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"Amazon entered into a nationwide legally binding agreement to block the sale of children’s schools supplies and jewelry on Amazon.com without lab reports and o

"Amazon entered into a nationwide legally binding agreement to block the sale of children’s schools supplies and jewelry on Amazon.com without lab reports and other proof from the sellers that the products are not toxic." IE Amazon can pass the buck completely to the sellers. This will simultaneously make it expensive for those sellers actually trying to comply (lab testing is not cheap), and do nothing for those that were likely the problem in the first place (who will just fake lab results and do so at a lesser price)[1] They should require amazon to randomly sample. [1] In case you think this is not a real problem note that similar kinds of lab testing requirements destroyed, for example, children's toys except from large scale sellers who could afford the cost of compliance (see https://www.cpsc.gov/Business--Manufacturing/Business-Education/Toy-Safety-Business-Guidance-and-Small-Entity-Compliance-Guide https://www.cpsc.gov/Business--Manufacturing/Business-Educat...). You will find basically no small manufacturers of childrens toys anymore. Different cause, but likely same effect. I'm sure it made things safer in some sense, but yeah.

josho 7y ago
> They should require amazon to randomly sample. If governments cared about safety they would do the sampling and fine companies a meaningful percent of profit. That would fix these problems once and for all. Unfortunately we’ve elected governments that cut regulations which encourages the opposite behavior from companies.
- wallace_f 7y ago
  >Unfortunately we’ve elected governments that cut regulation It's really not that simple. The regulations here benefit Amazon. This is why Facebook is asking to be regulated. It's called regulatory capture. It's a product of corporatism or cronyism. Established corporations lobby for regulations that shut out small business and protect their profits.
  - daveFNbuck 7y ago
    While I care a lot about having a competitive marketplace, it's much more important to me that I and my family aren't poisoned. Are you saying that smaller companies can't compete with Amazon if everyone has to check that they're not poisoning us?
    - nitrogen 7y ago
      Smaller companies in the US would typically know not to put poison in their products in the first place, negating the need for direct lab testing, and those small companies can purchase bulk supplies from sources large enough to do upstream testing.
      - foobar1962 7y ago
        > Smaller companies in the US would typically know not to put poison in their products in the first place... The catch is when they buy materials (like paint) that are cheaper because they don't comply. Either because they are made for a market with different regulations, or they have been contaminated some how. Manufacturers may need to get certifications from suppliers about the materials meeting the regulations, but these won't be the cheapest option.
    - Mirioron 7y ago
      >Are you saying that smaller companies can't compete with Amazon if everyone has to check that they're not poisoning us? Yes, because this adds cost to manufacturing. Imagine if you yourself wanted to make and sell children's jewelry. How difficult would it be for you to get a lab to test all of the stuff you make? Could you make any money after you subtract the cost of these kinds of lab tests? A large company has economies of scale. Finding a lab is a much smaller portion of the cost for them compared to you.
      - SiempreViernes 7y ago
        Well, I think most of us make due with just buying ingredients that aren't poisonous when we cook (with the assurance in part coming from independent quality control of said ingredients). But I'm sure I must have missed why this general principle couldn't be used for other things that we don't want to be toxic.
  - matt4077 7y ago
    This supposed “insight” is on its way to become just another tired meme. If, somehow, Amazon profits from this settlement, why did they not just implement its terms before? Or for other categories? There is nothing stopping them from requiring whatever lab tests they want from any seller they want, after all. Regulatory capture is a useful concept, but please don’t just parrot it for any case related to regulation. As seen here, it is now used most often as a cudgel against any sort of regulation, and that’s exactly what they wanted all along.
    - Mirioron 7y ago
      So we should just ignore the long list of cases where it has happened, because This Time It Will Be Different?
      - matt4077 7y ago
        No, use it when appropriate. Here, it isn’t, because: - this settlement applies to Amazon only, not any competitor. That doesn’t fit the usual mechanism of using regulation to shackle competition - regulatory capture also refers to a social mechanism, where regulators become friends with the industry because they spend so much time together etc. That doesn’t fit too well here, because a state attorney’s office is far more diversified than, say, the FAA. - the points in my initial comment, which you just ignored
        Mirioron 7y ago
