Amazon Copied Products and Rigged Search Results To Promote Its Own Brands, Documents Show (reuters.com) 75
Amazon.com has been repeatedly accused of knocking off products it sells on its website and of exploiting its vast trove of internal data to promote its own merchandise at the expense of other sellers. The company has denied the accusations. But thousands of pages of internal Amazon documents examined by Reuters -- including emails, strategy papers and business plans -- show the company ran a systematic campaign of creating knockoffs and manipulating search results to boost its own product lines in India, one of the company's largest growth markets. From the report: The documents reveal how Amazon's private-brands team in India secretly exploited internal data from Amazon.in to copy products sold by other companies, and then offered them on its platform. The employees also stoked sales of Amazon private-brand products by rigging Amazon's search results so that the company's products would appear, as one 2016 strategy report for India put it, "in the first 2 or three ... search results" when customers were shopping on Amazon.in. Among the victims of the strategy: a popular shirt brand in India, John Miller, which is owned by a company whose chief executive is Kishore Biyani, known as the country's "retail king." Amazon decided to "follow the measurements of" John Miller shirts down to the neck circumference and sleeve length, the document states.
I'm extremely surprised (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I'm extremely surprised (Score:5, Funny)
Ob Casablanca (Score:2, Informative)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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What is surprising is that they tried to lie about their biggest open secret.
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I wonder if it would have been ok if they had a disclaimer on top that they were prioritizing their products? Even better would be a filter to exclude their products (or other sellers.)
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Oh it's amazing... Amazon must be the first retailer in history to ever do this.
The local pawn shop, grocery, and auto part stores would never dare give any of the prime real-estate on their shelves to items of their own brand label over items being sold by another brand, would they?
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Auto parts, I've never seen that either. Everything is out there, but the in house 'brand' is so much cheaper it's the obvious option, when there is even other brands. I don't know about the markups in that industry.
I've never seen a pawn shop have a in house brand. You'd have to elaborate
Lex Luthor (Score:2, Troll)
I have to admit to being skeptical, but there has been a steady stream of positive announcements from Amazon since Bezos resigned as CEO. From worker rights on out, they've stopped doing a small list of shitty behaviors.
I hope it keeps going and Bezos enjoys his permanent orbital condo like a 2030's JR Hadden.
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Positive PR campaign surrounding a CEO change is standard corporate practice.
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... and this is a surprise? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:... and this is a surprise? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not a surprise. The news here is that there is hard evidence they did it, which will help other companies sue them for it.
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However I do think this legitimately adds weight to the argument for anti-trust action.
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According to the article, Amazon have claimed they don't do this. That has at least the potential to give rise to estoppel, possibly even claims of fraud.
Re:... and this is a surprise? (Score:5, Insightful)
False. Store brand products are displayed directly next to the name brand product along with the price. This allows the customer to compare prices, size, ingredients, etc. Store brand products are not given any different shelf space than name brand products.
What Amazon is doing is hiding the name brand product and only showing their product. Since Amazon controls what one sees on their site, that might all under abuse of dominance [ijclp.com]. It is certainly anti-competitive behavior. In case you have trouble falling asleep, you can read this article from the DOJ [justice.gov] regarding market power and monopoly power, both of which Amazon might also fall under.
Re: ... and this is a surprise? (Score:1)
What Amazon is doing is hiding the name brand product and only showing their product.
No, they aren't hiding any item - you made that up.
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Sue Amazon for what, exactly?
They aren't selling their product as if it was their competitors.
They list it next to the competitors product - is that a crime?
They copied shirt sizes? Please, those are standardized for local markets to allow people to buy clothes without trying them on first - is the dimension of your XL t-shirt really a trade secret?
Amazon monitored the items sold by third-parties and sometimes decides to offer in-house/store brand items that are similar/same as the popular item - that's not
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Copyright infringement is much easier to prove if you can show that the infringer studied your thing before cloning it.
Re: ... and this is a surprise? (Score:2)
We're the Indian shirts in question copyright-protected? Patented? Trademarked?
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Cue the very first sentence of TFA:
This does not suggest that it comes as a surprise to anyone other than those who take Amazon's word at face value.
People have long expected this, but lacked any decisive evidence to back up th
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It's an inherent problem to Amazon existing as a vertically integrated system. Ebay has kept an OK reputation by functioning only as a marketplace. They help buyers and sellers connect in exchange for a cut of the price, but they don't sell anything of their own. Because of that, they can remain relatively neutral.
In cont
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Why?
Because Reuters were only able to determine it happened in India. That's a big surprise because I thought it was common knowledge that this happens everywhere.
Amazon Basics (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Amazon Basics (Score:4, Insightful)
Does anyone think Amazon has a factory (or factories) churning out their "Basic" products? No, of course not - they have third-parties manufacture them, some times the very manufacturer they are ostensibly competing with on the website.
