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Five U.S. lawmakers accuse Amazon of possibly lying to Congress

124 points by rrix2 5y ago

StanislavPetrov 5y ago
Who the hell does Amazon think he is, James Clapper?
whoisjuan 5y ago
What I don’t get it’s why they care now when this is an old retail strategy. Older than Amazon itself. Target is the epitome of pushing you white label brands down your throat from the minute you step into own of their stores. And this is essentially what every retailer does. They all check what sells the most, then they create their own brands, and then they promote and prioritize those brands over their shelved vendors. Show me one retailer that doesn’t do this. This strategy is the very reason why the direct to consumer model exists. Brands realized that they couldn’t compete fairly through product aggregators and their real survival and path to success was to do what retailers were already doing: to verticalize.
- philistine 5y ago
  The problem is not the practice itself; it's that Amazon representatives told Congress they did not do it. They lied, that's the problem. If they had said yes, we do indeed analyze what is happening in our marketplace to decide which products to launch, they wouldn't have gotten this letter.
  - dehrmann 5y ago
    Are the quibbling over where Amazon looks at individual seller data or aggregated per-SKU data?
    - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
      > Are the quibbling over where Amazon looks at individual seller data or aggregated per-SKU data? No. They're "quibbling" over whether Amazon executives perjured themselves. Perjury doesn't have a "but, like, is it really a big deal" test.
      - RHSeeger 5y ago
        Given that nearly every important member of the government that has testified before congress has flat out lied to congress... this seems like selective enforcement. How about going after all the members of the military and intelligence command structures that told blatant lies when testifying.
        JumpCrisscross 5y ago
        > nearly every important member of the government that has testified before congress has flat out lied to congress This is rubbish. There is a litany of recent, memorable cases. But they rarely met the legal threshold of contempt of Congress, and in the cases that did, there was seldom political will to prioritise its prosecution. Congress, by design, is a political creature. We don't want the President (DoJ) rounding up people who speak to a co-equal branch of government because he--unilaterally--thinks they might have lied.
      - dehrmann 5y ago
        From the article, > Bezos said the company prohibits its employees from using data on individual sellers to benefit its own private-label product lines. I could see someone hearing that and not realizing that per-SKU aggregation, or even clustered similar products, wouldn't break this rule.
  - warmfuzzykitten 5y ago
    There are other possibilities than "they lied". The most likely explanation is that the branch in India used tactics that were specifically forbidden by corporate policy formulated in the United States, that corporate management was unaware that it took place, and is now plenty embarrassed to hear that it did. It's not necessarily true, by the way, that they wouldn't have gotten flack from Congress if they'd initially testified that they use sales and product data only they possess to find out which third-party products are both profitable and vulnerable to lower-cost competition, use it again to design competing house brands that are identical to the third party products down to the smallest detail, and follow that up by using their website to promote the knockoff products as preferable to the third party products they've ripped off. This is not a standard industry practice and would likely not be defensible as "It's just a house brand, like Safeway Soup. What's the big deal?"
- rapind 5y ago
  Probably not a bad idea to draw more attention to it regardless. Whether it's Walmart, Amazon, Costco, etc. If anyone can do it then they all MUST do it to compete. If we bring the hammer down on Amazon then we'll have to (ideally) bring the hammer down uniformly on everyone else. Basically it's sketchy behaviour across the board and Amazon has just proven themselves to be better, more efficient, and more willing at it. It's an argument worth having IMO. One side will cite consumer benefit and the other will point out that it has long term effects that reduce choice and innovation (and thus consumer benefit). Amazon would do just fine with a level playing field.
  - emodendroket 5y ago
    Gotta be honest, I don't see it as much of a win if I can't buy store-brand cereal anymore.
    - xyzzyz 5y ago
      You don’t understand. Government needs you to stop buying store brand cereals, because they unfairly compete against General Mills Cheerios. See, stores can sell store brands cheaper than Cheerios, and that’s an anti-competitive practice, which the anti monopoly law is meant to protect from. Government will protect you by ensuring that there is no cheaper competing product, so that you will end up buying Cheerios at higher price. This will reduce the monopoly, and make the cereal market more competitive. Does that make sense to you? (It shouldn’t, because it doesn’t.)
      - 8note 5y ago
        It's just missing steps on breaking up General Mills, and grants for starting new cereal businesses
        emodendroket 5y ago
        Seems like a tremendous use of energy and resources for little to no benefit.
- throwawaycities 5y ago
