It’s clear from the article keeping the marketplace clean is not a company wide priority. Amazon famously has very decoupled teams so they have a team setup for this that filters incoming listings, and that is it. After all many of these banned items don’t really harm the user “just” society at large, so it’s not very “customer obsessed” to spend a big effort cross company to stamp them out. It would not surprise me if every flaw this article pointed out was known, and the isolated team simply does not have the people and politics power to fix it.
You can see this because the teams which manage virtually every other part of the site are not involved - the search recommendation was suggesting banned items - the buy together team does not use it’s system to find banned products related to removed items - the amazons choice team does not apply extra diligence to the things it flags. All things that a postmortem on now people find banned items would come up as action items. I bet they probably have, but it was low priory on those teams backlog.
It’s also clear they have not funded a big enough secret shopper team to just act like a user and try and buy banned products and then make reports to various teams across the site where they have gaps. If an outsider can sit down with your system and find bugs after a little bit of time, you don’t have a decent quality process in place.
Anything else isn't a real issue. While accidentally rejecting even 0.1% of the legit listings surely would cause heads to roll for screwing with the bottom line.
There is a part of me that has the knee jerk "Amazon are terrible" reaction. But another part is this is just shining a light on goods that were sold anyway, but we could not find them in the shadows.
So I have a theory on Twitter - it's not that Twitter causes people to spout offensive rants and bully people - it's that it simply takes every pub and street conversation that happened anyway and makes them publically available.
(yes there is an effect of reinforcement that the pub conversation would not get so it's not perfect analogy)
Amazon is similar - they are trying to become the marketplace for everything sold in the world - which will include the crap, the counterfeit and the simply useless.
It kind of is Amazons problem, but like Twitter and Facebook, they are not causing it, and it won't go away if we stop Amazon somehow.
It's us and our societies.
Edit: there is a secondary effect here (linked to Google as well) that is no-one would buy from "some random dude selling pills on a street corner" but Amazons big tent lends him some
of Amazons credibility.
Thirdly we often moan here on HN that Google just returns mainstream results and we cannot find the out of the way stuff - but in these cases that's exactly what we want.
So I am not sure if this is an Amazon search problem (don't return counterfeit products - cost bourne by Amazon) or of it is an enforcement problem (police arrest counterfeiters - cost bourne by taxpayer) or something else like only buy from reputable providers (cost bourne by purchasers)
Just because counterfeit goods are sold doesn’t mean you have to sell them too.
With all of these stories about Amazon it’s clear they care more about volume of goods sold and therefore amount of revenue generated and market share than they do about what is being sold.
If two journalists and a few days can turn up this many clearly banned items that Amazon’s searches themselves are suggesting, it clearly is not something that the company hasn’t been aware of since the start of third party selling. They just choose not to commit resources to it as they’re facing no serious repercussions for it and it actually makes them money.
Since this is nominally a site that discusses technology and Amazon is itself a major vendor of internet services it is not out of the question to think that they could, with programmers assigned to it and a desire to do so, massively reduce the ability for dangerous and/or banned items being sold on their site. Given that many of these things come from the same sellers and are being purchased by the same people it’s not as if these are all one off outliers. It’s a hard problem, certainly, but this is a company led by the richest man in the world for crying out loud!
If ever there was a reason for state oversight to stop large tech entities from getting away with whatever they want, surely it’s enabling people to actually cause deaths?
the real audience for twitter is the news media who magnifies its exposure granting it more relevance than it deserves. the organizations that know how to exploit this are very good at intimidating others through direct accusation or insinuation. This can include people who simply don't agree with a point or view or are not vocal enough in their agreement.
Joseph McCarthy has been resurrected but now by the mob.
> takes every pub and street conversation that happened anyway
... and hugely amplifies them, giving them an audience of potentially millions instead of a couple of people chatting together.
Aside from that, all this offensive ranting and bullying, as well as every other type of conversation, is now saved and ready to be mined for advertising or political gain. Advertising is annoying but can be lived with, it's the political data-mining companies that are a real problem. See, for example, Cambridge Analytica.