        I apologize, I was talking specifically about this: >This supposed “insight” is on its way to become just another tired meme. On the other hand, people were explicitly talking about regulation, which I took to mean as a wider-reaching thing than just this agreement Amazon made. In this specific case, Amazon is basically acting like the government for the sellers.
    - sokoloff 7y ago
      It's not enough for Amazon to voluntarily adopt these measures, incurring costs only on themselves, but rather for the entire category/industry to be forced to implement these measures, incurring costs on everyone in the market. Even if the measures today are Amazon specific, the likely inexorable path is for this to become standard across the industry, which will eventually benefit those for whom the fixed cost portion can be spread across the largest amount of sales.
  - ebg13 7y ago
    Product safety regulations and other regulations are really not the same thing. Please don't mix them. There's no such thing as regulatory capture by mandating that you aren't allowed to poison people.
    - mrfredward 7y ago
      Safety regulations that mandate expensive testing can absolutely be a part of regulatory capture. In well thought out regulations the benefits outweigh the costs, but being beneficial doesn't prevent a regulation from entrenching the big players.
  - vraivroo 7y ago
    This is still a problem that could be solved by having governments that actually acted in the interest of their constituents and not just their cronies.
- ricardobeat 7y ago
  In Brazil there is a national institution (INMETRO) that certifies almost every mass-produced item, with mandatory and voluntary categories, on a budget of ~US$100m/year. School supplies are in the mandatory group, for obvious reasons.
  - woliveirajr 7y ago
    They have some criticism from the international community: they are responsible for the official metrology (setting the standards), they regulate the products, they test it for compliance, they do the accreditation for other labs... A good part of the incoming is from these tests and accreditation. So, a good amount of conflict of interest.
- JumpCrisscross 7y ago
  > they would do the sampling and fine companies a meaningful percent of profit There is a role for a non-profit here to test products, publicise the results and potentially even bring cases to court against Amazon as a funding strategy. Barring that, propose a bill for your state watchdog to your state legislator. Waiting around for governments to care about random issues isn’t how any system works.
  - EliRivers 7y ago
    Or perhaps a for-profit. Make a living independently finding and bringing cases against companies selling illegal products.
    - dTal 7y ago
      Without tangible personal damages, would you have standing to sue?
      - TheCoelacanth 7y ago
        Standard class action model. You find a few people who do have standing to sue and get them to agree to be represented by you.
  - sevensor 7y ago
    > There is a role for a non-profit here to test products, publicise the results Does Consumers' Union still do stuff like this?
- martin-adams 7y ago
  On the flip side, it would be nice for suppliers to know their products are not toxic in the first place, rather than to just catch it after the harm is done. This will act as a deterrent to catch those knowingly selling toxic products. But if lab testing isn't in the reach of suppliers, then how can they know if it's toxic free? That said, I think a safety net is valuable, whether Amazon or government. It would be nice to see innovation to bring the cost of testing down so it's accessible to everyone.
- merpnderp 7y ago
  Why isn't this a case for civil damages? Find toys that are dangerous and file a class action suit against Amazon for selling them? This would circumvent the whole "Giant corp bought the regulators so they won't fine them for poisoning kids" thing.
  - HillaryBriss 7y ago
    yeah, and why did the Washington AG hold a press conference around this? he should have tried to hide it. seriously. the AG barely held Amazon accountable at all. the fines are miniscule. my guess is that these same lead and cadmium tainted products will be sold through Amazon again in the future. lead paint in toys has been a problem for decades. this isn't enough to stop it. this problem calls for a far stronger remedy. also: where are all the California Prop 65 lawsuits? where is Calfornia's AG on this issue? we have way more Amazon customers in California and fewer conflicts of interest since Amazon is headquartered in WA. this makes no sense.
creato 7y ago
Agreed. I don't understand how Amazon gets away with so much shady shit. How are there not more legal problems for Amazon? There have been some high profile incidents with other big companies with big legal budgets (Mercedes or Lexus? Apple? Nike?) but it all seems to go nowhere. It seems like it takes an army of lawyers to tackle one small incidence of shady behavior for one specific client. It never seems to rise up to the level of being handled as a pattern of behavior.
wtvanhest 7y ago
I dont buy anything on Amazon that I need to rely on being a real product for safety after I received a fraudulent pair of solar eclipse glasses. For my child, we dont buy any toys at all on Amazon. I especially dont buy branded stuff because I don't know what is commingled. Amazon may not be losing money here yet, but eventually they will. Everyone that works there should be ashamed.