  Can you really not distinguish Amazon, it’s market position, and their acts from brick and mortar retailers that carry private label items? Even if you can’t distinguish Amazon’s conduct and a grocery store selling private label cereals side by side, the article really isn’t about that anyway but the fact that Amazon went before congress and was asked about prioritizing their private label products in search results over other sellers and Amazon representative lied under oath by denying they do that. I’m not aware of Target going before Congress and lying under oath about selling private label products, one would think if Amazon’s conduct was on the up and up they wouldn’t lie under oath to cover it up.
  - devin 5y ago
    Let’s try it and see.
  - fiddlerwoaroof 5y ago
    Isn’t it still the case that Walmart and similar brick and mortar stores have significantly higher revenue than Amazon’s e-commerce revenue? If anything, it’s worse for traditional stores because they have limited shelf space and so store brands can prevent name brands from even being available.
    - tw04 5y ago
      No, no it isn’t the case. Walmart is the only one with more revenue, but they don’t have AWS margins to prop up everything else. I think we’d all be better off if we didn’t have a 2-horse race for 90% of our purchases… Target (#3)had $93b in revenue in FY2020. Amazon e-commerce had $120b. https://corporate.target.com/annual-reports/2020 https://corporate.target.com/annual-reports/2020 https://www.statista.com/forecasts/1218313/amazon-revenue-development-ecommercedb https://www.statista.com/forecasts/1218313/amazon-revenue-de...
      - didibus 5y ago
        I'd agree if we had a 2-horse race, but I don't see it, there are a ton of competing retail stores both online and offline. And especially online, it's not like you're limited geographically where say your only store that has what you want is a big Walmart, you have access to hundreds of online retailer to choose from.
- kennywinker 5y ago
  On top of the lying, which another commenter pointed out is the major issue - Target doesn't pretend to be a marketplace. It's a curated store, some of the products are whitelabel, some are not. Amazon presents itself as a marketplace, where buyers and sellers can come together. Imagine I owned a shopping mall, and every time a business renting from me was successful I would hike up their rent and open a copycat shop in the stall next door... I think that's a closer analogy than the Target one.
  - tarr11 5y ago
    Most corporate mall landlords have a requirement that you submit your monthly sales numbers and take a percentage of sales in addition to your rent.
    - asdff 5y ago
      Most retail stores also price shelf space according to sales too. Amazon on the other hand doesn't have any mechanism for you the brand to get preferential shelf space. In a mall you probably want a store by the entrance where everyone walks by, in a target you want shelf space at eye level, so there might be a premium for these spaces if you would like them. Can't do anything like that on Amazon. Third party scam products and name brands are weighed equally in search results. Amazon products actually get better placement, something you'd never see in a Target with their store brands since third party brands want to buy access to better placement and target wants to lease space at a premium to these brands.
  - didibus 5y ago
    > Target Plus Marketplace is one of the top-tier eCommerce marketplaces, along with Amazon Marketplace and Walmart Marketplace, that cater to third party retailers. Target, one of the biggest retail chains in the United States, entered the eCommerce marketing realm in February 2019 and expanded its product assortment by allowing third party retailers to sell on Target.com
    - tablespoon 5y ago
- tablespoon 5y ago
  > What I don’t get it’s why they care now when this is an old retail strategy. Older than Amazon itself. > Target is the epitome of pushing you white label brands down your throat from the minute you step into own of their stores. And this is essentially what every retailer does. But Amazon isn't a simple retailer. Isn't the issue that they do this and operate a third party marketplace? IIRC, Target is a traditional retailer that doesn't operate a marketplace for other retailers to compete in.
  - emodendroket 5y ago
    How different is Target's relationship to its suppliers from third-party Amazon sellers really? In many cases it's the same entity that wants to appear prominently in both venues.
    - asdff 5y ago
      Target is in the business of leasing shelf space. If you are a third party and want prominent placement in the store, target will lease that shelf to you. If you notice where target's third party stuff is placed, its actually rarely at eye level. That premium placement is reserved for other brands to lease at top dollar. Target probably makes more money selling less of their store brand and leasing primo space than they do if they were to use that primo space to sell more of their store brand and lease the bottom shelves. Amazon on the other hand doesn't work like a retail store. You aren't leasing a finite amount of space within the Amazon website. You are beholden to the search algorithm run by amazon which is a black box compared to an agreement made for shelf space in a retail store, you don't pay less for worse placement and you can't pay more for better placement, and Amazon continually tries to poach your business with low cost knockoffs and their search engines are uncannily tailored to prefer these results.
      - emodendroket 5y ago
        Isn't paying for sponsored results more or less equivalent to paying for better shelf space? The space may not "really" be limited, but for practical purposes, the second page of search results barely exists.
- asdff 5y ago
