11–20 of 173 posts
I love technology, but some things we're able to build today cheaply and using mass-market parts concerns me. Hidden cameras can be so good now that it is impractical for someone to find them. You may disagree with that assertion, but I'd put to you that maybe you just haven't seen some of the top-end products where the only clue is pin-hole sized, or even invisible like hidden behind the LCD screen of a set top box/…
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Unlike eBay, Amazon goes to great lengths to sow confusion about what it sells versus its marketplace participants. The average user thinks that when they buy something off Amazon, they're buying something procured and vetted by Amazon, when it's really a marketplace seller using Amazon's logistics services.
Well, they can't have it both ways, either Amazon is a well vetted marketplace or the wild west. They can't project one image to their customers and claim another in court.
So can I sell a camera with the following description? SpyCam Disclaimer: should not be used for spying
My favorite were winemaking kits sold during Prohibition that told you what you needed to avoid doing, because doing that would make wine.
https://grapecollective.com/articles/prohibitions-grape-bric...
You wonder why they even have a review team if this passed.
The reality of it is probably that reviewers can only spend ~1 minute per item before flagging it or not, the reviewer was a bit on "autopilot" and didn't flag it because it doesn't look like a camera at all.
Is there an archive snapshot of the Towel bar Cam product page as displayed by Amazon? Kinda wondering what the product actually looks like, and how Amazon allowed it to be presented. Edit: whoa, @navels how'd you do that?! Thank you, amazing: https://web.archive.org/web/20230527030738/https://www.amazo... The product reviews are creepy. -- Rest of my comment for posterity: There's an image in TFA, though it's only a…
Is there an archive snapshot of the Towel bar Cam product page as displayed by Amazon? Kinda wondering what the product actually looks like, and how Amazon allowed it to be presented. Edit: whoa, @navels how'd you do that?! Thank you, amazing: https://web.archive.org/web/20230527030738/https://www.amazo... The product reviews are creepy. -- Rest of my comment for posterity: There's an image in TFA, though it's only a…
A spy camera that looks like a towel hook seems like a product that should be illegal to sell. For what legitimate purpose would somebody want a towel hook camera? Don't most people put towel hooks in bathrooms? It seems perfectly reasonable to hold Amazon legally responsible for selling this product even if it was a 3rd party seller (not clear from the article). A product whose intended use is to secretly record vid…
i think what's happening here is really the ideal solution: you can sell a camera that looks like anything, but if somebody uses the towel-hook spy cam that you sold for it's obvious intended purpose, you're liable for the damages.
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> Perhaps most alarming to the plaintiff, Amazon's Product Safety Team specifically inspected the camera to "ensure" that Amazon wasn't platforming a product being used to “infringe privacy,” “surreptitiously record others for sexual purposes,” or “create and store child sex abuse material.” This is the key bit that makes it different from your examples.
>Tech legal expert Eric Goldman wrote that a victory for the plaintiff could be considered "a dangerous ruling for the spy cam industry and for Amazon," because "the court’s analysis could indicate that all surreptitious hook cameras are categorically illegal to sell." That could prevent completely legal uses of cameras designed to look like clothes hooks, Goldman wrote, such as hypothetical in-home surveillance uses.
How creative the amazon team has to be when reviewing the products. Do they have a duty that using the products in ways the seller has not written could achieve those goals. Personally I don't see non creepy uses for a bathroom towel camera. But in this case it is obvious that the one that must be sued is the person that used the camera. And suing amazon is obviously in bad faith and a money grab.
pretty low hanging
but it is federal district court, a bit more serious than a West Virginia state court
fun stakes