Arguably, without these shady political entities and their data mining capabilities, and the amplifying power of Twitter and Facebook, we might not be faced with Brexit and Trump.
Or maybe we would, but at the very least we need to consider this and can't just say, sure, nothing has changed really. Because things have changed, and are continuing to change, rapidly and in ways we cannot predict, due to the sudden central role of tech giants in our societies.
It's a bit of a stretch to me that the picture up top is trying to pin the heartfelt death of a father on Amazon when all Amazon did was sell a pill press...
I'm not saying Amazon should be selling these things, but that choice makes me distrust this whole article.
Corporate lawyers often say “no policy at all is better than a policy you don’t enforce or follow.” Amazon set a policy not to sell or facilitate the sale of that type of product and then didn’t follow/enforce it. Failing a test of your own design is failing to meet a preposterously low bar.
The bulk of the article is about a guy who mixed fentanyl with xanax and passed it off as percocet, but yet the bad actor is supposed to be Amazon? The real meta-villain here is the war on drug users, which created a profit motive for doing something so maliciously stupid. And it's rooted in this same regressive idea of controlling what people can buy to solve society's problems.
I personally enjoy being able to obtain "weird shit" of all varieties. I don't know what's involved in a pill press per se, but I can't imagine it's particularly complex or tough to improvise. Distributed 3d printing/milling culture can't come quick enough, and get us some refuge from this clueless fear of tools.
Is it a bit of a stretch to hold Amazon responsible when counterfeit medicines, made with Amazon-sold equipment, harm people? The sole purpose of this equipment is to deceive.
As for woman in the picture up top, I think she has a reason to complain:
She woke up in a hospital bed herself. She didn’t realize her father had slipped the counterfeit pills into his prescription bottle of Percocet at home and, distraught with grief, she had taken what she thought was a safe medication to help her relax.
Wow. I knew that Amazon banned firearm sales (makes me sad), but they have some stupid arbitrary rules.
Prohibited: Single point, 3-point, tactical, and quick detach slings
Why? seems like slings can be used for many things.
Permitted: Fixed stocks, with the exception of thumbhole stocks
Prohibited: Any non-fixed stock, including telescoping, folding or collapsible stocks
Someone please tell me why non-fixed stock are so horrible?
Permitted: Magazine floor plates/base plates
I'm actually surprised by this one.
Prohibited: Full auto sears (also known as drop-in auto sear or DIAS)
Haha. Amazon would be the least of your problems if you sell one of these. They should also probably stop selling metal coat hangers.[1]
Prohibited: AR-15/M16 armorer’s wrenches or combo wrenches
Really? So I cannot by a castle wrench if it's marketed as for AR-15s?
Prohibited: Magazine loaders, except for those that can accommodate the following calibers: .223/5.56; 7.62x51; 308; 7.62x39; 5.45x39
Okay but .300 AAC, 6.5, 30-06, .338, .50 BMG/Beowulf are fine.
So much irrational hate for the AR-15 platform. It should be right up HNs alley as it is a fully customizable and reparable platform unencumbered by patents.
I don't know why you're worried about sears because either they are unregistered and illegal or registered and covered under the firearm sale ban. Adjustable stocks are arguably a concern because they make building rifles shorter than 26 inches easier. I'm not going to comment on anything else and I'm not pushing any specific agenda with this post, but those were my initial thoughts about those items.
> Prohibited: Single point, 3-point, tactical, and quick detach slings
Funny, I just received a VTAC sling from Amazon. I wonder if I was able to buy it due to the "enforcement failures" mentioned in the article or if it's because it is a 2-point sling (obviously much safer than a single point or 3-point sling which are basically weapons of mass destruction).
I found it funny the article considered an ar15 vise as a prohibited part when it specifically is not. Amazon bans parts that directly attach to some weapons (and only some of them, not scopes or lights) and a vise block does not attach.
I suppose we could go the opposite way and declare Amazon should not sell any punch, hammer or gauge...
This is awesome, I just wish they were worse at enforcing some other prohibitions.
I’ve been trying to get my hands on a real kinder egg (not the kinder joy bullshit) for a while now. I thought the kinder joy and a wonder ball would be enough, but it is not.
