Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products • Hacker News Board

Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products

#681

Post by achillesheels » Fri, Apr 24, 2020, 1:28 PM UTC

ethbro wrote: post #443

nwallin wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a bank were to seize your money, you'd notice, because you wouldn't have that money anymore. And it would be very well documented, leaving a clear paper trail to a criminal conviction and a civil suit. If your bodyguard did you physical harm, you'd notice, because your knees would hurt. And there would be ample evidence for a criminal case. If amazon copied all your proprietary data, you would almost certainly nev…

> If amazon copied all your proprietary data, you would almost certainly never notice, no criminal law would apply, and you'd have a hell of a time proving it in a civil suit. For a thought exercise, let's play this out. Amazon copies data running through VMs (or grabs it from storage). Let's assume it isn't on hardware certified for capital-letter processing [1], most of which require regular third party audits. So…

You overestimate the competency of short-sighted individuals anxiously striving for a seat closer to Bezos, ie thinking for themselves versus the organization. Ironically, I wonder if such news actually motivates some PMs to ask around...

Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products

#682

Post by kube-system » Fri, Apr 24, 2020, 1:34 PM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #628

kube-system wrote: post #611

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither of your two examples have anything to do with the CFAA. > Amazon agrees to only access the computer I'm renting from them in very specific scenarios. AWS provides compute services, they do not rent computers. They make this clear in their terms.

> Neither of your two examples have anything to do with the CFAA. They demonstrate that legal ownership is not the same as the legal right to do whatever you want with what you own. > AWS provides compute services, they do not rent computers. They make this clear in their terms. Good luck hoodwinking a judge with that argument.

Okay, you think you rent AWS servers?

Which one do you rent?

Where is your rental agreement?

When did you first take possession?

Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products

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Post by pixl97 » Fri, Apr 24, 2020, 1:52 PM UTC

reaperducer wrote: post #653

salawat wrote: post #647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lets see.. Boeing: See 737 MAX, other 737 boondoggle like the vertical stabilizer reversal back in 94'ish. Monsanto, hell, what chemical hasn't hid information they damn well shouldn't: Dicamba, roundup.. Take your pick. The stellar behavior of this corporate citizen taints cements the stereotype of an entire industry. https://thecounter.org/dicamba-trial-monsanto-basf-pesticide... https://www.phillyvoice.com/new-yor…

Several dozen companies doing bad things, compared with the hundreds of thousands of companies operating in the United States. I stand by my statement -- it is rare.

Rare, that you ever hear about it.

I know of a case of fraud in oil well lease payouts, someone was stealing a small from a large number of leases and had been doing so for years.

A company auditor caught it. Did they go to the police? No. They paid the guy to leave the company and never talk about it again. The guy might have stolen hundreds of thousands in the process, but the company knew they'd lose millions, just from clients demanding audits going decades back. It was easier and cheaper to cover up and never mention again.

Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products

#684

Post by thinkmassive » Fri, Apr 24, 2020, 1:57 PM UTC

alaskamiller wrote: post #497

theturtletalks wrote: post #455

This is the exact reason why Shopify grew rapidly. Sellers knew they needed a platform where they own the data and could abstract the operations outside of Amazon seller dashboard. People also forget that Amazon doesn't have to pay to advertise its own products, but 3rd party sellers do. This immediately puts you at a disadvantage if you want your product at the top since you pay seller commission and advertising fee…

With Shopify you don't pay ~20% sales commission to Amazon per se, but you sure as heck will end up paying for that if not more to Facebook. Where by FB has no direct incentive, yet. It could be a FB Marketplace PM team someone has already copied Shopify outright and is just waiting for the right time to roll that out to all FB user worldwide. With Amazon Marketplace the strategy has always been to convert customers…

Another advantage to eBay and independent shops is that shipping is typically much faster than Amazon since the pandemic has caused Amazon’s shipping times to explode.

Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products

#685

Post by mywittyname » Fri, Apr 24, 2020, 1:59 PM UTC

toasterlovin wrote: post #213

mywittyname wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it amounts to IP theft. It's one thing to see that unbleached toilet paper is selling well, and getting a supplier to sell you a store brand version. But it's completely different to see that a particular office stand is selling very well, determine that it has a 20% margin, and have someone build an identical product which you sell 5% margin. If you look at many Amazon Basics products, they are clear ripoffs…

A. Amazon doesn't know what seller margins are. They can't because they have no insight into what sellers pay for the products, only what the products sell for. B. The main reason that products, in general, look alike is because they're all being produced at the same 3 factories in China. And for lots of products, there's no reason to deviate significantly from the house design that the factory offers.