  It's a different situation in retail than what goes on with the amazon website. It's not a marketplace in the sense amazon is, brands are leasing specific shelf space. They pay an agreed upon price for these shelves and that's what they receive. Amazon doesn't abide to anything like this. To use a target example, it would be like they just threw all the third party stuff to the back of the store and only left the target brand stuff at eye level in the aisles, when that's not the case since the third party stuff has the best placement in the store. Brands typically pay extra for prominent shelf space position right at eye level and receive it, they aren't getting worked here by target like brands are by amazon when their results are pushed below the fold in favor of amazon basics products.
- diffeomorphism 5y ago
  Scale. Pointing at any one retailer and saying "that is scummy, stop it" does not work, feels arbitrary and "then go elsewhere" is actually an option. If Amazon or a number of large chains do it, there is no reasonable alternative. Case in point from Germany. If small supermarket chains treat their suppliers badly, that is their business. If Aldi (very large chain) does, this is potentialky ruinous for many companies, so politics do get involved. It always is a tradeoff between the possible harm, number of people affected and the desire to not intervene if at all possible.
- sidm83 5y ago
  In India, this is being dealt with in a different way. Amazon India and Flipkart (controlled by Walmart) are treated as a "marketplace", ie providing a platform for other sellers. There are strict rules to limit domination of a few sellers on the platform (limits on percentage of sales by each seller). Neither of the two companies are particularly happy about it so probably it works to some extent. https://www.livemint.com/industry/retail/ecommerce-companies-to-write-to-govt-against-draft-rules-11624910348605.html https://www.livemint.com/industry/retail/ecommerce-companies...
- timoth3y 5y ago
  > how me one retailer that doesn’t do this. The thing is, Amazon claims they are not a retailer, but rather a neutral marketplace matching buyer and seller. Tat's why they claim they should not be held responsible for false advertising, violations of consumer protection laws, or defective products. However, when they misuse that marketplace data, they turn around and claim that they are just one retailer among many. It's getting harder and harder for Amazon to maintain this legal equivocation.
sjwalter 5y ago
Numerous people, representing a plethora of organizations, have openly lied to congress in the recent past. Fauci lied to congress about GoF research funding. Nothing happened. Dorsey lied to congress about censoring Trump. Nothing happened. Wilbur Ross lied to congress, and a DOJ watchdog even reported it to congress. Nothing happened. DNI Clapper lied to congress, and was exposed literally one day later, to national headlines. Nothing happened. Billy Barr lied to congress. Nothing happened. Congress has to make a criminal referral for anything to happen when they're lied to. Congress is not really interested in doing so. Congress is OK with being lied to.
- devin 5y ago
  Politics aside, this is wildly depressing and true.
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago
  > Congress is OK with being lied to There is a high bar for enforcing contempt of Congress [1]. For good reason. It requires both unlawful behavior to motivate the executive [2], and political animus to motivate the legislature. Unlike in every one of the cases you mention, there is popular support for skewering Facebook, and, to a lesser degree, Amazon [3][4]. That satisfies the second condition in a way it didn't for your other examples. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contempt_of_Congress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contempt_of_Congress [2] https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/RL34097.pdf https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/RL34097.pdf [3] https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/6/22702798/verge-tech-survey-2021-trust-privacy-security-facebook-amazon-google-apple-pandemic https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/6/22702798/verge-tech-surve... [4] https://aflcio.org/press/releases/new-poll-77-americans-support-amazon-union-drive https://aflcio.org/press/releases/new-poll-77-americans-supp...
  - comp_throw7 5y ago
    From [3]: "Thirteen percent of respondents who were familiar with the brand had unfavorable opinions of Amazon, compared to just 9 percent in 2020." That does _not_ sound like "popular support for skewering"! That sounds like "Amazon is one of the most popular, well-liked, and trusted organizations in the world".
kfprt 5y ago
I'm sure they'll prosecute Amazon for this crime just like they prosecuted James Clapper for lying to congress.
- perl4ever 5y ago
  "Possibly" lying to congress. Now I ask you, what is that? Do they give Nobel prizes out for "possibly" doing physics??
  - kfprt 5y ago
    I believe the word was 'unwitting'
    - perl4ever 5y ago
      Originally it was "attempted".
  - ravar 5y ago
    Have you seen the 1912 prize?
    - perl4ever 5y ago
      I went to look the Physics prize up, and got sidetracked by the winner of the Peace prize - Elihu Root. First of all, the name sounds like a Neal Stephenson character. Then, I'm reading his page and it says things like: - He got his start as defense counsel for Boss Tweed - Went on to be a prominent corporate lawyer - Was a lifelong opponent of feminism - Was an advocate for American imperialism in the Philippines and elsewhere - As secretary of war, was the "leading modernizer of the Army" - Tried but failed to make an alliance between the US and Russia just after their revolution - may have inadvertently caused the rise of the Bolsheviks by allegedly inciting the provisional government to do something stupid - Supported the amendment to the US Constitution allowing an income tax - His "mentor" was Joseph Hodges Choate, who made the cover of Vogue in April 1898...
