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Amazon must face US nationwide class action over third-party sales

reuters.com

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Re: Amazon must face US nationwide class action over third-party sales

#71

Post by justinclift »

gruez wrote: post #64
justinclift wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> to stop them from doing obviously illegal stuff That's not what the legal departments seem to be used for though.

Again, you don't see the illegal behavior that they didn't try. For instance, Uber probably could have nabbed more market share by allowing drivers to pick people up off the streets as well, but that would obviously break taxi medallion laws. Uber worked within the pre-booked ride service loophole. Same goes for contractor classification. They probably could have gotten better customer satisfaction ratings if they pr…

> Again, you don't see the illegal behavior that they didn't try.

We don't know if that was due to legal departments or other factors, so claiming it was due to legal departments seems more like hope/wishing/assuming rather than actual knowledge. :(

Re: Amazon must face US nationwide class action over third-party sales

#72

Post by eth0up »

The next class action needs to address the anticompetitive procedure of artificially protecting shit products by deleting critical customer reviews.

In my Prime account, 90 percent of my reviews are positive, but because I've left several scathing, unapologetic negative reviews for products that shouldn't exist, all my reviews are now placed in eternal limbo. None of my reviews ever actually post.

For the reviews that posted, three months later when the product stops working, Amazon prohibits me from updating the original review. The FTC is well aware of this too.

Keep this in mind when evaluating a product using reviews as a metric. And further note the egregious usurpation of the review content search function being replaced by Rufus, the world's foremost most worthless heap of artificially generated product deception.

Amazon is indefensibly sinister.

Re: Amazon must face US nationwide class action over third-party sales

#73

Post by fastball »

shayway wrote: post #10

> Amazon argued that the class was too large to be manageable Sorry, we've wronged too many people to be held accountable! What a wild argument.

Manageable isn't just from Amazon's side, it is also an argument from the side of the plaintiffs. e.g. "This class is too diverse. It will be like herding 300 million cats, which decreases the likelihood of arriving at a suitable settlement. Better to split this into multiple classes with more specific grievances".

Everyone benefits from the class being manageable (except maybe the plaintiffs' attorneys, who just want the biggest class they can possibly find).

Re: Amazon must face US nationwide class action over third-party sales

#74

Post by mextrezza »

justinclift wrote: post #71
gruez wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, you don't see the illegal behavior that they didn't try. For instance, Uber probably could have nabbed more market share by allowing drivers to pick people up off the streets as well, but that would obviously break taxi medallion laws. Uber worked within the pre-booked ride service loophole. Same goes for contractor classification. They probably could have gotten better customer satisfaction ratings if they pr…

> Again, you don't see the illegal behavior that they didn't try. We don't know if that was due to legal departments or other factors, so claiming it was due to legal departments seems more like hope/wishing/assuming rather than actual knowledge. :(

if the legal department does it, it's not illegal.

Re: Amazon must face US nationwide class action over third-party sales

#75

Post by tzs »

mrbluecoat wrote: post #7

> Amazon argued, that the class was too large to be manageable LOL, they literally have a giant data center at their disposal and some of the best automation geniuses in the world.

The argument is that it is too large for the court to handle, not too large for Amazon to handle.

Class actions work by grouping many plaintiffs who have been harmed in the same way and whose damages if they win can be addressed in the same way (e.g., everyone gets a fixed amount of money, or a fixed percentage of what they spent, or something like that).

Then the cases of a small number of representatives of the class can be addressed at the actual trial, and the outcome applied to the whole class.

The larger the proposed class the more likely the variation in the harms to the members and in how to redress those harms, which can mean you need a larger number of representatives of the class at the actual trial.

Get large enough and it becomes difficult for the court to manage. In that case the class needs to be shrunk down to a set of plaintiffs with more uniform harms that can be addressed more uniformly. The people removed from the class might form another class or classes for separate suits, or sue as individuals, or some mixture of those options.

Re: Amazon must face US nationwide class action over third-party sales

#77

Post by fn-mote »

gruez wrote: post #38
solardev wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I don't agree that any of that fundamentally changes the wild argument that "we've wronged too many people to be held accountable!". But, hey, I'm just a rando on the internet. Feel free to disregard this comment.

For one, they can still be held to account through individual lawsuits. Also at least part of the reason behind class action lawsuits is to streamline the lawsuit process. If a lawsuit ends up taking 100 years because that's long it takes to adjudicate each class member (which was the case in a prior unrelated lawsuit), then arguably a class action lawsuit is a poor fit. As the saying goes, justice delayed is justice…

I'm allergic to the idea that these "individualized issues" cannot be resolved by some well-written queries on the sales database. Of course it is in Amazon's best interest that the court not think like a programmer.

Re: Amazon must face US nationwide class action over third-party sales

#78

Post by harimau777 »

gruez wrote: post #61
tecleandor wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fines should be higher than the cost avoided, or companies would just avoid the cost until get caught. Also, it's not only about the cost avoided, but about the damage to the people while you were doing that. If you're making money moving logging trucks, you skimp 50 dollars per trip in some straps to fix the load, and then a couple logs fall, run over a car, and almost kill a bunch of people, I'm not expecting you t…

>Fines should be higher than the cost avoided, or companies would just avoid the cost until get caught. Again, how much do you think Equifax saved from skimping on security? Sure, spending $575M would have prevented the hack, but how much did they have to spend to be considered not negligent?

Enough to keep it from happening or enough to make whole everyone who was injured.

Re: Amazon must face US nationwide class action over third-party sales

#79

Post by codazoda »

crazygringo wrote: post #4

> The consumers’ 2021 lawsuit said Amazon violated antitrust law by restricting third-party sellers from offering their products for lower prices elsewhere on rival platforms while they are also for sale on Amazon. I've noticed that third-party sellers generally get around this by having the same list price on their own site, but basically offering everyone a coupon for 15-30% off. Not just for signing up for e-mails…

It’s also technically illegal, in many jurisdictions, for something to be “on sale” permanently. Though lots of retailers get away with it.
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