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Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide

atg.wa.gov

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Re: Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide

#11

Post by pm90 »

bryanrasmussen wrote: post #5

although I think it's great that it's getting shut down I don't like this part: Amazon will pay $2.25 million to the Attorney General’s Office, which will be used to support the Attorney General’s antitrust enforcement, which does not receive general fund support.

Agreed. Fines as a way of funding is almost always bad. If that money was to provide relief to aggrieved customers, that would certainly be different.

Re: Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide

#12

Post by colinmhayes »

valar_m wrote: post #9

Former Amazonian here. When i was there, they made us take this antitrust training course that had things like "don't use terms like 'market share' in internal communications", but all along there were people doing this? I mean...

Why would they waste employee time on antitrust training if they were innocent?

Re: Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide

#13

Post by munificent »

ramesh31 wrote: post #4

It snowed really hard here recently. I went to buy two plastic sleds on Amazon, the type you find at a Walgreens for $5. They were $70. I've pretty much curbed my Amazon use for anything but niche hard to find items at this point.

Giant cheap plastic things are essentially a worst-case use for Amazon because the individual delivery cost is most of the price. When you get a 5$ sled at Walgreens, it's cheap because you get in your car and do the last-mile logistics yourself.

Re: Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide

#15

Post by seanmcdirmid »

colinmhayes wrote: post #12
valar_m wrote: post #9

Former Amazonian here. When i was there, they made us take this antitrust training course that had things like "don't use terms like 'market share' in internal communications", but all along there were people doing this? I mean...

Why would they waste employee time on antitrust training if they were innocent?

All big corps require you to take this kind of training.

Re: Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide

#16

Post by nickff »

colinmhayes wrote: post #12
valar_m wrote: post #9

Former Amazonian here. When i was there, they made us take this antitrust training course that had things like "don't use terms like 'market share' in internal communications", but all along there were people doing this? I mean...

Why would they waste employee time on antitrust training if they were innocent?

Because they were trying to correct or prevent it? If they hadn't done the training, you'd be saying that they never even tried to avoid it.

Re: Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide

#18

Post by ziml77 »

blakesterz wrote: post #2

"There are about 2.3 million third-party sellers on Amazon worldwide, according to information from a 2018 Amazon letter to its shareholders" That number is pretty amazing. I never would've guessed over 2 million, and that number must be higher by now.

I would assume that the count includes the huge amount of people who sell cheap, unbranded Chinese products under a random all-caps name. So, not that surprising.

Re: Washington state shuts down Amazon price-fixing program nationwide

#20

Post by rat9988 »

colinmhayes wrote: post #12
valar_m wrote: post #9

Former Amazonian here. When i was there, they made us take this antitrust training course that had things like "don't use terms like 'market share' in internal communications", but all along there were people doing this? I mean...

Why would they waste employee time on antitrust training if they were innocent?

So you don't do it by ignorance as it becomes their responsability?
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