m0zg 5y ago
I'd be more surprised if they didn't lie, frankly. Lying during congressional testimonies and confirmations is a time honored tradition that applies in nearly every case. I can name plenty of cases where people either lied outright or lied by omission, but can't name any significant repercussions anybody experienced for lying. Ergo, I don't see why people would tell the truth that's disadvantageous to them, rather than lies that are advantageous.
- JumpCrisscross 5y ago
  > Lying during congressional testimonies and confirmations is a time honored tradition that applies in nearly every case No, it isn't. This statement falls in the same category as "everyone commits insider trading; I should buy out-of-the-money options." You can recount specific cases because they remain exceptions.
  - RHSeeger 5y ago
    But the fact that they faced no repercussions for doing so is not an exception, it's the rule.
    - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
      > that they faced no repercussions for doing so is not an exception, it's the rule This is playground logic. No enforcement mechanism is perfect. Permitting nullification on the hope of perfect enforcement is a straight line to anarchy. Congress isn't a court. Its purpose is to legislate [1]. If you lie to a Congress and it impedes the legislative process, you can get boned, provided there is political will to refer you to the DoJ and sufficient evidence for them to pursue and convict you. But it's not analogous to contempt of court. (In particular, there is Constitutional risk around the executive interfering with people talking to Congress. Even at the request of some of its members.) [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/354/178 https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/354/178
      - RHSeeger 5y ago
theknocker 5y ago
Too bad the representative government is literally just pretend. Literally just pretend.
bpodgursky 5y ago
I don't actually understand why anyone has an obligation to answer honestly to congress. Who cares what congress wants? They aren't a judge. They're supposed to represent YOU. Congress isn't a judge, and when they summon someone, they aren't on trial. When you're answering questions before a judge you have to answer honestly. Not when some elected official from some random state I don't care about decides to posture for CSPAN. Why do they have any right to my time in the first place?
- ocdtrekkie 5y ago
  Bear in mind, you may not care about a congressperson from Alabama, but the people in Alabama who elected him do, and he's there to represent those people... you have your own representative representing you. The fact that it's someone else's representative doesn't make them any less important because they aren't there for you personally. And yes, Congress can effectively put someone on trial (see: impeachment) and the fact finding processes they use before creating legislation is similar to a court proceeding. You are legally bound to respond honestly.
  - bpodgursky 5y ago
    Congress can only impeach certain government officials, and the result of impeachment is losing the office, not jail. Random citizens are not at the mercy of punishment by congress. That's super protected against in the constitution and by checks & balances.
    - ocdtrekkie 5y ago
      The fact that Congress and the courts have different roles, doesn't mean lying to one should be okay and lying to the other should be illegal: Lying to both is illegal. Testifying before Congress is part of the process of sourcing truth for laws to be passed to address issues with our society. It's critical that people answer honestly.
tchalla 5y ago
Bezos has been pretty honest that he can’t guarantee employees haven’t violated Amazon policy. > “What I can tell you is we have a policy against using seller-specific data to aid our private-label business,” Bezos replied. “But I can’t guarantee you that policy has never been violated.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/07/29/bezos-testimony-data-antitrust/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/07/29/bezos-t...
- shepherdjerred 5y ago
  Of course not. He also can’t guarantee none of his employees are murderers.
  - paxys 5y ago
    I mean Amazon does employ over a million people in the US. Statistically one of them could very well be a murderer.
- zeckalpha 5y ago
  You may want another source than a paper owned by Bezos.
  - tchalla 5y ago
    I mean, I get your point in principle but in this case the paper quotes Bezos verbatim in an "anti-trust investigation in front of the Congress. It's also incredible easy to verify that Bezos did make that statement from multiple other sources. https://www.npr.org/2020/07/30/897066231/4-big-tech-ceos-testified-before-house-panels-anti-trust-hearing https://www.npr.org/2020/07/30/897066231/4-big-tech-ceos-tes...
fungiblecog 5y ago
"Accused of lying to Congress". The "possibly" is redundant. The quality of journalistic English is terrible these days.
- detaro 5y ago
  It's not, because caveat is in the letter by the lawmakers.
EnderWT 5y ago
Link to the letter: https://judiciary.house.gov/uploadedfiles/letter_-_amazon_misrepresentations_-_10.18.21.pdf https://judiciary.house.gov/uploadedfiles/letter_-_amazon_mi...
redis_mlc 5y ago
FYI: Fauci lied to a Congresional committee on corona. He swore he didn't sponsor GoF in WIV, but grant documents say otherwise. (WIV received 65 grants from NIH, plus 26 other Chinese labs received grants.) The Democratic Party is not following the rule of law in 2021, but eventually this will catch up with those on the record when lying to Congress.

