More importantly, it pushed the vendor to sign up for Amazon’s Brand Registry enrollment, a program that lets brand owners and licensees submit proof that they

More importantly, it pushed the vendor to sign up for Amazon’s Brand Registry enrollment, a program that lets brand owners and licensees submit proof that they are authorized sellers of a brand’s products, which then grants them protection from unauthorized sellers on Amazon. The vendor who received the email is not a brand owner. This seems to support my earlier conjecture[1] that Amazon's efforts are due to their attempt to mitigate fraud and counterfeits on their site. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19392734 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19392734