It sounds like Apple was upset about the counterfeit products being sold on Amazon and, after issuing hundreds of thousands of takedown notices threatened to sue Amazon themselves and reached an agreement where Amazon took measures to eliminate the counterfeits.
The knock seems to be that they only did this for Apple products, not counterfeits of say Samsung phones because they were not pressured in similar ways by Samsung.
1. Amazon refuses to hold themselves accountable for the products they sell—they advertise one thing but sell you another, clearly indicating they have no idea what they're actually selling.
2. Apple relies on legal protections to artificially inflate the pricing of their products. AirPods aren't much better than bluetooth headphones sold for a tenth the price, and they are straight-up inferior to the products of competitors with a third their price. If the superiority of their own products were so obvious the branding wouldn't be an issue at all. And don't even get me started on how they force consumers to buy their hardware to get access to their software, which should be forced to be sold on the open market along side their competitors.
Now of course we need to fix the first issue to fix the second one, but the second issue has far more destructive consequences.
Getting my money back has been a massive pain. Usually Amazon literally returns the money when the delivery person picks up the item from my doorstep.
But with this Amazon required a scheduled pickup with UPS, did not acknowledge receiving the item even though UPS showed it as received and a few weeks later they are still asking me to wait for 1 month before contacting them for any information.
Well, I filed a chargeback with my credit card and automagically the errors in their system got resolved, and the item shows as received (on the correct date 2+ weeks ago), and they are promising a refund in a week (as opposed to 2.5 more weeks).
Looks like they’re not just giving Apple preferential treatment but going out of their way to protect Apple.
No, they’re protecting themselves against a significant volume of fraudsters who order genuine high-value goods and return counterfeits. These people are more than capable of re-shrinkwrapping boxes after opening them.
It’s likely there’s a significant queue of potential counterfeits that Amazon needs to go through. If you bought/returned this during a period of otherwise-high volume (e.g., right after a release), there’s a particularly high chance that the volume of “real” returns temporarily swamped their normal capacity. Or maybe their capacity just lags behind what it ought to be.
Either way, they’re protecting themselves and this almost certainly has nothing to do with Apple specifically.
Normally Amazon bans your account (and that means you, personally, since it's difficult to open a second account) from ever using amazon.com ever again if you successfully charge back something.
The only recourse is to pay them the charged back amount...
Experienced this first hand with actual fraud that was reported to Amazon moments after it occurred, yet still received a lifetime ban until my fraud dispute was settled.
I think it is likely that they are trying to see if the watch you returned was counterfeit before they refunded you. This is probably a difficult process as the counterfeits of Apple products have gotten really good.
When you pushed them, they bumped yours to the front of the line.
If you are interested in continuing to do business with Amazon I would do some research into how they treat customers that have filed chargebacks against them. I don't personally have experience with this but it is probable that you will end up on their shit list and any further customer service actions may skew outside of you getting any benefit of the doubt or other considerations.
It's surprising that your account wasn't banned for initiating a chargeback.
A chargeback is a nuclear solution, where you make it clear that you're going to have a third party dictate terms to the merchant. Most merchants respond to that sort of behaviour by dictating to you that they will no longer do business with you.
> Amazon required a scheduled pickup with UPS, did not acknowledge receiving the item even though UPS showed it as received
I'd guess that the box had been physically received by Amazon but it hadn't been opened/validated/checked by the relevant department to ensure that it was the watch they had sent you and not a knock off/brick.
If it's true they colluded to remove ads from Apple pages on Amazon, both companies deserve what they get. Why do it sneakily? Why not have a page somewhere on Amazon that says "hey, if you want us to remove ads from your product listings, pay us [10x the total lifetime amount we expect to get in ad revenue from running ads on the page] per product page". Most companies wouldn't do it, so it wouldn't change Amazon's model much at all. Meanwhile, Apple could afford it trivially. While sleazy, it would be a completely legal offering that would never come back to bite them in the butt.
It sounds like you are saying that businesses should only be able to sell services that they publicly advertise with prices. For example, if Coca Cola wanted to have a product placement idk the eventual Jok3r movie, would Warner Brothers would need to advertise that service somewhere on the website? Would you see Coca Cola's advertising department calling WB and being "yo, what do we have to do to get poison ivy to have a fridge full of Coca Cola?" be sneaky?
The issue is primarily about counterfeiting, which is illegal regardless of the companies involved and the deals between them.