124 points by rrix2 5y ago

Who the hell does Amazon think he is, James Clapper?

What I don’t get it’s why they care now when this is an old retail strategy. Older than Amazon itself. Target is the epitome of pushing you white label brands down your throat from the minute you step into own of their stores. And this is essentially what every retailer does. They all check what sells the most, then they create their own brands, and then they promote and prioritize those brands over their shelved vendors. Show me one retailer that doesn’t do this. This strategy is the very reason why the direct to consumer model exists. Brands realized that they couldn’t compete fairly through product aggregators and their real survival and path to success was to do what retailers were already doing: to verticalize.

philistine 5y ago
The problem is not the practice itself; it's that Amazon representatives told Congress they did not do it. They lied, that's the problem. If they had said yes, we do indeed analyze what is happening in our marketplace to decide which products to launch, they wouldn't have gotten this letter.
- dehrmann 5y ago
  Are the quibbling over where Amazon looks at individual seller data or aggregated per-SKU data?
  - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
    > Are the quibbling over where Amazon looks at individual seller data or aggregated per-SKU data? No. They're "quibbling" over whether Amazon executives perjured themselves. Perjury doesn't have a "but, like, is it really a big deal" test.
    - RHSeeger 5y ago
      Given that nearly every important member of the government that has testified before congress has flat out lied to congress... this seems like selective enforcement. How about going after all the members of the military and intelligence command structures that told blatant lies when testifying.
      - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
        > nearly every important member of the government that has testified before congress has flat out lied to congress This is rubbish. There is a litany of recent, memorable cases. But they rarely met the legal threshold of contempt of Congress, and in the cases that did, there was seldom political will to prioritise its prosecution. Congress, by design, is a political creature. We don't want the President (DoJ) rounding up people who speak to a co-equal branch of government because he--unilaterally--thinks they might have lied.
    - dehrmann 5y ago
      From the article, > Bezos said the company prohibits its employees from using data on individual sellers to benefit its own private-label product lines. I could see someone hearing that and not realizing that per-SKU aggregation, or even clustered similar products, wouldn't break this rule.
- warmfuzzykitten 5y ago
  There are other possibilities than "they lied". The most likely explanation is that the branch in India used tactics that were specifically forbidden by corporate policy formulated in the United States, that corporate management was unaware that it took place, and is now plenty embarrassed to hear that it did. It's not necessarily true, by the way, that they wouldn't have gotten flack from Congress if they'd initially testified that they use sales and product data only they possess to find out which third-party products are both profitable and vulnerable to lower-cost competition, use it again to design competing house brands that are identical to the third party products down to the smallest detail, and follow that up by using their website to promote the knockoff products as preferable to the third party products they've ripped off. This is not a standard industry practice and would likely not be defensible as "It's just a house brand, like Safeway Soup. What's the big deal?"
rapind 5y ago
Probably not a bad idea to draw more attention to it regardless. Whether it's Walmart, Amazon, Costco, etc. If anyone can do it then they all MUST do it to compete. If we bring the hammer down on Amazon then we'll have to (ideally) bring the hammer down uniformly on everyone else. Basically it's sketchy behaviour across the board and Amazon has just proven themselves to be better, more efficient, and more willing at it. It's an argument worth having IMO. One side will cite consumer benefit and the other will point out that it has long term effects that reduce choice and innovation (and thus consumer benefit). Amazon would do just fine with a level playing field.
- emodendroket 5y ago
  Gotta be honest, I don't see it as much of a win if I can't buy store-brand cereal anymore.
  - xyzzyz 5y ago
    You don’t understand. Government needs you to stop buying store brand cereals, because they unfairly compete against General Mills Cheerios. See, stores can sell store brands cheaper than Cheerios, and that’s an anti-competitive practice, which the anti monopoly law is meant to protect from. Government will protect you by ensuring that there is no cheaper competing product, so that you will end up buying Cheerios at higher price. This will reduce the monopoly, and make the cereal market more competitive. Does that make sense to you? (It shouldn’t, because it doesn’t.)
    - 8note 5y ago
      It's just missing steps on breaking up General Mills, and grants for starting new cereal businesses
      - emodendroket 5y ago
        Seems like a tremendous use of energy and resources for little to no benefit.
throwawaycities 5y ago
Can you really not distinguish Amazon, it’s market position, and their acts from brick and mortar retailers that carry private label items? Even if you can’t distinguish Amazon’s conduct and a grocery store selling private label cereals side by side, the article really isn’t about that anyway but the fact that Amazon went before congress and was asked about prioritizing their private label products in search results over other sellers and Amazon representative lied under oath by denying they do that. I’m not aware of Target going before Congress and lying under oath about selling private label products, one would think if Amazon’s conduct was on the up and up they wouldn’t lie under oath to cover it up.
- devin 5y ago
  Let’s try it and see.
- fiddlerwoaroof 5y ago
  Isn’t it still the case that Walmart and similar brick and mortar stores have significantly higher revenue than Amazon’s e-commerce revenue? If anything, it’s worse for traditional stores because they have limited shelf space and so store brands can prevent name brands from even being available.
  - tw04 5y ago
    No, no it isn’t the case. Walmart is the only one with more revenue, but they don’t have AWS margins to prop up everything else. I think we’d all be better off if we didn’t have a 2-horse race for 90% of our purchases… Target (#3)had $93b in revenue in FY2020. Amazon e-commerce had $120b. https://corporate.target.com/annual-reports/2020 https://corporate.target.com/annual-reports/2020 https://www.statista.com/forecasts/1218313/amazon-revenue-development-ecommercedb https://www.statista.com/forecasts/1218313/amazon-revenue-de...
