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US antitrust case against Amazon to move forward

reuters.com

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Re: US antitrust case against Amazon to move forward

#171

Post by phreack »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #10
psunavy03 wrote: post #3

Ruling at the below link, because apparently every US news reporter is allergic to actually providing source docs in court cases . . . https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.32...

It's in violation of the sacred law of the attention economy: Never link outside your garden.

This is actually my quickest rule of thumb for any internet article. If it's got links and some actually leave the site, I'll be immediately more invested and read through it. Otherwise I'll barely glance at it and go back to whatever got me to the article in the first place.

Re: US antitrust case against Amazon to move forward

#172

Post by nneonneo »

taeric wrote: post #41
BadHumans wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I have read, the pieces that were dismissed are still sealed so we don't know yet.

The ruling is linked in another thread. The last two pages outline what all is dismissed. My naive read is that a lot of the claims were dismissed already. I have no idea if that is normal or not. I also assume nobody really expected the entire case to get dismissed? I am interested in reading an analysis of this.

Only four of the twenty counts were dismissed (motion to dismiss granted), and only half of one claim was dismissed with prejudice. The remaining three dismissed claims can be amended and resubmitted to the court. All the federal claims stand. This is definitely not a win for Amazon.

Re: US antitrust case against Amazon to move forward

#173

Post by Centigonal »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #108
LorenDB wrote: post #6

I don't care who wins the election next month, Lina Khan needs to be kept as FTC chair. The FTC has been on a roll the past while.

Too early to call. At least initially, her FTC was incompetent to the point that M&A lawyers were urging companies to attempt mergers because shit that wouldn’t usually get through would get bungled in court. She was aggressive but incompetent. She appears to be improving. But the FTC chair isn’t an internship.

Richard Feynman was brought onto what would become the Manhattan project at age 24. He had not yet earned a graduate degree.

Lina Khan was 32 when she started as FTC chair. Prior to that, she had researched anti-trust at the New America Foundation, received a JD from Yale, worked as a legal director at the Open Markets Institute, worked as a legal fellow at the FTC, and served as counsel to the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Antitrust.

I don't disagree that she made some early missteps at the FTC, but this is far from her first rodeo. I also think that, on balance, it's a benefit to hire young, promising voices to positions of power, and that we should get back to a place where we do that a lot more.

Re: US antitrust case against Amazon to move forward

#174

Post by thayne »

psunavy03 wrote: post #3

Ruling at the below link, because apparently every US news reporter is allergic to actually providing source docs in court cases . . . https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.32...

Or scientific papers, or even original release notes for software updates

Re: US antitrust case against Amazon to move forward

#175

Post by zeroonetwothree »

Centigonal wrote: post #173
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too early to call. At least initially, her FTC was incompetent to the point that M&A lawyers were urging companies to attempt mergers because shit that wouldn’t usually get through would get bungled in court. She was aggressive but incompetent. She appears to be improving. But the FTC chair isn’t an internship.

Richard Feynman was brought onto what would become the Manhattan project at age 24. He had not yet earned a graduate degree. Lina Khan was 32 when she started as FTC chair. Prior to that, she had researched anti-trust at the New America Foundation, received a JD from Yale, worked as a legal director at the Open Markets Institute, worked as a legal fellow at the FTC, and served as counsel to the House Judiciary Commit…

Mozart composed a symphony at 9. What does that have to do with anything?

Re: US antitrust case against Amazon to move forward

#176

Post by yxhuvud »

jessriedel wrote: post #167
Hasu wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that is how our justice system works. First, the government accuses you of a crime, then they have to prove that you committed it, and you get to defend yourself. How else could it possibly work? Companies just get to break the law and no one can ever take them to court over it?

I’m not suggesting the justice system should change. I’m suggesting that civil servants who file and lose a ton of suits should be presumed to be doing net harm. Just as we would for prosecutors in criminal law. And when it’s politically motivated, it is not just harm in the sense of economic inefficiency, but further is unjust and lowers public trust in institutions.

All law enforcement is by definition politically motivated because it is the politicians that write the laws.

Re: US antitrust case against Amazon to move forward

#177

Post by aitchnyu »

cynicalpeace wrote: post #30
psunavy03 wrote: post #3

Ruling at the below link, because apparently every US news reporter is allergic to actually providing source docs in court cases . . . https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.32...

I find this to be the case with most primary sources, not just for court cases. A couple days ago, an American WWII bomb exploded at a Japanese airport and the article linked on HN didn't even show or link the video. Legacy media really sucks.

I read an illustrious (IMO) Indian newspaper. But their online articles have "continued on page x", infographics are low res images and they insist on yearly subscriptions and dark patterns like a shared web host. They have self imposed the limitations of paper.

Re: US antitrust case against Amazon to move forward

#178

Post by nickff »

yxhuvud wrote: post #176
jessriedel wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not suggesting the justice system should change. I’m suggesting that civil servants who file and lose a ton of suits should be presumed to be doing net harm. Just as we would for prosecutors in criminal law. And when it’s politically motivated, it is not just harm in the sense of economic inefficiency, but further is unjust and lowers public trust in institutions.

All law enforcement is by definition politically motivated because it is the politicians that write the laws.

I don’t necessarily disagree with your conclusion, but legislators generally don’t make prosecutorial decisions. Prosecutorial decisions are generally made after legislation is passed, by a different branch of government.

Re: US antitrust case against Amazon to move forward

#179

Post by dkersten »

unmole wrote: post #160
stephenr wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't I read something a few years ago about shitty sellers abusing that system by sending counterfeit versions of products to Amazon, and then legitimate sellers get fucked over when their customers get the counterfeit version (because hey were commingled)?

By default inventory is tracked by seller specific FNSKU's and is not comingled. Sellers have to explicitly opt in and jump through additional hoops for their inventory to be tracked using GTIN's whereby their inventory will get comingled with inventory with other sellers who opted for the same.

That’s not what it says here:

https://sellercentral.amazon.com/help/hub/reference/external...

> By default, we use the manufacturer barcode to track eligible inventory throughout the fulfillment process, unless you change your barcode setting or your product is not eligible. When more than one seller has inventory with the same manufacturer barcode, we may fulfill orders with the inventory that’s closest to the buyer, to facilitate faster delivery

Re: US antitrust case against Amazon to move forward

#180

Post by tpxl »

lovethevoid wrote: post #54
saltymug76 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont think anyone's arguing against generic alternatives of name brand items. The issue here is Amazon using up-and-coming and popular products as fodder for them to generic-ize and push to the top of results, essentially knee capping the original seller.

All retailers do that. It's called private labels. None of the products are made by the retailer either. As unfortunate to those who might genuinely believe Trader Joes products are unique to them, or that Great Value was Walmart using its massive distribution systems to quickly scale core products like Milk out. It's all private labelling.

Amazon is not a traditional retails, it's a marketplace. Walmart buys stock, puts it on sale, gets data and makes decisions upon that. Amazon just skips the expensive first 2 steps by taking data from other retailers on their platform.
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