Samsung has an Amazon store, and other companies bid for ad spots shown right on the official store page which link to illegal knockoffs of Samsung products. Samsung complains, and Amazon says "sorry we can't help it, that's just how things work".
Then Apple comes along, and Amazon magically cleans up their store page (demonstrating that they have the ability to do so), but leaves the rest of them as-is.
So now the take away is – if you don't sign an exclusive agreement with Amazon they will give counterfeiters full access to your products and customers, and that can be easily challenged in court (which is exactly what the FTC is doing right now).
you have to wonder what sort of collusion isn't being uncovered. After all, when you catch someone doing something unethical, it is often the tip of the iceberg. It would be very easy for two tech execs to communicate privately and come to an agreement like "Stop investing in Bing and we'll stop investing in GSuite."
We've been through a long period of stagnation from big tech companies, often blamed on cultural problems in a maturing industry. What if the real story is a level of cartelisation far beyond anything revealed so far?
Not saying there isn't collusion in the Valley but a negotiated deal with a signed contract complete with paper trail and with both companies, employees and former employees admitting that such a deal exists even if they can't discuss the details when asked about it isn't exactly the definition of collusion. It's an agreement. In fact, if the alternative was that Apple goes to war with Amazon in court over the number of counterfeit Apple products Amazon was selling (or allowing third parties to sell through Amazon) and Apple can build a strong enough case for a court to take it, then a signed agreement before litigation can even begin is a positive outcome from a court's perspective because even if litigation did begin, the court would be spending some time encouraging the parties to negotiate a settlement rather than dragging this out when the court could be hearing other cases.
Collusion is illegal and typically done in secret because its illegal, like when Apple, Google, Pixar and some others (I forgot who else, Google it) were suppressing wages–that was collusion. Signing contracts and making deals with other Fortune 500 companies operating in the same sector, even for things that neither company would typically offer to anyone else, is not.
I get annoyed any time I search for a brand term and get competitors' ads. If I wanted to see a variety of smartphones, I wouldn't have searched for "iphone." My only issue is you have to be Apple-big to do this.
Yes, the very reason for Apple to create the "store-in-store" concept was that they thought that the buying experience for their products was inadequate (both in presentation of the products and qualification of the staff): https://web.archive.org/web/19990210163227/http://product.in...
The Amazon storefront simply seems to be an extension of that concept from brick and mortar to online stores. I'm not sure what's supposed to be unlawful or unethical about this.
[Disclaimer: I work for Apple, but not in a retail oriented role, nor as a spokesperson]
Amazon has more than a third of all online retail and is close to surpassing Walmart as the largest retailer in the world, online or physical.
Best Buy is not in the same league.
Also, Apple appears to be the only company in the world that can get this deal from Amazon. Apple's competitors can't get it. So this seems to be an artificial restriction on competition.
> As detailed by today’s report, the agreement between Apple and Amazon includes a carveout that reduces the number of ads and recommendations that appear on product pages for Apple devices. While Amazon product pages are generally full of ads, sponsored results, and recommendations, Apple’s product pages show only one banner ad at the very bottom of the page.
> In contrast, product pages for Apple competitors like Samsung are riddled with ads from competitors, recommendations, and other sponsored banners. Insider says that other companies, including Samsung, have complained about the preferential treatment given to Apple.
> In contrast, product pages for Apple competitors like Samsung are riddled with ads from competitors, recommendations, and other sponsored banners. Insider says that other companies, including Samsung, have complained about the preferential treatment given to Apple.
You shouldn't be allowed to place ads against another company's product listings or trademarked brands.
You shouldn't be able to pay Google to advertise and gain search placement ahead of another company's trademarked brands, either.
Is Amazon a marketplace, or the marketplace? Rewind 15 years ago, and I compared local retail, Amazon, NewEgg, Buy.com, etc. I researched each product, and then researched which site would give me a good price plus shipping. Of course Amazon won this battle and edged out many competitors.
But most people tend to go to Amazon, and let Amazon make decisions for them. That's kind of our own fault, but it's also worrying. Now I won't argue that Apple is or isn't the best maker of whatever product someone went to Amazon to shop for. But I still would like the products to be presented equally and fairly.
But... I suppose I want companies to be able to give each other money to get different levels of service, too. How do you draw this line?
Why not? As long as it's not deceptive, seems ok to me. Trademarks don't mean absolute ownership of a word.
I'm not a huge fan of advertising in retail, but even in offline retail, manufacturers/distributors are paying for shelf space, either directly in dollars or offset from the product cost / managed through other terms. Having your product accessory or competitor shelved nearby a more well known product is helpful; ads in a retail website are analogous to that.