    - didibus 5y ago
      I'd agree if we had a 2-horse race, but I don't see it, there are a ton of competing retail stores both online and offline. And especially online, it's not like you're limited geographically where say your only store that has what you want is a big Walmart, you have access to hundreds of online retailer to choose from.
kennywinker 5y ago
On top of the lying, which another commenter pointed out is the major issue - Target doesn't pretend to be a marketplace. It's a curated store, some of the products are whitelabel, some are not. Amazon presents itself as a marketplace, where buyers and sellers can come together. Imagine I owned a shopping mall, and every time a business renting from me was successful I would hike up their rent and open a copycat shop in the stall next door... I think that's a closer analogy than the Target one.
- tarr11 5y ago
  Most corporate mall landlords have a requirement that you submit your monthly sales numbers and take a percentage of sales in addition to your rent.
  - asdff 5y ago
    Most retail stores also price shelf space according to sales too. Amazon on the other hand doesn't have any mechanism for you the brand to get preferential shelf space. In a mall you probably want a store by the entrance where everyone walks by, in a target you want shelf space at eye level, so there might be a premium for these spaces if you would like them. Can't do anything like that on Amazon. Third party scam products and name brands are weighed equally in search results. Amazon products actually get better placement, something you'd never see in a Target with their store brands since third party brands want to buy access to better placement and target wants to lease space at a premium to these brands.
- didibus 5y ago
  > Target Plus Marketplace is one of the top-tier eCommerce marketplaces, along with Amazon Marketplace and Walmart Marketplace, that cater to third party retailers. Target, one of the biggest retail chains in the United States, entered the eCommerce marketing realm in February 2019 and expanded its product assortment by allowing third party retailers to sell on Target.com
  - tablespoon 5y ago
tablespoon 5y ago
> What I don’t get it’s why they care now when this is an old retail strategy. Older than Amazon itself. > Target is the epitome of pushing you white label brands down your throat from the minute you step into own of their stores. And this is essentially what every retailer does. But Amazon isn't a simple retailer. Isn't the issue that they do this and operate a third party marketplace? IIRC, Target is a traditional retailer that doesn't operate a marketplace for other retailers to compete in.
- emodendroket 5y ago
  How different is Target's relationship to its suppliers from third-party Amazon sellers really? In many cases it's the same entity that wants to appear prominently in both venues.
  - asdff 5y ago
    Target is in the business of leasing shelf space. If you are a third party and want prominent placement in the store, target will lease that shelf to you. If you notice where target's third party stuff is placed, its actually rarely at eye level. That premium placement is reserved for other brands to lease at top dollar. Target probably makes more money selling less of their store brand and leasing primo space than they do if they were to use that primo space to sell more of their store brand and lease the bottom shelves. Amazon on the other hand doesn't work like a retail store. You aren't leasing a finite amount of space within the Amazon website. You are beholden to the search algorithm run by amazon which is a black box compared to an agreement made for shelf space in a retail store, you don't pay less for worse placement and you can't pay more for better placement, and Amazon continually tries to poach your business with low cost knockoffs and their search engines are uncannily tailored to prefer these results.
    - emodendroket 5y ago
      Isn't paying for sponsored results more or less equivalent to paying for better shelf space? The space may not "really" be limited, but for practical purposes, the second page of search results barely exists.
asdff 5y ago
It's a different situation in retail than what goes on with the amazon website. It's not a marketplace in the sense amazon is, brands are leasing specific shelf space. They pay an agreed upon price for these shelves and that's what they receive. Amazon doesn't abide to anything like this. To use a target example, it would be like they just threw all the third party stuff to the back of the store and only left the target brand stuff at eye level in the aisles, when that's not the case since the third party stuff has the best placement in the store. Brands typically pay extra for prominent shelf space position right at eye level and receive it, they aren't getting worked here by target like brands are by amazon when their results are pushed below the fold in favor of amazon basics products.
diffeomorphism 5y ago
Scale. Pointing at any one retailer and saying "that is scummy, stop it" does not work, feels arbitrary and "then go elsewhere" is actually an option. If Amazon or a number of large chains do it, there is no reasonable alternative. Case in point from Germany. If small supermarket chains treat their suppliers badly, that is their business. If Aldi (very large chain) does, this is potentialky ruinous for many companies, so politics do get involved. It always is a tradeoff between the possible harm, number of people affected and the desire to not intervene if at all possible.
sidm83 5y ago
In India, this is being dealt with in a different way. Amazon India and Flipkart (controlled by Walmart) are treated as a "marketplace", ie providing a platform for other sellers. There are strict rules to limit domination of a few sellers on the platform (limits on percentage of sales by each seller). Neither of the two companies are particularly happy about it so probably it works to some extent. https://www.livemint.com/industry/retail/ecommerce-companies-to-write-to-govt-against-draft-rules-11624910348605.html https://www.livemint.com/industry/retail/ecommerce-companies...
timoth3y 5y ago
> how me one retailer that doesn’t do this. The thing is, Amazon claims they are not a retailer, but rather a neutral marketplace matching buyer and seller. Tat's why they claim they should not be held responsible for false advertising, violations of consumer protection laws, or defective products. However, when they misuse that marketplace data, they turn around and claim that they are just one retailer among many. It's getting harder and harder for Amazon to maintain this legal equivocation.