That's how it always works (Score:1)
That's basically how this stuff always works. I'm not sure why anybody is surprised.
Any situation where you are depending on other companies to sell your products, be it online retailers, app stores, etc, they are going to take the best ideas and try to capitalize and profit on them.
Do people not think that walmart does similar stuff when determining what products to make and sell under their own private brands?
Its Almost (Score:1)
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In the US maybe. In Europe, supermarkets tend to promote their own store brands as the reason why you should visit their store and not some other store. They will often do collaborations with celebrities, influencers, etc on their brands.
Why is this a surprise? (Score:4, Insightful)
Amazon never implied they were making an independent search engine for "stuff".
Amazon is literally an Ecommerce retailer, and their website is the website of a Retailer - Of course when you use the search tool it is going to respond to a search with products they think you are interested in based on your search terms prioritizing ones most profitable to the retailer.
The site has 3rd party retailers as partners yes, But they've always been visibly treated as 2nd class; have rules on pricing, Amazon themself provides some guarantees and protections over their sales, and Of course Amazon's going to compete aggressively if they see opportunity... If you wanted an independent marketplace to sell - Amazon is Not that, never been that, and has never even claimed to be that.
Perhaps running your own Website, or selling your listings on eBay would be a better fit.... OH Wait, the deal is less good because you don't have Amazon driving traffic
to your listings, and operating in an Independent marketplace is more expensive and possibly less profitable, because you're listings are not providing a sufficient benefit for the Retailer you're competing with to offer you a storefront basically for free (Minus a cut of sales).
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Exactly, I don't know what their market place agreements look like as far as what they offer third-party sellers but on the surface I am with you here I don't really get it.
Crying the Amazon search results 'feature' certain items is a bit like being upset about which products the grocery store features on the end aisles. I assume what is there is so assigned such prime realestate because of reasons along the line of
- Its older inventory they want to ensure turns
- Its stuff from the category they get the bes
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The question isn't purely what Amazon is doing but also whether they should be allowed to do it. Using their dominance as a retailer to expand, first into serving as a marketplace and then as a manufacturer goes against people's idea of how markets ought to work.
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Writing random things in bold doesn't magically make this not antitrust.
oldest trick in the book (Score:2)
oldest trick in the book
Get someone else to do all the heavy lifting such as product R&D, production, etc. effectively eliminating those costs for you. Then just generically copy their stuff. Make all your money off someone else's work. (which is why I think it is highly unethical, but sadly legal)
This was news to some people? (Score:1)
Too much power in one place (Score:1)
Amazon should be broken up. But so should other corps, eg supermarket chains that produce own labelled items that are knock offs of branded goods. However this is unlikely to happen.
Re: Too much power in one place (Score:2)
But why is it unlikely? The profit for the US is too great. despite this being about Amazon India, you can bet some of those funds are siphoned to the US. If the US breaks Amazon up in a way significant enough to disrupt this behavior, it also takes a hit to to this influx of foreign capital. This is why corporations and governments get in bed together. If we could stop globalism, it would be a lot easier to address monopolies but in light of globalism, most nations accept monopolies, a along as it's their
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Why are store-brand groceries a problem?
Ever notice they are cheaper?
Ever consider some grocery shoppers might be price-conscious and prefer store brands to save some money?
Ever wonder where shop-rite peas come from? Ill give you a hint, Shop-rite does not have a pea processing plant, they are made in the same factory, with the same grade of peas, packed exactly the same way as the name-brand peas - the name brand pea processor runs the store-brand product to fill up idle time in the plant and turn a small
Sponsored results? (Score:2)
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Sponsored ads are product placements bought by the seller.
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But it really is to the point of degrading amazon's offering. It's legimately getting harder to find the good stuff.
And google.com/shopping (formerly froogle.google.com) was recently changed to make it useless to me. I don't even know if you can sort by lowest price first in any useful manner any more. Maybe I was the only person using it anyways, but I sure don't like the c
Um, duh? (Score:2)
Not to be obvious or anything but...wouldn't this be obvious?
Seriously, Amazon is a selling-stuff platform that has now started selling stuff itself.
Can anyone possibly believe it's neutral and NOT watching the metrics for products it can easily replace with its own?
I'd even bet that buried in 100 pages of boilerplate 4-point-EULA it says they can do this, when you sign up for them to be your storefront.
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Amazon started off by selling stuff itself, and later opened its market place to sell other peoples' stuff.
Really a big deal? (Score:2, Interesting)
Imagine you had a brick-and-mortar store, and you sold other people's items. You can't help but notice that one product, a shirt, is very, very popular - you keep ringing up sales for that shirt and keep ordering more. One day, it occurs to you - maybe you could offer a store brand shirt, just like the very, very popular shirt, and sell it at a discount to the very, very popular shirt and make a bigger profit than reselling the very, very popular shirt.
