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I am not promoting "punishing harshly petty theft" I am suggesting that the direction current prosecutors are going is to not punish theft at all. I am also no

I am not promoting "punishing harshly petty theft" I am suggesting that the direction current prosecutors are going is to not punish theft at all. I am also not denying that Amazon and eBay can operate as easy targets to fence stolen goods. What I am suggesting is that demanding Amazon "do something" about goods that fell off the back of a truck essentially means that any seller who doesn't get an Official Licensed Dealer badge or equivalent from a name brand company cannot do business on the internet. The only way to combat this from Amazon's side is to ban all sales not authorized by the original manufacturer. There's no way for them to tell on their end whether goods were legitimately purchased or not, and any system used to track these sellers or prevent them from operating would give big brands a "delete" button on sales of their products worldwide. As someone who is not a fan of software licensing for physical goods, this terrifies me, and bringing that regulatory environment as a response when we aren't willing to prosecute people for these crimes seems a bit much.

ryan_lane 4y ago
> I am suggesting that the direction current prosecutors are going is to not punish theft at all. Your suggestion would generally be incorrect. Prosecutors in _some_ jurisdictions are choosing not to prosecute petty theft, but when organized crime cases are brought to them, they are prosecuting them. Police, however, have done a poor job of investigating these crime rings, and in some cases have chosen not to make arrests to push a political agenda. More enforcement against petty theft won't stop the organized crime problem. You're going to an extreme on how to stop the illegal sales. Amazon could, for instance, stop allowing sales from any company that has fenced illegal goods through them. They could only allow well established businesses that have existed for x years to sell, or heavily inspect companies younger than x years. They could get lists of well-known resellers from manufacturers and heavily inspect businesses not on those lists.
wstuartcl 4y ago
If local pawn shops can do it I think Amazon can do it. You seem to have a weird position that Amazon is some innocent player in this exchange -- they are making money from every one of these illicit sales. They enjoy benefit from looking the other way -- its not that there are no processes that can halt or greatly reduce the problem. Theft is prosecuted ffs, the issue is that it has become so lucrative (because of the easy way to convert the stolen items to money via amazon/ebay) that the system is being flooded by people stealing. In no reality can you catch 100% of shoplifters, but there is a reality where you make both sides of the act more costly with less reward (high chance of getting cought and prosecuted + hard to gain value from the goods).

ryan_lane 4y ago

> I am suggesting that the direction current prosecutors are going is to not punish theft at all. Your suggestion would generally be incorrect. Prosecutors in _some_ jurisdictions are choosing not to prosecute petty theft, but when organized crime cases are brought to them, they are prosecuting them. Police, however, have done a poor job of investigating these crime rings, and in some cases have chosen not to make arrests to push a political agenda. More enforcement against petty theft won't stop the organized crime problem. You're going to an extreme on how to stop the illegal sales. Amazon could, for instance, stop allowing sales from any company that has fenced illegal goods through them. They could only allow well established businesses that have existed for x years to sell, or heavily inspect companies younger than x years. They could get lists of well-known resellers from manufacturers and heavily inspect businesses not on those lists.

wstuartcl 4y ago

If local pawn shops can do it I think Amazon can do it. You seem to have a weird position that Amazon is some innocent player in this exchange -- they are making money from every one of these illicit sales. They enjoy benefit from looking the other way -- its not that there are no processes that can halt or greatly reduce the problem. Theft is prosecuted ffs, the issue is that it has become so lucrative (because of the easy way to convert the stolen items to money via amazon/ebay) that the system is being flooded by people stealing. In no reality can you catch 100% of shoplifters, but there is a reality where you make both sides of the act more costly with less reward (high chance of getting cought and prosecuted + hard to gain value from the goods).