sjwalter 5y ago

Numerous people, representing a plethora of organizations, have openly lied to congress in the recent past. Fauci lied to congress about GoF research funding. Nothing happened. Dorsey lied to congress about censoring Trump. Nothing happened. Wilbur Ross lied to congress, and a DOJ watchdog even reported it to congress. Nothing happened. DNI Clapper lied to congress, and was exposed literally one day later, to national headlines. Nothing happened. Billy Barr lied to congress. Nothing happened. Congress has to make a criminal referral for anything to happen when they're lied to. Congress is not really interested in doing so. Congress is OK with being lied to.

devin 5y ago
Politics aside, this is wildly depressing and true.
JumpCrisscross 5y ago
> Congress is OK with being lied to There is a high bar for enforcing contempt of Congress [1]. For good reason. It requires both unlawful behavior to motivate the executive [2], and political animus to motivate the legislature. Unlike in every one of the cases you mention, there is popular support for skewering Facebook, and, to a lesser degree, Amazon [3][4]. That satisfies the second condition in a way it didn't for your other examples. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contempt_of_Congress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contempt_of_Congress [2] https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/RL34097.pdf https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/RL34097.pdf [3] https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/6/22702798/verge-tech-survey-2021-trust-privacy-security-facebook-amazon-google-apple-pandemic https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/6/22702798/verge-tech-surve... [4] https://aflcio.org/press/releases/new-poll-77-americans-support-amazon-union-drive https://aflcio.org/press/releases/new-poll-77-americans-supp...
- comp_throw7 5y ago
  From [3]: "Thirteen percent of respondents who were familiar with the brand had unfavorable opinions of Amazon, compared to just 9 percent in 2020." That does _not_ sound like "popular support for skewering"! That sounds like "Amazon is one of the most popular, well-liked, and trusted organizations in the world".

kfprt 5y ago

I'm sure they'll prosecute Amazon for this crime just like they prosecuted James Clapper for lying to congress.

perl4ever 5y ago
"Possibly" lying to congress. Now I ask you, what is that? Do they give Nobel prizes out for "possibly" doing physics??
- kfprt 5y ago
  I believe the word was 'unwitting'
  - perl4ever 5y ago
    Originally it was "attempted".
- ravar 5y ago
  Have you seen the 1912 prize?
  - perl4ever 5y ago
    I went to look the Physics prize up, and got sidetracked by the winner of the Peace prize - Elihu Root. First of all, the name sounds like a Neal Stephenson character. Then, I'm reading his page and it says things like: - He got his start as defense counsel for Boss Tweed - Went on to be a prominent corporate lawyer - Was a lifelong opponent of feminism - Was an advocate for American imperialism in the Philippines and elsewhere - As secretary of war, was the "leading modernizer of the Army" - Tried but failed to make an alliance between the US and Russia just after their revolution - may have inadvertently caused the rise of the Bolsheviks by allegedly inciting the provisional government to do something stupid - Supported the amendment to the US Constitution allowing an income tax - His "mentor" was Joseph Hodges Choate, who made the cover of Vogue in April 1898...

m0zg 5y ago

I'd be more surprised if they didn't lie, frankly. Lying during congressional testimonies and confirmations is a time honored tradition that applies in nearly every case. I can name plenty of cases where people either lied outright or lied by omission, but can't name any significant repercussions anybody experienced for lying. Ergo, I don't see why people would tell the truth that's disadvantageous to them, rather than lies that are advantageous.

