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my question is why hasn't the FBI seized every Amazon warehouse for knowingly selling counterfeit goods? They do this routinely for smaller businesses selling f

my question is why hasn't the FBI seized every Amazon warehouse for knowingly selling counterfeit goods? They do this routinely for smaller businesses selling fake stuff

bagels 3y ago
Do they usually seize the warehouses, or the counterfeit goods? Is it the FBI that is typically doing this, or CBP?
2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
I've wondered why it's allowed as well. I assume via salami-slicing/frog-boiling. We let it get worse little by little because everyone was winning now it feels too big to police.
gumballindie 3y ago
Corruption.
StressedDev 3y ago
Probably because seizing the entire warehouse is an awful and unjust idea. First, Amazon's warehouse hold merchandise from other companies. Why should they be punished because Amazon or a different company is selling counterfeit goods. Second, do the retailers know they are selling counterfeit products? There is a huge difference between intentionally deceiving people and getting hoodwinked by thieves. For example, if Amazon's employees decided to buy counterfeit and promote them, that would be wrong. However, what happens if an Amazon employee is tricked and thinks they are buying legitimate goods but are really buying fake goods. In the later case, Amazon is a victim of fraud and should not be punished. Finally, punishments should be proportional to the crime. If I cause $5 worth of damage, I should not pay a $10,000 fine. Note I have noticed a lot of online posters push for draconian punishments and that is not just or helpful.
- michaelt 3y ago
  > Second, do the retailers know they are selling counterfeit products? Everyone selling 2tb thumb drives knows they're selling counterfeit products, yes. They will of course strategically claim ignorance if confronted - a lie only the most naive would believe.
  - kube-system 3y ago
    Technically speaking, those 2tb flash drives are fraudulent, but not counterfeit. (which generally refers to misrepresentation in brand origin) Also, the word "knowingly" requires the person taking action to have the knowledge in their head. Someone else knowing it isn't enough to qualify. Amazon's listings are not curated. Amazon knows nothing about fraudulent listings until later brought to their attention. These fake flash drives exist for short period of time until they are brought to Amazon's attention, at which point, they are taken down.
- stefan_ 3y ago
  They control the listings, they receive and hold the merchandise, they ship it, they deliver it, they take payment, they handle customer complaints, ... What's the point where we are going to say "it's not good enough to point at the 3rd party with the autogenerated name" and "computers at large"?
kube-system 3y ago
Because they don't "knowingly sell counterfeit goods". Amazon employees don't create these listings, other people do. Someone that "knowingly sells counterfeit goods" is humanly aware that a specific item they are selling is counterfeit, and decide to sell it anyway, which is not the case here. These listings are taken down whack-a-mole style as Amazon is made humanly aware of their existence.
- JKCalhoun 3y ago
  Sounds like Amazon should vet the items before allowing them be listed. Strange how easy it is to brush off accountability and still make a profit off of illegalities.
  - kube-system 3y ago
    That is a fair position. I was commenting on how "knowingly" works.
- Regnore 3y ago
  Does Amazon do literally anything to pro-actively prevent the selling of counterfeit goods? > Prior to the deal, Apple sent “hundreds of thousands of take-down notices” to Amazon to reduce counterfeits, and the company conducted test purchases on Amazon that “consistently returned high counterfeit rates
  - kube-system 3y ago
    They have anti-counterfeit teams, brand protection programs, etc. They say their brand protection is about 99% effective at blocking counterfeits. But, they have something like 350+ million listings, so there's still tons of stuff that makes it through the cracks. Fraudulent listings aren't specifically an Amazon problem, there's junk like the above example on basically every marketplace site. Search "2tb flash drive" on any of them. It's a fundamental problem with non-curated marketplaces.
  - dbcurtis 3y ago
    Have you ever gotten counterfeit Amazon Basics products? I thought not. Amazon could shut this down of they actually cared.
zx8080 3y ago
> my question is why hasn't the FBI seized every Amazon warehouse for knowingly selling counterfeit goods? What government would kill the goose that lays golden eggs? They pay tax. Buyers pay tax. Huge amount (but not that much as I expected [0]). What else is needed? 0 - https://www.investopedia.com/insights/amazon-effect-us-economy/ https://www.investopedia.com/insights/amazon-effect-us-econo...
- KennyBlanken 3y ago
  ~$2BN in federal taxes is a drop in the bucket. What little taxes they pay state/locally are next to nothing because of sweetheart deals in exchange for locating warehouses and offices in particular areas...deals which mean they likely pay less tax than the costs they incur on the communities in terms of services and infrastructure.
- arrosenberg 3y ago
  > What government would kill the goose that lays golden eggs? They pay tax. Ironically, Amazon skated sales tax to such a degree that Congress had to change the law.
- FpUser 3y ago
  Where did I hear that - "We are a nation of laws"?
  - userinanother 3y ago
    We have lots of laws unequal enforcement is a different matter
newZWhoDis 3y ago
The world makes a lot more sense when you realize the government is basically a gang. The majority of law enforcement/military action falls into a few buckets: 1) Farming the tax cattle (ex: speeding tickets) 2) Tracking down and punishing “foxes in the hen house” who disrupt their tax cattle (ex: a murderer easily destroys $1M in taxes per tax cow killed, gotta stop that) 3) Turf wars vs other gangs who would usurp their role as farmer
- Eisenstein 3y ago
  The world makes a lot more sense when you realize it is composed of people, no matter what you decide to label them on top of that.
hedora 3y ago
Amazon invented a new category of business for itself. It claims it is not a store or a retailer, or even a distributor in the conventional sense of the word. If it were any of those things, it would be liable for safety issues of the products it sells, among other things. I suspect “other things” includes “knowingly operating a cartel that violates patent and copyright law on a larger scale than any other organization in the western hemisphere; primarily by importing illegal and unsafe counterfeit goods into the US”. I have no idea why the courts have gone along with this scheme. My guess is that it’s corruption.