- astura 7y ago
  How did you know the glasses were fake? Hopefully not the hard way...
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - wtvanhest 7y ago
    Amazon emailed me the day before the eclipse even though I bought them months before. I couldn't get a new pair of glasses in time.
    - nostrebored 7y ago
      "a company volunteered the information that they've detected my highly niche item was a fake. they should be ashamed that there were apparently no other suppliers who could get it to me!" willing to bet they gave you a full refund as well
      - motor_wolf 7y ago
        does that really recompense for the possibility of sustaining permanent damage to a product you purchased on a marketplace you believed to be safe? Is it really ok to sell fraudulent products that could harm the user as long as you give a full refund? fine, but the trust is destroyed. This seems like an effort to avert bad publicity, I don't think they would email a customer about a fraudulent product in any other case.
    - 7y ago
divbzero 7y ago
> They should require amazon to randomly sample. This doesn’t seem like the most sensible approach. If my yogurt product is sold in grocery stores, isn’t it my responsibility to make sure my yogurt is produced properly and my responsibility to label it with the correct ingredients and nutrition facts? I wouldn’t expect it to be the grocery store owner’s responsibility to randomly sample my yogurt and check for its quality or ingredients. Edit: Toned down inappropriately strong wording. Sorry for that. Didn’t mean to be a blowhard.
- sk5t 7y ago
  Your intuition about the grocery store's liability may have some deficiencies. A victim of food poisoning from negligence could absolutely bring suit against both the store and the yogurt maker.
  - ajdlinux 7y ago
    Indeed in the Commonwealth, my (limited) understanding is that in those circumstances, liability had always been understood as being with the retailer, not the manufacturer, until the landmark decision of Donoghue v Stevenson in 1932 established the idea of a duty of care owed by the manufacturer even though there was no direct contract between manufacturer and end consumer.
    - divbzero 7y ago
      Thank you for sharing this. I wasn’t aware that this concept that manufacturers have duty of care to consumers — which is ingrained in my intuition — is actually a legal construct that evolved less than a century ago. [1][2] [1]: http://lawgovpol.com/case-study-donoghue-v-stevenson-1932/ http://lawgovpol.com/case-study-donoghue-v-stevenson-1932/ [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donoghue_v_Stevenson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donoghue_v_Stevenson
    - flukus 7y ago
      Does this let the retailer get off the hook? If so that seems like a terrible idea in a world where the manufacturer is likely to be international.
Lammy 7y ago
It obviously shouldn’t require some children getting toxic school supplies, people sustaining burns or worse from counterfeit 18650 lithium battery cells, or any other suffering to get testing and certification on certain products, but I don’t think it’s as bad as you imply by “passing the buck”. It’s the easy way out for Amazon, sure, but if they do it enough times they will get a reputation for spotty inventory. I’ve already experienced this a few times with certain classes of products they wouldn’t ship to California due to stricter regulation on how much ozone they produce. That’s why I had to go to Bed Bath & Beyond to buy a HEPA air filter for my bedroom during the fires last year: https://ww3.arb.ca.gov/research/indoor/ozone.htm https://ww3.arb.ca.gov/research/indoor/ozone.htm When it’s one product it’s easy to point fingers at the regulation for the inconvenience, but shouldn’t I be glad my filter fits those tighter regulations? The diesel car maker scandal is proof regulations can be cheated, but it seems to me like more regulation would get us to a point where that would be quickly exposed. Let Amazon pass the buck to sellers. Regulate more things, and eventually it will be in their economic interest to run their own tests. They got where they were by having everything, and they can fall if that reputation does.
skookumchuck 7y ago
If Amazon is required to test, what about every small store that buys inventory? Are they required to test it all, too? Such a regulation would put them all out of business.
- DannyBee 7y ago
  Regulations are all pragmatic in the end. For example, you could say "companies that make x million" are required to randomly test and certify they did (and will be fined 200% of profit for false certification). and then you have a small entity program where the government is doing the sampling or something. It is surely impossible to have a one size fits all that scales from "person selling at farmers market" to "amazon"
  - skookumchuck 7y ago
    Pragmatic? Well, we don't have mom-and-pop toymakers anymore due to regulation.
ricardobeat 7y ago
It’s hard to sympathise with Amazon, but it seems very wrong to put the burden on the point of sale vs the supplier, especially for smaller stores. The burden of not putting dangerous products out in the market should lay on the manufacturer, through certifications or some form of safety requirements. In this case no doubt Amazon has to pay if they’ve acted as an importer, but you wouldn’t expect your supermarket to randomly sample all their product. maybe the US regulations need an update to make school supplies a more strict category?
