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EBay Sues Amazon, Alleging Sellers Were Illegally Poached
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- smrtinsert 8y agoDidn't they do this to Angie's List too? Awful ethics.
- mox1 8y agoIf a start-up did this, we would just call it "growth hacking".
- wgerard 8y agoI'm sure no one would ever admit it, but I'm like 75% positive Amazon did the same thing on Etsy when they launched Amazon Handmade. 75% because I'm just recalling based on some forum posts I read around the time they launched, which of course I might be mistakenly remembering or interpreting incorrectly.
- rnotaro 8y agoLawsuit complaint document available here: https://cmportal.scscourt.org/Portal/DocumentViewer/Index/Q9EzCn1UFbPgZcNdA53-STDlgd1zLeEzQRdpMlGJbBHTfoab7aEpFjS04YRxNdUrEuBIZueiMtw5FHHFNN2nIRLkdJ1o-_omHAE4ylIrUIvQe2k6rRkuJEJLW7Ir9_4s0?p=0 https://cmportal.scscourt.org/Portal/DocumentViewer/Index/Q9...
- NeonVice 8y agoWhat law was broken?
- ryanbertrand 8y agoYeah, I was trying to understand this too. Seems like the Amazon employees broke the EBay terms of service and general business ethics but which law?
- jethro_tell 8y agoIt's a civil suit, so you don't have to have broken the law. Breaking a contract or ToS is enough.
- dragonwriter 8y ago> It's a civil suit, so you don't have to have broken the law. Yes, you do. > Breaking a contract or ToS is enough. Breaking a legally binding commitment in a contract is breaking the law which makes it binding, and breaking a contract otherwise isn't sufficient for legal recovery; breaking a ToS is only sufficient for success in a civil suit if and to the extent some law makes it so.
- TangoTrotFox 8y agoNo, this is not at all how civil law works. The main difference between a criminal offense and a civil offense is that a criminal offense will be pursued by the government, whereas pursuing a civil offense is the burden of the 'victim'. And civil cases tend to involve relatively small sums of money where the defendant will often just have to pay off the suffered loss - jail time is not a possibility, whereas criminal cases often involve punishment which can include jail time. And most importantly, civil law is still a series of well defined laws. You can't pursue a civil case on a whim, there needs to have been some law that was broken. As somebody else also mentioned breaking a contract or a ToS would only be a civil violation if breaking the contract or ToS specifically violated some civil law. There is no civil law that makes breaking a contract or ToS inherently unlawful.
- eiaoa 8y ago> And most importantly, civil law is still a series of well defined laws. You can't pursue a civil case on a whim, there needs to have been some law that was broken. Can't you sue civilly for breach of contract? I don't think many people would consider breaking a contract to be breaking the law, even though there are laws governing contracts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breach_of_contract https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breach_of_contract
- kylnew 8y agoMaybe violating the eBay terms of use? They are pretty explicit about not trying to lure people to buy from you outside of eBay, iirc. What happens when a corporates violates another companies terms of use aggressively to promote competition?
- WillPostForFood 8y agoYes, this is the accusation in the court docs. They agreed to eBay terms knowing they were going to violate them by soliciting other users to sell off platform.
- twblalock 8y agoThe eBay terms of use are not law. Breaking those kinds of agreements is a civil matter. The lawsuit is alleging serious criminal things, like fraud, in addition to breaking the terms of use.
- jdmichal 8y agoFraudulently creating accounts for the purposes of performing activities known to be against the ToS prior to even creating the account. "The Amazon employees acknowledged they were breaking eBay’s rules and actively tried to avoid detection, the lawsuit says."
- twblalock 8y agoYeah, but is that actually criminal fraud according to the law?
- jdmichal 8y agoAs debacle notes [0], the CFAA is a hell of a drug. [1] I could certainly see a case that this is "exceeding authorized access", with "authorized access" being defined by the rules established by the ToS when the account granting access was established. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18250970 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18250970 [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act#Criminal_offenses_under_the_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act#C...
- DubiousPusher 8y agoHaving had periods of fairly active selling on eBay, I can say eBay has done as much as anyone to get sellers to leave their platform.
- dplgk 8y agoWho doesn't want to pay 20% commission?
- O1111OOO 8y agoI don't understand the issue here. Seems to me that in free market, Amazon has the right to reach out to perspective partners wherever they may doing business. Ebay, likewise, could do the same. Many years ago, I use to shop ebay and always dreaded the clumsy checkout process (among other things including the issue of trust). I don't know if it's improved... To me, that's the core issue. Companies like eBay, Walmart and others want to compete on the same level as Amazon but they don't do enough to improve services (customer service, shipping, checkout, UIs, etc). Instead of competing on overall value, they turn to "IP" lawsuits, poaching and general bullying. There's a flipside too. Large companies tend to have an advantage but in this case, eBay isn't small. They can improve in many ways but like Sears... they are stuck in a specific and closed mindset. I give Amazon lots of credit for being free-thinking and innovative. They started with books and somehow managed to get into cloud services in a huge way. They don't corner themselves. Ebay needs to think outside of their comfortable box because, down the road, consumers will need the competition.
