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The examples are listed in the article. The last point is pretty damning if they can prove it. > Biasing Amazon’s search results to preference Amazon’s own pro
by cj 3y ago
The examples are listed in the article. The last point is pretty damning if they can prove it.
> Biasing Amazon’s search results to preference Amazon’s own products over ones that Amazon knows are of better quality.
> Degrading the customer experience by replacing relevant, organic search results with paid advertisements
> Charging costly fees on the hundreds of thousands of sellers that currently have no choice but to rely on Amazon to stay in business. [...]
> Anti-discounting measures that punish sellers and deter other online retailers from offering prices lower than Amazon, keeping prices higher for products across the internet. For example, if Amazon discovers that a seller is offering lower-priced goods elsewhere, Amazon can bury discounting sellers so far down in Amazon’s search results that they become effectively invisible.
- taeric 3y agoFirst, disclaimer that I do not mean my post as a reason not to pursue antitrust concerns. By all means, look for them. If they are found, make rules about them. That said, I have specific doubts. For one, search has always been crap on Amazon. I could believe they tried some of these tricks, but I confess I have my doubts they would execute on them well. For second, some of this is standard BS that retail has just accepted. That is, bringing on "experts" from in the retail industry would almost certainly bias you in some of these directions. The standard contracts that retail stores have pushed for a long time are such that they absolutely should be curtailed. They can be good tools for small companies, but it is clear that as companies get larger, they amplify power imbalances.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- Robotbeat 3y agoThe last one is the most problematic IMO