- DannyBee 7y ago
  "you wouldn’t expect your supermarket to randomly sample all their product." I believe they actually do for some types of products.
simonh 7y ago
>This will simultaneously make it expensive for those sellers actually trying to comply (lab testing is not cheap) If they have a legitimate and well managed supply chain, it's not actually that difficult. The onus should be on the paint (or other materials) manufacturer to certify their product, with third party verification, and the certification flows down the chain. Of course compliant materials are more expensive and the certification isn't cost free, but otherwise shady outfits wouldn't flout the law. However there shouldn't be any need for a distributor to do lab testing themselves. They just need to be conscientious and organised.
- sokoloff 7y ago
  Whose to say that two otherwise safe materials used in manufacturing are safe when combined? Whose to say that this material which is safe when used as intended is also safe when subjected to elevated temperatures during a manufacturing operation? It doesn't seem like you can just accumulate stacks of paperwork to determine that an end product is sufficiently safe for use.
- DannyBee 7y ago
  "If they have a legitimate and well managed supply chain, it's not actually that difficult. " I don't necessarily disagree, but this is also really hard in practice for a lot of small manufacturers. I happen to know a bunch about the childrens toy one for various reasons, so i'll go with that one. About 30-50% of wood finish manufacturers certify the relevant things for their finishes, but the wood coatings market is not a huge one (They make their living off auto and oem coatings, etc), and so unless you are using thousands of gallons a year, you are using a local distributor. What you can get there will be hit and miss. In fact, it may not be possible to get a certified finish at all in your area. (These are not paints, which are widely available). Personally, i've had to order finishes from across the country in some cases, and i live in northern california (not exactly a small area :P). (This wasn't for childrens toys, but it was to meet a similar regulation) In very large markets, you don't have this problem because the components themselves tend to be plentiful. Additionally, you are often required to test the combined product, not just the components.
NeedMoreTea 7y ago
It's quite simple to build a system that works. UK retailers are liable for legality, safety etc. You don't just dump another new piece of crap on the shelf. Larger retailers have a formal process of becoming a supplier to them that has your products tested, and random sampling of what's coming in until you have proved yourself enough to be rated trusted supplier. There's a lot more to it than "will it sell?". Even wholesalers and cash and carry places will normally have systems to ensure what small sellers are getting are safe and legal. Amazon is the big fat exception as they're busy being "platform" and try to duck their responsibilities with "not our problem". Nett result is I trust anywhere on the high street, even poundshop and other bottom end chains, more on safety and counterfeits etc than Amazon.
- arethuza 7y ago
  I used to work for a very large materials testing company - that had labs throughout the UK doing "due diligence" testing on products in shops. They have people that actually go to large retailers and buy articles and they are tested continually. I got a life from one of the buyers at one of the labs and she mentioned that you get funny looks if you have a shopping trolley filled with, for example, one example of each type of cream cake being sold in that store.
swebs 7y ago
>They should require amazon to randomly sample. Isn't that just the government passing the buck to Amazon then? The should have auditors from the FDA or NIST or whatever to do random tests at Amazon warehouses.
- sitkack 7y ago
  We should, given the scale and importance. Testing for heavy metals (lead, cadmium, etc) is easy with hand held XRF (xray fluorescence) [1]. [1] https://www.spectro.com/products/xrf-spectrometer/xsort-xrf-gun-handheld-analyzer https://www.spectro.com/products/xrf-spectrometer/xsort-xrf-...
- DannyBee 7y ago
  I think this is actually a reasonable option, i just tend more towards the side of "government is unlikely to be good at this" than others. But for people who feel otherwise, and think it's necessary sure, no issue with it.
j-c-hewitt 7y ago
Should also add that Amazon is not really all that good at evaluating lab reports, nor could they be unless they changed what people evaluated the reports. They have a hard time telling the difference between a report doctored by someone with a fourth grade education and one from one of the most respected labs in the country.
bhouston 7y ago
There was horrible metals in some Canadian children's jewelry. As someone with a young child I do not care if it kills off small sellers if it prevents poisoning of my child. Maybe there is an opportunity here for innovation or a startup to facilitate this testing?