Ok, so now you have your new, cheaper, in-house brand s
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Amazon does something wrong if it breaks patent or copyright law when it creates knock-off products.
Amazon does something unethical if it basically says, "I am altering the deal, pray I don't alter it any further" to companies by offering a bait-and-switch where it offers your product for sale on is site simply to see which ones will be most profitable for them to knock-off.
All of this is why I am
Re: Really a big deal? (Score:2)
There is no report of Amazon shipping the wrong product intentionally or accidentally.
Booking a sale for one product but shipping another, would quickly cost Amazon huge - because they'd be paying the seller but not shipping their item, shipping their own instead.
How does Amazon profit from such mischief?
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As you probably realize, you have described the Costco store / Kirkland brand relationship.
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Re: Really a big deal? (Score:2)
They deny doing anything wrong - what is described here is not wrong (illegal).
Monopoly abuses position (Score:1)
And other shocking results.
Ideally there would be a public market place (Score:2)
It is unbelievable that Reuters (Score:2)
could only find evidence of this happening in India. Shit man even Slashdot covered these stories of it happening all over the world
https://slashdot.org/story/21/... [slashdot.org]
This rabbit hole is deep. Here's an example: (Score:2)
Re: This rabbit hole is deep. Here's an example: (Score:2)
Your Cliff Stoll story has nothing to do with this story.
A Chinese company 'stole' his listing, and Amazon refused to investigate what happened.
Cliff Stoll sells Klein Bottles, the Chinese company sells wart remover, Amazon provides a listing service.
Amazon did not see the phenomenal sales Cliff's bottles were generating, clone the item, and add it to their "Amazon Basics" line.
Searching for Klein bottles on Amazon show one retailer, who also paid for a sponsored listing, offering actual Klein bottles, and
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You're shilling hard today, I hope Amazon are paying you well. On the other hand it's Amazon, so you're most likely overworked an underpaid. You'd probably get a better work/life balance and more existential fulfilment flipping burgers at Maccy D's.
Almost like a real supermarket (Score:2)
Who knew.
"down to the (Score:2)
FTC needs to act. (Score:2)
Bullshit like this is exactly why we created the FTC. This is one trust that needs to be busted. I say completely divorce amazon warehousing and listing business from it's "Amazon Basics" business. If the products don't survive then they clearly shouldn't have existed in the first place.
Re: FTC needs to act. (Score:2)
What is alleged here is not reliant on any 'secret' data - Amazon lists bestsellers by category publicly to anyone interested in looking.
For example, here's the list of bestselling men's wear:
https://www.amazon.com/Best-Se... [amazon.com]
You can do the same thing for books, here's the list of bestselling books for computer networking:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/best... [amazon.com]
To pretend that this public information is somehow a trade secret that Amazon is forbidden from using is ridiculous.
Against Amazon's Own Policies (Score:2)
The article - and even the summary - makes it pretty clear that the group doing this was violating Amazon's own policies and had figured out a way to bypass it's safeguards that protect against this.
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The law cares about actions, not just policies. If a company does something illegal, it's not much defense to say, "It was against our policy!" Their actions were still illegal. This behavior has been widely reported for years, so it's not like they didn't know about it. The whole world knew about it. They chose to let it continue despite supposedly having a policy against it.
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You have direct evidence to prove that?
Have you ever worked in a fortune 100 company? Do you have any idea how idiotic it is to imply that a company with hundreds of thousands of employees can police everything they do?
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Here's an article about it from a year ago [businessinsider.com]. And one from 2019 [yahoo.com]. And going back still further, here's one from 2016 [fortune.com].
This has been widely known for years. And the reports made it very clear that "safeguards" were next to nonexistent. From the 2019 article:
There aren't enough restrictions on data access, former employees say. "Once you have data warehouse permissions, you can see just about anything in the company. Employees who have access to the data warehouse can pull individual orders, or sales for one particular seller, or all the different products from one particular vendor code or one particular seller ID," a former employee said.
Another former manager at Amazon described it as a "free-for-all" situation once employees get access, as long as they have legitimate business reasons, which could be widely defined. This leaves room for employees to play around with the dataset.
They also made it very clear that, despite Amazon's claims to the contrary, they made minimal effort to train employees about their supposed "policy". From the same article:
Inside Amazon, some employees simply didn't see how using third-party sellers' data could be a problem, let alone create issues for the company. Instead, employees were focused on making data-driven decisions, something that Amazon encourages employees to do.
"I don't think people saw the seriousness of it," a former employee said. "It was our data. We could look it up, right?"
Well the Indian Govt is on their case (Score:1)
Amazon Knockoff Company Name Generator (Score:2)
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