A. They absolutely do. There are plenty of companies out there that will analyze a product, describe how they believe it is made, and produce a cost break down to the penny. They will go so far as to measure the thickness of the paint used.

B. I used Lodge as an example because I know they make their own products in the US and they do not produce generics. Ergo, I'm quit confident Amazon ripped them off.

Of course, Amazon has been sued over this before [1] [2] [3]. Is three references lawsuits enough evidence for you, or should I dig up some more? And there are many reports of them ripping off vendor products, as I described, from smaller vendors who never sue because they lack the means [4].

Finally, here's evidence from a former Amazon employee claiming they do exactly what I said they do. [5]

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-12-18/williams-...

[2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2018/01/14/fuse-chi...

[3] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-counterfeit-la...

[4] https://www.geek.com/news/amazonbasics-is-copying-all-the-be...

[5] https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-third-party-sellers-d...

Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products

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Post by pixl97 » Fri, Apr 24, 2020, 2:02 PM UTC

mulmen wrote: post #403

hammock wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banks mightn't seize your money. They certainly take the data from your bank accounts and monetize/resell it. This is a dirty secret, and pervasive. How else do you think "closed-loop" measurement of marketing effectiveness, and retargeting based on purchase behavior are done? How else do you think suppliers can pull a D&B report on your company showing your bank account balances?

Banks definitely seize your money. When I was a young teenager my parents encouraged me to put my lawn mowing money in a bank account. I had a total of $100.00! We went over to Bank of America and I opened up an account and deposited my hard earned cash. A month or two later I tried to withdraw some cash and was told I had no money. My full $100.00 had been consumed by insufficient balance fees. A valuable if painful…

This is like saying Amazon seizes your money because you have to pay for their monthly service fees you agreed to when signing up for the service.

Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products

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Post by pixl97 » Fri, Apr 24, 2020, 2:07 PM UTC

kortilla wrote: post #474

ngneer wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technology alone cannot solve the use of technology to promote interests of parties in a zero sum game.

The promise of homomorphic encryption is to allow cloud computing without giving your data away.

Without giving what data away, exactly?

If for example I'm fully on amazon AWS for everything, DNS/DB/Web then no matter how encrypted your data is Amazon still has a very good idea of the effectiveness of your campaign. You can't hide the number of DNS queries. You can't hide the number of TCP SYNs. Hell, there is just a huge amount of things that encryption does not cover up, especially involving time for particular transactions to occur.

Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products

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Post by rK5Q58 » Fri, Apr 24, 2020, 2:23 PM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #606

yojo wrote: post #545

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a common arbitrage tactic. Seller carries no inventory, lists multiple products on eBay for slightly higher than the Amazon price, and buys/ships from Amazon if anyone buys the eBay listing.

It’s a money laundering thing too. There was a story in my area a few years ago where people had some sort of scheme to convert Amazon gift cards into cash via EBay.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IT2oAzTcvU

Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products

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Post by dopamean » Fri, Apr 24, 2020, 2:39 PM UTC

x86_64Ubuntu wrote: post #127

MichaelApproved wrote: post #25

The solution isn't hoping the free market would solve this with a competing platform. The solution is to create regulations & laws that prevent this behavior. You're either a platform/retailer or you're a manufacturer. You don't get to be both because we see the perverse incentive that happens when it's allowed.

How come we don't see this kind of angst with other store brand items. I can't imagine these comments being lobbed at Wal-Mart's Great Value, Costco's Kirkland Signature, or Bi-Lo's SE Grocers items. And private label doesn't mean you have to manufacture anything at all. Sometimes, you will go to the company whose marketshare you are trying to take and they will manufacture the product for you.

Probably because no one feels sympathy for General Mills having their shitty cereal knocked off by walmart.

Re: Amazon scooped up data from its own sellers to launch competing products

#690

Post by wpietri » Fri, Apr 24, 2020, 3:33 PM UTC

bofadeez wrote: post #482

plausible wrote: post #462

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that they'll quickly recoup that "subsidy" by raising prices after they've dumped their competition.

If they raise prices then they invite an instant flood of competition and lose their monopoly. They have no power to raise prices and restrict competition. Their only competitive advantage is pricing. Amazon's only profitable products are AWS and its stock. The benefit of losing $2 billion a quarter doing retail is debatable. Would you prefer a world without amazon's subsidies given that they have no power to exploit…

Your theory is that Amazon is spending $2 billion a quarter even though it gets them no long-term advantage?

If you're right, then capitalism is hopelessly bad at optimization and we should scrap it. But what I think is more likely here is that Amazon's execs understands the economics of their business way better than a zero-karma free-market fundamentalist whose pseudonym is a genitalia joke.