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I just did the “ground coffee” and melatonin searches. Entire first row was an ad for bulletproof coffee and sugarbearhair vitamins. Second row had the amazon

I just did the “ground coffee” and melatonin searches. Entire first row was an ad for bulletproof coffee and sugarbearhair vitamins. Second row had the amazon brand on the left with prominent amazon logos on the coffee bag and the pill bottle and a tag that says “featured from our brands” and the first word in he title for both items was Amazon. The next three items were sponsored ads. I don’t see amazon being deceptive here. They are making it very clear you are buying the “Amazon Brand.”

mtgx 6y ago
There probably need to be laws that you can't be both a platform and compete against those on your platform with your own products/content. And make sure to close the "we'll just ban our competition from the platform then!" loophole. It seems inevitable that once a platform, whether it's an ISP, a media platform, or an ecommerce platform, starts making its own products for that platform, then they will also start abusing their power against their own platform partners. It's just irresistible for them not to, because there's so much to gain from it. So only (pro-active) laws could stop this. You can't leave it "to the market" to solve this, because by the time that happens (if ever), the platform company would have already extracted tens and hundreds of billions of dollars from the strategy and killed an untold number of smaller companies.
- TeMPOraL 6y ago
  > You can't leave it "to the market" to solve this, because by the time that happens (if ever), the platform company would have already extracted tens and hundreds of billions of dollars from the strategy and killed an untold number of smaller companies. ... and by the time most users would jump to another platform, that other platform would start pulling the same thing, because why not? Ad infinitum.
mokanfar 6y ago
Amazon is is doing with sponsored listings the same thing that Google did with its organic search results. "Oh your site is not the top 3 in search results for this keyword? You have a chance to stand out if you buy these ads." The shady difference here between the two is that Google did not try to show results from their own company, Amazon is.
- ABeeSea 6y ago
  When I search “email”, “maps”, “video”, and “cloud” through google on iOS safari, I get as the first non-ad result; Gmail, google maps, YouTube, and google cloud respectively.
  - strombofulous 6y ago
    Other than Apple, who pretty much only support apple products (Which are not used by a statistical majority of the global population), what real alternatives are there? I think most people are looking for google maps, not HERE maps, when they search "maps"
mthoms 6y ago
FWIW, I just did a similar thing. The first 5 or so Amazon brands were clearly labeled as such. Then I searched some of their lesser known brands and found many weren't clearly labeled. Try it yourself. The hard part is finding out what Amazon's brands are since they (surprise!) don't publish a list. This is the best list I could find in my short time searching https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-owns-these-brands-list-2018-7?op=1 https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-owns-these-brands-lis...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

mtgx 6y ago

There probably need to be laws that you can't be both a platform and compete against those on your platform with your own products/content. And make sure to close the "we'll just ban our competition from the platform then!" loophole. It seems inevitable that once a platform, whether it's an ISP, a media platform, or an ecommerce platform, starts making its own products for that platform, then they will also start abusing their power against their own platform partners. It's just irresistible for them not to, because there's so much to gain from it. So only (pro-active) laws could stop this. You can't leave it "to the market" to solve this, because by the time that happens (if ever), the platform company would have already extracted tens and hundreds of billions of dollars from the strategy and killed an untold number of smaller companies.

TeMPOraL 6y ago
> You can't leave it "to the market" to solve this, because by the time that happens (if ever), the platform company would have already extracted tens and hundreds of billions of dollars from the strategy and killed an untold number of smaller companies. ... and by the time most users would jump to another platform, that other platform would start pulling the same thing, because why not? Ad infinitum.

mokanfar 6y ago

Amazon is is doing with sponsored listings the same thing that Google did with its organic search results. "Oh your site is not the top 3 in search results for this keyword? You have a chance to stand out if you buy these ads." The shady difference here between the two is that Google did not try to show results from their own company, Amazon is.

ABeeSea 6y ago
When I search “email”, “maps”, “video”, and “cloud” through google on iOS safari, I get as the first non-ad result; Gmail, google maps, YouTube, and google cloud respectively.
- strombofulous 6y ago
  Other than Apple, who pretty much only support apple products (Which are not used by a statistical majority of the global population), what real alternatives are there? I think most people are looking for google maps, not HERE maps, when they search "maps"

mthoms 6y ago

FWIW, I just did a similar thing. The first 5 or so Amazon brands were clearly labeled as such. Then I searched some of their lesser known brands and found many weren't clearly labeled. Try it yourself. The hard part is finding out what Amazon's brands are since they (surprise!) don't publish a list. This is the best list I could find in my short time searching https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-owns-these-brands-list-2018-7?op=1 https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-owns-these-brands-lis...

deleted 6y ago
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