josho 7y ago

> They should require amazon to randomly sample. If governments cared about safety they would do the sampling and fine companies a meaningful percent of profit. That would fix these problems once and for all. Unfortunately we’ve elected governments that cut regulations which encourages the opposite behavior from companies.

wallace_f 7y ago
>Unfortunately we’ve elected governments that cut regulation It's really not that simple. The regulations here benefit Amazon. This is why Facebook is asking to be regulated. It's called regulatory capture. It's a product of corporatism or cronyism. Established corporations lobby for regulations that shut out small business and protect their profits.
- daveFNbuck 7y ago
  While I care a lot about having a competitive marketplace, it's much more important to me that I and my family aren't poisoned. Are you saying that smaller companies can't compete with Amazon if everyone has to check that they're not poisoning us?
  - nitrogen 7y ago
    Smaller companies in the US would typically know not to put poison in their products in the first place, negating the need for direct lab testing, and those small companies can purchase bulk supplies from sources large enough to do upstream testing.
    - foobar1962 7y ago
      > Smaller companies in the US would typically know not to put poison in their products in the first place... The catch is when they buy materials (like paint) that are cheaper because they don't comply. Either because they are made for a market with different regulations, or they have been contaminated some how. Manufacturers may need to get certifications from suppliers about the materials meeting the regulations, but these won't be the cheapest option.
  - Mirioron 7y ago
    >Are you saying that smaller companies can't compete with Amazon if everyone has to check that they're not poisoning us? Yes, because this adds cost to manufacturing. Imagine if you yourself wanted to make and sell children's jewelry. How difficult would it be for you to get a lab to test all of the stuff you make? Could you make any money after you subtract the cost of these kinds of lab tests? A large company has economies of scale. Finding a lab is a much smaller portion of the cost for them compared to you.
    - SiempreViernes 7y ago
      Well, I think most of us make due with just buying ingredients that aren't poisonous when we cook (with the assurance in part coming from independent quality control of said ingredients). But I'm sure I must have missed why this general principle couldn't be used for other things that we don't want to be toxic.
- matt4077 7y ago
  This supposed “insight” is on its way to become just another tired meme. If, somehow, Amazon profits from this settlement, why did they not just implement its terms before? Or for other categories? There is nothing stopping them from requiring whatever lab tests they want from any seller they want, after all. Regulatory capture is a useful concept, but please don’t just parrot it for any case related to regulation. As seen here, it is now used most often as a cudgel against any sort of regulation, and that’s exactly what they wanted all along.
  - Mirioron 7y ago
    So we should just ignore the long list of cases where it has happened, because This Time It Will Be Different?
    - matt4077 7y ago
      No, use it when appropriate. Here, it isn’t, because: - this settlement applies to Amazon only, not any competitor. That doesn’t fit the usual mechanism of using regulation to shackle competition - regulatory capture also refers to a social mechanism, where regulators become friends with the industry because they spend so much time together etc. That doesn’t fit too well here, because a state attorney’s office is far more diversified than, say, the FAA. - the points in my initial comment, which you just ignored
      - Mirioron 7y ago
        I apologize, I was talking specifically about this: >This supposed “insight” is on its way to become just another tired meme. On the other hand, people were explicitly talking about regulation, which I took to mean as a wider-reaching thing than just this agreement Amazon made. In this specific case, Amazon is basically acting like the government for the sellers.