I don’t know why German kids are so much more resilient against choking than American kids, but whatever. (I actually do know, it’s because of an ancient law that should have been updated by now)
No one said those things are illegal to possess or sell.
They're saying Amazon prohibits their sale, but doesn't effectively enforce that rule.
> They’re included among 38 pages of third-party seller rules and prohibitions for its U.S. marketplace.
> Yet an investigation by The Markup found that Amazon fails to properly enforce that list, allowing third-party sellers to put up and sell banned items.
Yes, such idea is absurd. I can't fathom along what lines they came to the idea of online marketplaces being the ones to blame, or moreover being burdened by the duty to police their markets... The line of thinking of such people is not unlike the ones of communist party.
Found one stall in a giant market selling weed? Ban all sellers. Had one illegal BnB in an apartment building? Expunge all renters in the whole apartment block.
[+] [-] Game_Ender|5 years ago|reply
You can see this because the teams which manage virtually every other part of the site are not involved - the search recommendation was suggesting banned items - the buy together team does not use it’s system to find banned products related to removed items - the amazons choice team does not apply extra diligence to the things it flags. All things that a postmortem on now people find banned items would come up as action items. I bet they probably have, but it was low priory on those teams backlog.
It’s also clear they have not funded a big enough secret shopper team to just act like a user and try and buy banned products and then make reports to various teams across the site where they have gaps. If an outsider can sit down with your system and find bugs after a little bit of time, you don’t have a decent quality process in place.
[+] [-] archi42|5 years ago|reply
Anything else isn't a real issue. While accidentally rejecting even 0.1% of the legit listings surely would cause heads to roll for screwing with the bottom line.
[+] [-] lifeisstillgood|5 years ago|reply
So I have a theory on Twitter - it's not that Twitter causes people to spout offensive rants and bully people - it's that it simply takes every pub and street conversation that happened anyway and makes them publically available.
(yes there is an effect of reinforcement that the pub conversation would not get so it's not perfect analogy)
Amazon is similar - they are trying to become the marketplace for everything sold in the world - which will include the crap, the counterfeit and the simply useless.
It kind of is Amazons problem, but like Twitter and Facebook, they are not causing it, and it won't go away if we stop Amazon somehow.
It's us and our societies.
Edit: there is a secondary effect here (linked to Google as well) that is no-one would buy from "some random dude selling pills on a street corner" but Amazons big tent lends him some of Amazons credibility.
Thirdly we often moan here on HN that Google just returns mainstream results and we cannot find the out of the way stuff - but in these cases that's exactly what we want.
So I am not sure if this is an Amazon search problem (don't return counterfeit products - cost bourne by Amazon) or of it is an enforcement problem (police arrest counterfeiters - cost bourne by taxpayer) or something else like only buy from reputable providers (cost bourne by purchasers)
[+] [-] iNerdier|5 years ago|reply
Since this is nominally a site that discusses technology and Amazon is itself a major vendor of internet services it is not out of the question to think that they could, with programmers assigned to it and a desire to do so, massively reduce the ability for dangerous and/or banned items being sold on their site. Given that many of these things come from the same sellers and are being purchased by the same people it’s not as if these are all one off outliers. It’s a hard problem, certainly, but this is a company led by the richest man in the world for crying out loud!
If ever there was a reason for state oversight to stop large tech entities from getting away with whatever they want, surely it’s enabling people to actually cause deaths?
[+] [-] Shivetya|5 years ago|reply
Joseph McCarthy has been resurrected but now by the mob.
[+] [-] esperent|5 years ago|reply
... and hugely amplifies them, giving them an audience of potentially millions instead of a couple of people chatting together.
Aside from that, all this offensive ranting and bullying, as well as every other type of conversation, is now saved and ready to be mined for advertising or political gain. Advertising is annoying but can be lived with, it's the political data-mining companies that are a real problem. See, for example, Cambridge Analytica.
Arguably, without these shady political entities and their data mining capabilities, and the amplifying power of Twitter and Facebook, we might not be faced with Brexit and Trump.