JumpCrisscross 5y ago
> Lying during congressional testimonies and confirmations is a time honored tradition that applies in nearly every case No, it isn't. This statement falls in the same category as "everyone commits insider trading; I should buy out-of-the-money options." You can recount specific cases because they remain exceptions.
- RHSeeger 5y ago
  But the fact that they faced no repercussions for doing so is not an exception, it's the rule.
  - JumpCrisscross 5y ago
    > that they faced no repercussions for doing so is not an exception, it's the rule This is playground logic. No enforcement mechanism is perfect. Permitting nullification on the hope of perfect enforcement is a straight line to anarchy. Congress isn't a court. Its purpose is to legislate [1]. If you lie to a Congress and it impedes the legislative process, you can get boned, provided there is political will to refer you to the DoJ and sufficient evidence for them to pursue and convict you. But it's not analogous to contempt of court. (In particular, there is Constitutional risk around the executive interfering with people talking to Congress. Even at the request of some of its members.) [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/354/178 https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/354/178
    - RHSeeger 5y ago

theknocker 5y ago

Too bad the representative government is literally just pretend. Literally just pretend.

bpodgursky 5y ago

I don't actually understand why anyone has an obligation to answer honestly to congress. Who cares what congress wants? They aren't a judge. They're supposed to represent YOU. Congress isn't a judge, and when they summon someone, they aren't on trial. When you're answering questions before a judge you have to answer honestly. Not when some elected official from some random state I don't care about decides to posture for CSPAN. Why do they have any right to my time in the first place?

ocdtrekkie 5y ago
Bear in mind, you may not care about a congressperson from Alabama, but the people in Alabama who elected him do, and he's there to represent those people... you have your own representative representing you. The fact that it's someone else's representative doesn't make them any less important because they aren't there for you personally. And yes, Congress can effectively put someone on trial (see: impeachment) and the fact finding processes they use before creating legislation is similar to a court proceeding. You are legally bound to respond honestly.
- bpodgursky 5y ago
  Congress can only impeach certain government officials, and the result of impeachment is losing the office, not jail. Random citizens are not at the mercy of punishment by congress. That's super protected against in the constitution and by checks & balances.
  - ocdtrekkie 5y ago
    The fact that Congress and the courts have different roles, doesn't mean lying to one should be okay and lying to the other should be illegal: Lying to both is illegal. Testifying before Congress is part of the process of sourcing truth for laws to be passed to address issues with our society. It's critical that people answer honestly.

tchalla 5y ago

Bezos has been pretty honest that he can’t guarantee employees haven’t violated Amazon policy. > “What I can tell you is we have a policy against using seller-specific data to aid our private-label business,” Bezos replied. “But I can’t guarantee you that policy has never been violated.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/07/29/bezos-testimony-data-antitrust/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/07/29/bezos-t...

shepherdjerred 5y ago
Of course not. He also can’t guarantee none of his employees are murderers.
- paxys 5y ago
  I mean Amazon does employ over a million people in the US. Statistically one of them could very well be a murderer.
zeckalpha 5y ago
You may want another source than a paper owned by Bezos.
- tchalla 5y ago
  I mean, I get your point in principle but in this case the paper quotes Bezos verbatim in an "anti-trust investigation in front of the Congress. It's also incredible easy to verify that Bezos did make that statement from multiple other sources. https://www.npr.org/2020/07/30/897066231/4-big-tech-ceos-testified-before-house-panels-anti-trust-hearing https://www.npr.org/2020/07/30/897066231/4-big-tech-ceos-tes...

fungiblecog 5y ago

"Accused of lying to Congress". The "possibly" is redundant. The quality of journalistic English is terrible these days.

detaro 5y ago
It's not, because caveat is in the letter by the lawmakers.

EnderWT 5y ago

Link to the letter: https://judiciary.house.gov/uploadedfiles/letter_-_amazon_misrepresentations_-_10.18.21.pdf https://judiciary.house.gov/uploadedfiles/letter_-_amazon_mi...

redis_mlc 5y ago

FYI: Fauci lied to a Congresional committee on corona. He swore he didn't sponsor GoF in WIV, but grant documents say otherwise. (WIV received 65 grants from NIH, plus 26 other Chinese labs received grants.) The Democratic Party is not following the rule of law in 2021, but eventually this will catch up with those on the record when lying to Congress.