my question is why hasn't the FBI seized every Amazon warehouse for knowingly selling counterfeit goods? They do this routinely for smaller businesses selling fake stuff

bagels 3y ago

Do they usually seize the warehouses, or the counterfeit goods? Is it the FBI that is typically doing this, or CBP?

2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago

I've wondered why it's allowed as well. I assume via salami-slicing/frog-boiling. We let it get worse little by little because everyone was winning now it feels too big to police.

gumballindie 3y ago

Corruption.

StressedDev 3y ago

Probably because seizing the entire warehouse is an awful and unjust idea. First, Amazon's warehouse hold merchandise from other companies. Why should they be punished because Amazon or a different company is selling counterfeit goods. Second, do the retailers know they are selling counterfeit products? There is a huge difference between intentionally deceiving people and getting hoodwinked by thieves. For example, if Amazon's employees decided to buy counterfeit and promote them, that would be wrong. However, what happens if an Amazon employee is tricked and thinks they are buying legitimate goods but are really buying fake goods. In the later case, Amazon is a victim of fraud and should not be punished. Finally, punishments should be proportional to the crime. If I cause $5 worth of damage, I should not pay a $10,000 fine. Note I have noticed a lot of online posters push for draconian punishments and that is not just or helpful.

michaelt 3y ago
> Second, do the retailers know they are selling counterfeit products? Everyone selling 2tb thumb drives knows they're selling counterfeit products, yes. They will of course strategically claim ignorance if confronted - a lie only the most naive would believe.
- kube-system 3y ago
  Technically speaking, those 2tb flash drives are fraudulent, but not counterfeit. (which generally refers to misrepresentation in brand origin) Also, the word "knowingly" requires the person taking action to have the knowledge in their head. Someone else knowing it isn't enough to qualify. Amazon's listings are not curated. Amazon knows nothing about fraudulent listings until later brought to their attention. These fake flash drives exist for short period of time until they are brought to Amazon's attention, at which point, they are taken down.
stefan_ 3y ago
They control the listings, they receive and hold the merchandise, they ship it, they deliver it, they take payment, they handle customer complaints, ... What's the point where we are going to say "it's not good enough to point at the 3rd party with the autogenerated name" and "computers at large"?