  - sokoloff 7y ago
    It's not enough for Amazon to voluntarily adopt these measures, incurring costs only on themselves, but rather for the entire category/industry to be forced to implement these measures, incurring costs on everyone in the market. Even if the measures today are Amazon specific, the likely inexorable path is for this to become standard across the industry, which will eventually benefit those for whom the fixed cost portion can be spread across the largest amount of sales.
- ebg13 7y ago
  Product safety regulations and other regulations are really not the same thing. Please don't mix them. There's no such thing as regulatory capture by mandating that you aren't allowed to poison people.
  - mrfredward 7y ago
    Safety regulations that mandate expensive testing can absolutely be a part of regulatory capture. In well thought out regulations the benefits outweigh the costs, but being beneficial doesn't prevent a regulation from entrenching the big players.
- vraivroo 7y ago
  This is still a problem that could be solved by having governments that actually acted in the interest of their constituents and not just their cronies.
ricardobeat 7y ago
In Brazil there is a national institution (INMETRO) that certifies almost every mass-produced item, with mandatory and voluntary categories, on a budget of ~US$100m/year. School supplies are in the mandatory group, for obvious reasons.
- woliveirajr 7y ago
  They have some criticism from the international community: they are responsible for the official metrology (setting the standards), they regulate the products, they test it for compliance, they do the accreditation for other labs... A good part of the incoming is from these tests and accreditation. So, a good amount of conflict of interest.
JumpCrisscross 7y ago
> they would do the sampling and fine companies a meaningful percent of profit There is a role for a non-profit here to test products, publicise the results and potentially even bring cases to court against Amazon as a funding strategy. Barring that, propose a bill for your state watchdog to your state legislator. Waiting around for governments to care about random issues isn’t how any system works.
- EliRivers 7y ago
  Or perhaps a for-profit. Make a living independently finding and bringing cases against companies selling illegal products.
  - dTal 7y ago
    Without tangible personal damages, would you have standing to sue?
    - TheCoelacanth 7y ago
      Standard class action model. You find a few people who do have standing to sue and get them to agree to be represented by you.
- sevensor 7y ago
  > There is a role for a non-profit here to test products, publicise the results Does Consumers' Union still do stuff like this?
martin-adams 7y ago
On the flip side, it would be nice for suppliers to know their products are not toxic in the first place, rather than to just catch it after the harm is done. This will act as a deterrent to catch those knowingly selling toxic products. But if lab testing isn't in the reach of suppliers, then how can they know if it's toxic free? That said, I think a safety net is valuable, whether Amazon or government. It would be nice to see innovation to bring the cost of testing down so it's accessible to everyone.
merpnderp 7y ago
Why isn't this a case for civil damages? Find toys that are dangerous and file a class action suit against Amazon for selling them? This would circumvent the whole "Giant corp bought the regulators so they won't fine them for poisoning kids" thing.
- HillaryBriss 7y ago
  yeah, and why did the Washington AG hold a press conference around this? he should have tried to hide it. seriously. the AG barely held Amazon accountable at all. the fines are miniscule. my guess is that these same lead and cadmium tainted products will be sold through Amazon again in the future. lead paint in toys has been a problem for decades. this isn't enough to stop it. this problem calls for a far stronger remedy. also: where are all the California Prop 65 lawsuits? where is Calfornia's AG on this issue? we have way more Amazon customers in California and fewer conflicts of interest since Amazon is headquartered in WA. this makes no sense.