- jethro_tell 8y agoI think you can, I assume they were using the ebay platform, messaging sellers is probably against the ToS.
- jdmichal 8y agoThis post is a little ironic on the pro-Amazon front, what with the complaining about Ebay's checkout process while Amazon holds the one-click-buy patent...
- sigstoat 8y agothe patent expired last year. ebay could've had some version of it ready to roll out automatically within seconds of whatever expiration time was approved by the legal department. personally i've never used one click purchasing on amazon, and their checkout still feels better than ebay's. the real irony is: > (among other things including the issue of trust) when amazon is comingling inventory and generally confusing people about who they're purchasing from.
- TangoTrotFox 8y agoI don't understand how some people are saying this would be an unethical action. This is competition, which is how better services end up being provided to users, and for better prices. It's not competing that's unethical, and is what leads to monopolies, price fixing, and other anti-competitive behavior. If they don't like Amazon "poaching" users of their site, then they should offer even more desirable terms to their users. That it's even possible to try to sue for something like this is a sad reflection of how much our laws have interfered in normal market operation, and enabled companies to try to create ways to legally sidestep competition. You can't inform our users you could offer them a better deal. It's against our terms and services! We sue!
- jdmichal 8y agoI don't think anyone would be saying anything had Amazon been calling or mailing these sellers. The fact that they were using the eBay platform and known to be working against the ToS could push it into unethical. "The Amazon employees acknowledged they were breaking eBay’s rules and actively tried to avoid detection, the lawsuit says." Would you consider it unethical to solicit in a neighborhood with no-solicitation signs? What about standing in a competitor's store and advertising your store to their customers?
- TangoTrotFox 8y agoThe thing you're ignoring here is that Amazon was working to the genuine benefit of the sellers, and eBay's behavior is something aiming to indirectly 'harm' their users insomuch as they aim to prevent information users would likely want to see from being given to them. The store example is fairly close, except that physical trespass would create a major disruption and interfere with the regular operation of the business. More appropriate would be a person standing outside on a public sidewalk handing out fliers advertising better prices at a nearby store than the ones inside the store customers were about to enter. And no, I don't think anybody would find that unethical.
- jdmichal 8y agoYou say more appropriate, but Amazon did "virtually enter" the eBay store to attract these customers. If they had put up billboards or web advertisements or hell even handed out fliers, there would be no basis of complaint or unethical behavior.
- cwkoss 8y agoWhy should the court reward eBay's poor business controls? Their messaging system, and they permitted the messages. How is this Amazon's fault? eBay is taking the ridiculous stance that it's TOS provides liability to the customer for using their service wrong. If I made a website with a TOS that said "Anyone who browses to this website and fails to click the 'get lisence' button in the footer on EACH PAGE owes me $1 Million Dollars!", I'd be laughed out of court trying to enforce it.
- jdmichal 8y agoThey are not equivalent situations. There's a concept of binding. When the Amazon employees created their accounts, that's when they agreed to the ToS. Importantly, it's before they took the actions for which Amazon is being sued. No one agreed to a ToS to visit your website.
- debacle 8y agoYou're holding up a massive straw man. A C&D like this is pretty standard fare between competing businesses. If you sell widgets and WidgetCorp sells widgets, you are completely allowed to try and poach their customers, but WidgetCorp is allowed you prevent you from doing that in their store. Furthermore, if the accounts were specifically created for this purpose it's a clear violation of the TOS and there may potentially be damages there, or even possible criminal charges (thanks to the wonderful CFAA - ack).
- cwkoss 8y agoAsking the courts to enforce a cease and desist seems fairly reasonable (perhaps a bit heavy handed), but I absolutely disagree with the idea the courts should impose monetary damages on Amazon for using eBay's website 'improperly'. In your example, it'd be reasonable for WidgetCorp to trespass you from the store if you're trying to compete on their property. However, I believe it would be unreasonable for Widgetcorp to try to sue for the revenue of the sales that were successfully made before they trespassed you.
- writepub 8y agoThis suit is frivolous - in a free market sellers and platforms should be free to do as they please, including pitching an alternative platform. That said, Amazon deserves this suit - remember, this is the same company that routinely sues former employees for non-compete, & pays wearhouse employees to favorably post on social media. They deserve a taste of their own corporate BS lawsuit