I've heard about these kinds of practices anecdotally. We really need some anti-trust action in the US. We have these laws that give the federal government a lot of power to force companies to play fair, but we don't use them because of politics.
Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products
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Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products
#412So many comments about, "doesn't everyone know they do this?", and "everyone does this!" I say there should be an explicit difference between "running a platform", and "selling on a platform", and never should the two meet. By "platform" here, and in the context of selling stuff online or IRL, I mainly mean that the store should never compete with their suppliers ... it's madness and unethical. If everyone can get a…
> And yes, I believe this should be regulated at the policy level. But why? Nobody is forcing you to use AWS, there in fact heaps of similar services around which at first glance don't share have said problem.
Because "consumer choice" isn't a practical and full response to corporate abuse of power. Regulation is complete - if it's a well written regulation it works.
"Nobody is forcing you" misses the point.
Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products
#413Earlier quoted context omitted.
They have 100% hypervisor access. To give them zero knowledge, you need full homomorphic encryption which is impractical at this point (and likely for a while). You may trust them not to abuse hypervisor access, but they still have network “meta” data - it could tell them how many transactions clear against credit processors (though not the actual amounts if encrypted), a good idea general distribution of page views…
Even if homomorphic encryption was practical, you would need hardware to decrypt that would have to be either on the cloud oron premise.
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Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products
#414How long until the headline is: "google datamined your emails to detect and squash disruption to its business models?"
Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products
#415Earlier quoted context omitted.
I've done consulting for small business distributing into major stories. Other stores are very very UPFRONT on what they will do. Many make the small mfg sign an agreement that not only will the store have all the data, but the mfg will need to pay the STORE if they want the data. The difference here is that a) it is all upfront and b) the mfg can make an informed decision - is this worth it. If you need store / day…
> The difference here is that a) it is all upfront and b) the mfg can make an informed decision - is this worth it. You sign the same deal when you sell on Amazon, probably even signing away more rights. I'm not sure I haven't read the full EULA when you sign up to sell. > Amazon as a seller you can't plan as well - their alog or someone else paying for promo could cut your demand in half overnight. This is about the…
Tim - have you actually ever reped / managed distribution into retail at the moderate scale at least?
Do you have a reasonably high volume ($1M+ sales) amazon account to compare to?
I just ask because for such strong opinions "everything you're saying is 100% false" you don't seem like you have actually worked with businesses in this way.
Beleive it or not, you can actually talk to real human beings at your local retail stores. And yes, you can talk to real people at amazon, but if issue is outside their box (on seller side) you get little mercy. If inside box some of the treatment is amazing (amazon payments for goods they show as lost by them as a sale with no return risk)
Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products
#416Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The difference here is that a) it is all upfront and b) the mfg can make an informed decision - is this worth it. You sign the same deal when you sell on Amazon, probably even signing away more rights. I'm not sure I haven't read the full EULA when you sign up to sell. > Amazon as a seller you can't plan as well - their alog or someone else paying for promo could cut your demand in half overnight. This is about the…
Amazon drives way WAY more discoverability than any retailer. This is completely false. Amazon provides significantly less discoverability than a retailer. With a retailer, you get a product that actually shows up in front of people's eyeballs, and the ability to provide in-store promotions to attract customers, and, most crucially, the store lets you know how the promotions perform. A small minority of retailers mak…
As a non shlock product seller you are much more comfortable in local retail I think? I just thought retail was easier to actually talk to real people.
The schlock sellers I think are more expert in the amazon game (image / product swapouts and seller targeting, review spiking games, competitor flag and return / hazard attacks etc). So much BS and so little real recourse - the scale of marketplace must be nuts.
Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products
#417Earlier quoted context omitted.
This seems a bit defeatist. We've successfully regulated against vertical integration in the past.
Yeah, just take a look at the financial sector. Your typical big investment bank has insider knowledge of a sizable percentage of the companies in the economy and separately, makes tons of trades. The two businesses are kept separate, no information exchanges between the two groups, no winks and nudges. If they get it wrong, they could go to jail. If it is possible to create a so-called firewall [0] within banks to a…
And yet we let politicians who have knowledge and even control over markets have direct investments.
If a firewall can be implemented, fine, but I don’t see any great loss if we were to restrict the growth of a trillion-dollar company.
Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products
#418So many comments about, "doesn't everyone know they do this?", and "everyone does this!" I say there should be an explicit difference between "running a platform", and "selling on a platform", and never should the two meet. By "platform" here, and in the context of selling stuff online or IRL, I mainly mean that the store should never compete with their suppliers ... it's madness and unethical. If everyone can get a…
> And yes, I believe this should be regulated at the policy level. But why? Nobody is forcing you to use AWS, there in fact heaps of similar services around which at first glance don't share have said problem.
Amazon has a dominant position in the marketplace and it is leveraging it in a blatantly anti-competitive manner. As a country we have consistently decided that smaller and decentralized is better - there is no compelling reason to allow Amazon to keep borging small businesses.
Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products
#419Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm honesty curious what crime this would be. If I rent time on someone else's server, and they look at what I'm doing on that server, what illegal thing has happened?
Huh, WTF?! Your FBI used to railroad random kiddies for messing around with poorly programmed dynamic pages and now you’re arguing there’s nothing wrong if a hosting provider trespasses and mines your private property?!
Amazon owns the computer and grants you limited rights to use it, in exchange for the money you pay them. It's basically the opposite of a script kiddie hacking into someone else's web server.
Now, indiscriminate access to your content might violate whatever commitments Amazon made to you in their terms of service; I have not read them for a long time and can't remember what the language is specifically. But that would not be a matter for the FBI.
Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products
#420Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have been chastised for not locking my desk for this exact concern. It does happen
Don’t let anyone chastise you for this. Most desk locks are easy to pick. Also, there are like 3 keys to have on your keychain to open like 80% of all manufactured locks like the ones in furniture. Deviant Ulam, a pen tester, gives a lot of talks on this topic.
Not really wrong, actually. A friend picked a desk lock for another when they left their charger in there.