Or maybe we would, but at the very least we need to consider this and can't just say, sure, nothing has changed really. Because things have changed, and are continuing to change, rapidly and in ways we cannot predict, due to the sudden central role of tech giants in our societies.
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] rnernento|5 years ago|reply
I'm not saying Amazon should be selling these things, but that choice makes me distrust this whole article.
[+] [-] animalmom|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] elliekelly|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mindslight|5 years ago|reply
I personally enjoy being able to obtain "weird shit" of all varieties. I don't know what's involved in a pill press per se, but I can't imagine it's particularly complex or tough to improvise. Distributed 3d printing/milling culture can't come quick enough, and get us some refuge from this clueless fear of tools.
[+] [-] tantalor|5 years ago|reply
As for woman in the picture up top, I think she has a reason to complain:
She woke up in a hospital bed herself. She didn’t realize her father had slipped the counterfeit pills into his prescription bottle of Percocet at home and, distraught with grief, she had taken what she thought was a safe medication to help her relax.
[+] [-] agensaequivocum|5 years ago|reply
Prohibited: Single point, 3-point, tactical, and quick detach slings
Why? seems like slings can be used for many things.
Permitted: Fixed stocks, with the exception of thumbhole stocks
Prohibited: Any non-fixed stock, including telescoping, folding or collapsible stocks
Someone please tell me why non-fixed stock are so horrible?
Permitted: Magazine floor plates/base plates
I'm actually surprised by this one.
Prohibited: Full auto sears (also known as drop-in auto sear or DIAS)
Haha. Amazon would be the least of your problems if you sell one of these. They should also probably stop selling metal coat hangers.[1]
Prohibited: AR-15/M16 armorer’s wrenches or combo wrenches
Really? So I cannot by a castle wrench if it's marketed as for AR-15s?
Prohibited: Magazine loaders, except for those that can accommodate the following calibers: .223/5.56; 7.62x51; 308; 7.62x39; 5.45x39
Okay but .300 AAC, 6.5, 30-06, .338, .50 BMG/Beowulf are fine.
So much irrational hate for the AR-15 platform. It should be right up HNs alley as it is a fully customizable and reparable platform unencumbered by patents.
[1] https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2019/01/04/coat-hanger-m...
[+] [-] 6AA4FD|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chaostheory|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cloakandswagger|5 years ago|reply
Funny, I just received a VTAC sling from Amazon. I wonder if I was able to buy it due to the "enforcement failures" mentioned in the article or if it's because it is a 2-point sling (obviously much safer than a single point or 3-point sling which are basically weapons of mass destruction).
[+] [-] anon_cow1111|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vorpalhex|5 years ago|reply
I suppose we could go the opposite way and declare Amazon should not sell any punch, hammer or gauge...
[+] [-] jonathanmkeegan|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] nxc18|5 years ago|reply
I’ve been trying to get my hands on a real kinder egg (not the kinder joy bullshit) for a while now. I thought the kinder joy and a wonder ball would be enough, but it is not.
I don’t know why German kids are so much more resilient against choking than American kids, but whatever. (I actually do know, it’s because of an ancient law that should have been updated by now)
[+] [-] graton|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fortran77|5 years ago|reply
I've got a closet full of this stuff. And I never used them to commit a crime.
[+] [-] ceejayoz|5 years ago|reply
They're saying Amazon prohibits their sale, but doesn't effectively enforce that rule.
> They’re included among 38 pages of third-party seller rules and prohibitions for its U.S. marketplace.
> Yet an investigation by The Markup found that Amazon fails to properly enforce that list, allowing third-party sellers to put up and sell banned items.
[+] [-] rhinoceraptor|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jimmaswell|5 years ago|reply
I always get some enjoyment from making Amazon donate to gun rights organizations with Smile.
[+] [-] dkdk8283|5 years ago|reply
If someone wants a $4000 pill press they’re going to get it anyway. The idea that somehow this will prevent harm is absurd.
[+] [-] baybal2|5 years ago|reply
Found one stall in a giant market selling weed? Ban all sellers. Had one illegal BnB in an apartment building? Expunge all renters in the whole apartment block.
[+] [-] calimac|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]