kube-system 3y ago

Because they don't "knowingly sell counterfeit goods". Amazon employees don't create these listings, other people do. Someone that "knowingly sells counterfeit goods" is humanly aware that a specific item they are selling is counterfeit, and decide to sell it anyway, which is not the case here. These listings are taken down whack-a-mole style as Amazon is made humanly aware of their existence.

JKCalhoun 3y ago
Sounds like Amazon should vet the items before allowing them be listed. Strange how easy it is to brush off accountability and still make a profit off of illegalities.
- kube-system 3y ago
  That is a fair position. I was commenting on how "knowingly" works.
Regnore 3y ago
Does Amazon do literally anything to pro-actively prevent the selling of counterfeit goods? > Prior to the deal, Apple sent “hundreds of thousands of take-down notices” to Amazon to reduce counterfeits, and the company conducted test purchases on Amazon that “consistently returned high counterfeit rates
- kube-system 3y ago
  They have anti-counterfeit teams, brand protection programs, etc. They say their brand protection is about 99% effective at blocking counterfeits. But, they have something like 350+ million listings, so there's still tons of stuff that makes it through the cracks. Fraudulent listings aren't specifically an Amazon problem, there's junk like the above example on basically every marketplace site. Search "2tb flash drive" on any of them. It's a fundamental problem with non-curated marketplaces.
- dbcurtis 3y ago
  Have you ever gotten counterfeit Amazon Basics products? I thought not. Amazon could shut this down of they actually cared.

zx8080 3y ago

> my question is why hasn't the FBI seized every Amazon warehouse for knowingly selling counterfeit goods? What government would kill the goose that lays golden eggs? They pay tax. Buyers pay tax. Huge amount (but not that much as I expected [0]). What else is needed? 0 - https://www.investopedia.com/insights/amazon-effect-us-economy/ https://www.investopedia.com/insights/amazon-effect-us-econo...

KennyBlanken 3y ago
~$2BN in federal taxes is a drop in the bucket. What little taxes they pay state/locally are next to nothing because of sweetheart deals in exchange for locating warehouses and offices in particular areas...deals which mean they likely pay less tax than the costs they incur on the communities in terms of services and infrastructure.
arrosenberg 3y ago
> What government would kill the goose that lays golden eggs? They pay tax. Ironically, Amazon skated sales tax to such a degree that Congress had to change the law.
FpUser 3y ago
Where did I hear that - "We are a nation of laws"?
- userinanother 3y ago
  We have lots of laws unequal enforcement is a different matter

newZWhoDis 3y ago

The world makes a lot more sense when you realize the government is basically a gang. The majority of law enforcement/military action falls into a few buckets: 1) Farming the tax cattle (ex: speeding tickets) 2) Tracking down and punishing “foxes in the hen house” who disrupt their tax cattle (ex: a murderer easily destroys $1M in taxes per tax cow killed, gotta stop that) 3) Turf wars vs other gangs who would usurp their role as farmer

Eisenstein 3y ago
The world makes a lot more sense when you realize it is composed of people, no matter what you decide to label them on top of that.

hedora 3y ago

Amazon invented a new category of business for itself. It claims it is not a store or a retailer, or even a distributor in the conventional sense of the word. If it were any of those things, it would be liable for safety issues of the products it sells, among other things. I suspect “other things” includes “knowingly operating a cartel that violates patent and copyright law on a larger scale than any other organization in the western hemisphere; primarily by importing illegal and unsafe counterfeit goods into the US”. I have no idea why the courts have gone along with this scheme. My guess is that it’s corruption.