creato 7y ago

Agreed. I don't understand how Amazon gets away with so much shady shit. How are there not more legal problems for Amazon? There have been some high profile incidents with other big companies with big legal budgets (Mercedes or Lexus? Apple? Nike?) but it all seems to go nowhere. It seems like it takes an army of lawyers to tackle one small incidence of shady behavior for one specific client. It never seems to rise up to the level of being handled as a pattern of behavior.

wtvanhest 7y ago

I dont buy anything on Amazon that I need to rely on being a real product for safety after I received a fraudulent pair of solar eclipse glasses. For my child, we dont buy any toys at all on Amazon. I especially dont buy branded stuff because I don't know what is commingled. Amazon may not be losing money here yet, but eventually they will. Everyone that works there should be ashamed.

astura 7y ago
How did you know the glasses were fake? Hopefully not the hard way...
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- wtvanhest 7y ago
  Amazon emailed me the day before the eclipse even though I bought them months before. I couldn't get a new pair of glasses in time.
  - nostrebored 7y ago
    "a company volunteered the information that they've detected my highly niche item was a fake. they should be ashamed that there were apparently no other suppliers who could get it to me!" willing to bet they gave you a full refund as well
    - motor_wolf 7y ago
      does that really recompense for the possibility of sustaining permanent damage to a product you purchased on a marketplace you believed to be safe? Is it really ok to sell fraudulent products that could harm the user as long as you give a full refund? fine, but the trust is destroyed. This seems like an effort to avert bad publicity, I don't think they would email a customer about a fraudulent product in any other case.
  - 7y ago

divbzero 7y ago

> They should require amazon to randomly sample. This doesn’t seem like the most sensible approach. If my yogurt product is sold in grocery stores, isn’t it my responsibility to make sure my yogurt is produced properly and my responsibility to label it with the correct ingredients and nutrition facts? I wouldn’t expect it to be the grocery store owner’s responsibility to randomly sample my yogurt and check for its quality or ingredients. Edit: Toned down inappropriately strong wording. Sorry for that. Didn’t mean to be a blowhard.

sk5t 7y ago
Your intuition about the grocery store's liability may have some deficiencies. A victim of food poisoning from negligence could absolutely bring suit against both the store and the yogurt maker.
- ajdlinux 7y ago
  Indeed in the Commonwealth, my (limited) understanding is that in those circumstances, liability had always been understood as being with the retailer, not the manufacturer, until the landmark decision of Donoghue v Stevenson in 1932 established the idea of a duty of care owed by the manufacturer even though there was no direct contract between manufacturer and end consumer.
  - divbzero 7y ago
    Thank you for sharing this. I wasn’t aware that this concept that manufacturers have duty of care to consumers — which is ingrained in my intuition — is actually a legal construct that evolved less than a century ago. [1][2] [1]: http://lawgovpol.com/case-study-donoghue-v-stevenson-1932/ http://lawgovpol.com/case-study-donoghue-v-stevenson-1932/ [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donoghue_v_Stevenson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donoghue_v_Stevenson
  - flukus 7y ago
    Does this let the retailer get off the hook? If so that seems like a terrible idea in a world where the manufacturer is likely to be international.

Lammy 7y ago

It obviously shouldn’t require some children getting toxic school supplies, people sustaining burns or worse from counterfeit 18650 lithium battery cells, or any other suffering to get testing and certification on certain products, but I don’t think it’s as bad as you imply by “passing the buck”. It’s the easy way out for Amazon, sure, but if they do it enough times they will get a reputation for spotty inventory. I’ve already experienced this a few times with certain classes of products they wouldn’t ship to California due to stricter regulation on how much ozone they produce. That’s why I had to go to Bed Bath & Beyond to buy a HEPA air filter for my bedroom during the fires last year: https://ww3.arb.ca.gov/research/indoor/ozone.htm https://ww3.arb.ca.gov/research/indoor/ozone.htm When it’s one product it’s easy to point fingers at the regulation for the inconvenience, but shouldn’t I be glad my filter fits those tighter regulations? The diesel car maker scandal is proof regulations can be cheated, but it seems to me like more regulation would get us to a point where that would be quickly exposed. Let Amazon pass the buck to sellers. Regulate more things, and eventually it will be in their economic interest to run their own tests. They got where they were by having everything, and they can fall if that reputation does.

skookumchuck 7y ago

If Amazon is required to test, what about every small store that buys inventory? Are they required to test it all, too? Such a regulation would put them all out of business.

DannyBee 7y ago
Regulations are all pragmatic in the end. For example, you could say "companies that make x million" are required to randomly test and certify they did (and will be fined 200% of profit for false certification). and then you have a small entity program where the government is doing the sampling or something. It is surely impossible to have a one size fits all that scales from "person selling at farmers market" to "amazon"
- skookumchuck 7y ago
  Pragmatic? Well, we don't have mom-and-pop toymakers anymore due to regulation.

ricardobeat 7y ago

It’s hard to sympathise with Amazon, but it seems very wrong to put the burden on the point of sale vs the supplier, especially for smaller stores. The burden of not putting dangerous products out in the market should lay on the manufacturer, through certifications or some form of safety requirements. In this case no doubt Amazon has to pay if they’ve acted as an importer, but you wouldn’t expect your supermarket to randomly sample all their product. maybe the US regulations need an update to make school supplies a more strict category?

