands including Amazon Basics.

Amazon basic is never quality just cheap and not complete crap that will break immediately, especially not within the return window. It's only viable because there are currently so many counterfeit goods and downright awful products on Amazon in any category where the item is less than 100 bucks and especially under fifty. If I buy an Amazon basic usb cord I know it will transfer at the rate it says, unlike dozens of other cords on their site, but I still expect it to fray or break in some other way I wouldn't expect from paying a couple dollars more for anker.

Kirkland usually is not a top of a brand category, except when they are putting out marketing to let you know how good their vodka is, but they are never competing at the bottom either.

Re: Jeff Bezos can’t promise Amazon employees don’t access independent seller data

#184

Post by kube-system »

babesh wrote: post #90
alextheparrot wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The argument I’m familiar with goes as follows: Stores choose all their goods, bazaars provide stalls for merchants. People don’t like when one tries to masquerade as the other, or, be both. Costco, being a store, can choose foods or goods that have been rebranded or independently sourced and no one really cares — they are still fully autonomous. They have always taken ownership of the product, so a change in supply…

This distinction is not hard and fast even in the physical world. Just go to original department stores in Paris. They have a mix of stalls for merchants and the general store. Also many landlords (airports, arenas, etc...) charge a percentage of sales instead of a fixed rate (and even fixed rates can be adjusted based on perceived revenue). Amazon is basically the Internet version of WalMart. WalMart used its power…

> This distinction is not hard and fast even in the physical world. Just go to original department stores in Paris.

Or you can go to department stores, gas stations, or grocery stores in the US, where the “store within a store” model is also very common.

Re: Jeff Bezos can’t promise Amazon employees don’t access independent seller data

#185

Post by onetimemanytime »

ozten wrote: post #175

This was a waste of time. A 1 year study produced concrete details that can be investigated. Then the most senior congress people get 2 minutes of sounds bites and no progress is made. It is a farce. There may well be real violations of public trust or illegal activity, but this is not the way to effectively examine those reports. They don't even let the CEOs talk long enough to commit perjury. It is a dog and pony s…

Obviously, in 5 minutes nothing can be done. I suppose in smaller setting, maybe sub-committees, but not here. Here the idea is that later DOJ starts looking around and let them talk for hours and days. Will it happen?

Re: Jeff Bezos can’t promise Amazon employees don’t access independent seller data

#186

Post by gundmc »

ozten wrote: post #175

This was a waste of time. A 1 year study produced concrete details that can be investigated. Then the most senior congress people get 2 minutes of sounds bites and no progress is made. It is a farce. There may well be real violations of public trust or illegal activity, but this is not the way to effectively examine those reports. They don't even let the CEOs talk long enough to commit perjury. It is a dog and pony s…

It's politics. This wasn't for any actual investigation or enforcement (that's what the DOJ and FTC are doing), this was for the re-election campaigns.

Re: Jeff Bezos can’t promise Amazon employees don’t access independent seller data

#187

Post by salawat »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #149
salawat wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's a game where the politicians are in charge, subpoenaing the businessmen to come answer their questions, under their rules, at penalty of perjury. >Of course the businessmen do their best to present their side, but let's not pretend it's an even playing field. Your response is odd. The fact perjury is a possible outcome if a knowingly misleading answer is given doesn't change the equation of the fundamental soci…

> Congresspeople are not fishing for soundbites. I mean, if you watch the questioning, it's very clear that they are. Look at e.g. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez' questioning of Mark Zuckerberg.

I've watched previous testimonies of Zuckerberg, the Libra one was infuriating as someone who has worked in the financial industry. Suffice it to say if he spent half as much time giving candid answers instead of evading the question or burning the clock to get to the next Congressperson's question, I might have some more sympathy.

As I recall AOC had particular difficulty getting a straight answer out of him back then too, as did several other Congresspeople, including a few who were far more reasonable, accommodating, and less incentivized to go down the route of theatrics than AOC, and asked fairly standard, straightforward questions. Those questions were met with answers which were evasive and vacuous on average; downright equivocations and deceptions at worst.

Re: Jeff Bezos can’t promise Amazon employees don’t access independent seller data

#188

Post by ozten »

onetimemanytime wrote: post #185
ozten wrote: post #175

This was a waste of time. A 1 year study produced concrete details that can be investigated. Then the most senior congress people get 2 minutes of sounds bites and no progress is made. It is a farce. There may well be real violations of public trust or illegal activity, but this is not the way to effectively examine those reports. They don't even let the CEOs talk long enough to commit perjury. It is a dog and pony s…

Obviously, in 5 minutes nothing can be done. I suppose in smaller setting, maybe sub-committees, but not here. Here the idea is that later DOJ starts looking around and let them talk for hours and days. Will it happen?

I agree with sub-committees and more focused time. It doesn't make sense for this sub-committee to tackle so many disparate businesses.

Imagine in 1982 Congress had hearings with AT&T, Exxon Mobile, Ford, Amoco, DuPont, Boeing, and Eastman Kodak. They probably wouldn't have had the focus to force the breakup of the Bell Systems.

Re: Jeff Bezos can’t promise Amazon employees don’t access independent seller data

#189

Post by dantheman »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #139
_acco wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The key is "access controls." The best Amazon can do is ensure brand managers don't have access to this data. Rep. Jayapal was pressing on this, and Bezos mentioned policy but never access control.

> The best Amazon can do is ensure brand managers don't have access to this data This is easier said than done. Data exists in multiple places. It transforms in the form of reports and presentations. Policing this is expensive, which is why it almost only happens under regulatory pressure.

I mean, can we get the politicians to say the government and it's employees aren't accessing data that they're not allowed to access/have?

Re: Jeff Bezos can’t promise Amazon employees don’t access independent seller data

#190

Post by philwelch »

alextheparrot wrote: post #71
philwelch wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon is fundamentally a store. Third party sellers on Amazon are the equivalent of Girl Scouts: the store lets them sell cookies on the premises but that’s not what the store is there for. IMO third-party sellers are close to a dark pattern since it’s so hard to distinguish them from actual sold-by-Amazon product listings. Costco does similar things—both my ladder and my blender were things I purchased at Costco un…

We’re in agreement about all the basic premises, I think the key points I’d push back with are: (1) I can’t “easily” register as a seller with Costco, but I can with Amazon (Or so I believe) (2) The ease with which non-company merchants can enter is a key property of the bazaar vs store dichotomy. Easier to enter, more bazaar-like (3) Given (2) and (1), it seems like Amazon wants to be both a store and a bazaar, whic…

Sure, but I think it’s somewhat dubious to be immediately suspicious of any successful business model that changes the basic assumptions. Once you start enshrining “this is how we’ve always done it” into law and policy you basically outlaw innovation and start operating in a prohibited-unless-explicitly-allowed rather than allowed-unless-explicitly-prohibited mode.
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