So if I search Amazon for "Tylenol", you're saying the experience is better if they don't show me bulk acetaminophen? Or, is the damage to Tylenol just too great to offer people an alternative?
I'm not really sure what your point is here. What's wrong with comparing products across brands?
If there's a car show on NBC about Mercedes, you're saying BMW can't advertise in the commercial break?
If there's a product page on Amazon about Samsung, you're saying Motorola can't advertise below the fold?
Search terms feel like a different thing. TV Guide search for Mercedes, land on a show about BMW? No. Google search for Samsung, Motorola is top result? No.
Disclaimer: I used to work for Amazon for many years.
Context: It’s been a few years but I built many of these counterfeit detecting systems from greenfield. Including the early architecture integrations with the ads teams.
AMA (I can’t always say everything, but I’ll answer to my best ability in the morning)
Retailer and vendor make a contractual deal to merchandise product. Is your grocery store colluding with CocaCola to display their products right at the front of the store while putting healthy items like milk far away!!?? Are they harming the health of your children?? Is this just a conspiracy to make greedy dentists richer?? More news at 11
Amazon is both a retailer and marketplace. If it prevents fake Coke being sold because of a secret deal, but is happy to sell fake Pepsi, then that is absolutely a problem for both consumers and sellers which should be scrutinised, especially considering its position in the market.
> Is your grocery store colluding with CocaCola to display their products right at the front of the store while putting healthy items like milk far away!!??
Of course they are.
I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic, but Coca Cola exists precisely because of those sorts of distribution and product placement deals.
Grocery stores are paid a ton of money to place products in favorable spots on the shelves and end caps. That and the consumer surveillance loyalty cards are a huge fraction of their profits.
(I’d ban both practices if I were supreme dictator. Sadly, I am not.)
Were I Samsung, I would be pissed that competitor’s (cheaper) products get shown on my page.
As a consumer, it shows that Amazon is aware of counterfeits, and has the ability to limit them, but does nothing unless the seller can raise an appropriate fit. Have I previously purchased counterfeit Samsung X? Sounds like Amazon might have a good intuition, but does nothing to stop it.
I had no idea Apple got preferential treatment. I have never seen what I thought to be a genuine Apple product on Amazon. I assumed Apple was taking steps to prevent anyone from selling anything Apple-branded there. The fact that they're doing the opposite is just crazy to me.
I looked more closely and they don't seem to sell iPhones, which is I guess where I get the impression from. Their other items have weird prices that are different from the Apple Store, which also screamed "scam" to me. But I guess not?
Amazon knows all about of the garbage being sold on its site but only does something about it if you're a massive tech company who threatens to sue, very cool.
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
Amazon makes money from those garbage companies having an ad war over who gets to deceive the eyeballs of Amazon's customers first, and then takes a cut when it gets sold.
Customer Obsession and Earns Trust might be two of Amazon's Leadership Principles, but no principles stand in the way of cold hard cash.
First one I clicked into, Amazon’s own AI generated review summary says “…it takes days to transfer anything, and has only 64 GB of usable space. Customers also dislike the data.”
People in my world goggle at me when I say I don’t shop on Amazon, but whenever I do go on there I couldn’t be happier not to be paying for the privilege of combing through all of that garbage. (Amazon Visa rewards card holder since 2007 and had Prime 2010-2019)
Both Apple and Amazon are very important for national security. I wouldn't be surprised if there is more going on here then just preferential treatment.
neonate|2 years ago
CSMastermind|2 years ago
The knock seems to be that they only did this for Apple products, not counterfeits of say Samsung phones because they were not pressured in similar ways by Samsung.
QwertyPi|2 years ago
1. Amazon refuses to hold themselves accountable for the products they sell—they advertise one thing but sell you another, clearly indicating they have no idea what they're actually selling.
2. Apple relies on legal protections to artificially inflate the pricing of their products. AirPods aren't much better than bluetooth headphones sold for a tenth the price, and they are straight-up inferior to the products of competitors with a third their price. If the superiority of their own products were so obvious the branding wouldn't be an issue at all. And don't even get me started on how they force consumers to buy their hardware to get access to their software, which should be forced to be sold on the open market along side their competitors.
Now of course we need to fix the first issue to fix the second one, but the second issue has far more destructive consequences.
jtbayly|2 years ago
addicted|2 years ago
Getting my money back has been a massive pain. Usually Amazon literally returns the money when the delivery person picks up the item from my doorstep.