DannyBee 7y ago
"you wouldn’t expect your supermarket to randomly sample all their product." I believe they actually do for some types of products.

simonh 7y ago

>This will simultaneously make it expensive for those sellers actually trying to comply (lab testing is not cheap) If they have a legitimate and well managed supply chain, it's not actually that difficult. The onus should be on the paint (or other materials) manufacturer to certify their product, with third party verification, and the certification flows down the chain. Of course compliant materials are more expensive and the certification isn't cost free, but otherwise shady outfits wouldn't flout the law. However there shouldn't be any need for a distributor to do lab testing themselves. They just need to be conscientious and organised.

sokoloff 7y ago
Whose to say that two otherwise safe materials used in manufacturing are safe when combined? Whose to say that this material which is safe when used as intended is also safe when subjected to elevated temperatures during a manufacturing operation? It doesn't seem like you can just accumulate stacks of paperwork to determine that an end product is sufficiently safe for use.
DannyBee 7y ago
"If they have a legitimate and well managed supply chain, it's not actually that difficult. " I don't necessarily disagree, but this is also really hard in practice for a lot of small manufacturers. I happen to know a bunch about the childrens toy one for various reasons, so i'll go with that one. About 30-50% of wood finish manufacturers certify the relevant things for their finishes, but the wood coatings market is not a huge one (They make their living off auto and oem coatings, etc), and so unless you are using thousands of gallons a year, you are using a local distributor. What you can get there will be hit and miss. In fact, it may not be possible to get a certified finish at all in your area. (These are not paints, which are widely available). Personally, i've had to order finishes from across the country in some cases, and i live in northern california (not exactly a small area :P). (This wasn't for childrens toys, but it was to meet a similar regulation) In very large markets, you don't have this problem because the components themselves tend to be plentiful. Additionally, you are often required to test the combined product, not just the components.

NeedMoreTea 7y ago

It's quite simple to build a system that works. UK retailers are liable for legality, safety etc. You don't just dump another new piece of crap on the shelf. Larger retailers have a formal process of becoming a supplier to them that has your products tested, and random sampling of what's coming in until you have proved yourself enough to be rated trusted supplier. There's a lot more to it than "will it sell?". Even wholesalers and cash and carry places will normally have systems to ensure what small sellers are getting are safe and legal. Amazon is the big fat exception as they're busy being "platform" and try to duck their responsibilities with "not our problem". Nett result is I trust anywhere on the high street, even poundshop and other bottom end chains, more on safety and counterfeits etc than Amazon.

arethuza 7y ago
I used to work for a very large materials testing company - that had labs throughout the UK doing "due diligence" testing on products in shops. They have people that actually go to large retailers and buy articles and they are tested continually. I got a life from one of the buyers at one of the labs and she mentioned that you get funny looks if you have a shopping trolley filled with, for example, one example of each type of cream cake being sold in that store.

swebs 7y ago

>They should require amazon to randomly sample. Isn't that just the government passing the buck to Amazon then? The should have auditors from the FDA or NIST or whatever to do random tests at Amazon warehouses.

sitkack 7y ago
We should, given the scale and importance. Testing for heavy metals (lead, cadmium, etc) is easy with hand held XRF (xray fluorescence) [1]. [1] https://www.spectro.com/products/xrf-spectrometer/xsort-xrf-gun-handheld-analyzer https://www.spectro.com/products/xrf-spectrometer/xsort-xrf-...
DannyBee 7y ago
I think this is actually a reasonable option, i just tend more towards the side of "government is unlikely to be good at this" than others. But for people who feel otherwise, and think it's necessary sure, no issue with it.

j-c-hewitt 7y ago

Should also add that Amazon is not really all that good at evaluating lab reports, nor could they be unless they changed what people evaluated the reports. They have a hard time telling the difference between a report doctored by someone with a fourth grade education and one from one of the most respected labs in the country.

bhouston 7y ago

There was horrible metals in some Canadian children's jewelry. As someone with a young child I do not care if it kills off small sellers if it prevents poisoning of my child. Maybe there is an opportunity here for innovation or a startup to facilitate this testing?