But with this Amazon required a scheduled pickup with UPS, did not acknowledge receiving the item even though UPS showed it as received and a few weeks later they are still asking me to wait for 1 month before contacting them for any information.
Well, I filed a chargeback with my credit card and automagically the errors in their system got resolved, and the item shows as received (on the correct date 2+ weeks ago), and they are promising a refund in a week (as opposed to 2.5 more weeks).
Looks like they’re not just giving Apple preferential treatment but going out of their way to protect Apple.
stouset|2 years ago
It’s likely there’s a significant queue of potential counterfeits that Amazon needs to go through. If you bought/returned this during a period of otherwise-high volume (e.g., right after a release), there’s a particularly high chance that the volume of “real” returns temporarily swamped their normal capacity. Or maybe their capacity just lags behind what it ought to be.
Either way, they’re protecting themselves and this almost certainly has nothing to do with Apple specifically.
Alupis|2 years ago
The only recourse is to pay them the charged back amount...
Experienced this first hand with actual fraud that was reported to Amazon moments after it occurred, yet still received a lifetime ban until my fraud dispute was settled.
spott|2 years ago
When you pushed them, they bumped yours to the front of the line.
Eisenstein|2 years ago
vkou|2 years ago
A chargeback is a nuclear solution, where you make it clear that you're going to have a third party dictate terms to the merchant. Most merchants respond to that sort of behaviour by dictating to you that they will no longer do business with you.
helsinkiandrew|2 years ago
I'd guess that the box had been physically received by Amazon but it hadn't been opened/validated/checked by the relevant department to ensure that it was the watch they had sent you and not a knock off/brick.
edgan|2 years ago
langsoul-com|2 years ago
Honestly, this should be done for every major brand.
Exoristos|2 years ago
karaterobot|2 years ago
ribosometronome|2 years ago
Supermancho|2 years ago
Amazon is not the only company to do this. Not sure how reducing ads is problematic. Amazon doesn't have to show ads it doesn't want to.
unknown|2 years ago
[deleted]
alberth|2 years ago
Presumably, Apple paid Amazon to reduce the number of ads.
What's so wrong about that?
All companies allow large enterprise customers (who drive high revenue), to have custom / tailored offerings based on their requests.
paxys|2 years ago
Samsung has an Amazon store, and other companies bid for ad spots shown right on the official store page which link to illegal knockoffs of Samsung products. Samsung complains, and Amazon says "sorry we can't help it, that's just how things work".
Then Apple comes along, and Amazon magically cleans up their store page (demonstrating that they have the ability to do so), but leaves the rest of them as-is.
So now the take away is – if you don't sign an exclusive agreement with Amazon they will give counterfeiters full access to your products and customers, and that can be easily challenged in court (which is exactly what the FTC is doing right now).
kube-system|2 years ago
neogodless|2 years ago
The law suit is not about the ads, per se. It's about price-fixing, which you can probably agree should not be allowed.
jhp123|2 years ago
We've been through a long period of stagnation from big tech companies, often blamed on cultural problems in a maturing industry. What if the real story is a level of cartelisation far beyond anything revealed so far?
SllX|2 years ago
Collusion is illegal and typically done in secret because its illegal, like when Apple, Google, Pixar and some others (I forgot who else, Google it) were suppressing wages–that was collusion. Signing contracts and making deals with other Fortune 500 companies operating in the same sector, even for things that neither company would typically offer to anyone else, is not.
pimlottc|2 years ago
dehrmann|2 years ago
qgin|2 years ago
microtherion|2 years ago
The Amazon storefront simply seems to be an extension of that concept from brick and mortar to online stores. I'm not sure what's supposed to be unlawful or unethical about this.
[Disclaimer: I work for Apple, but not in a retail oriented role, nor as a spokesperson]
lapcat|2 years ago
Best Buy is not in the same league.
Also, Apple appears to be the only company in the world that can get this deal from Amazon. Apple's competitors can't get it. So this seems to be an artificial restriction on competition.
lucb1e|2 years ago
38|2 years ago
> In contrast, product pages for Apple competitors like Samsung are riddled with ads from competitors, recommendations, and other sponsored banners. Insider says that other companies, including Samsung, have complained about the preferential treatment given to Apple.
echelon|2 years ago
You shouldn't be allowed to place ads against another company's product listings or trademarked brands.
You shouldn't be able to pay Google to advertise and gain search placement ahead of another company's trademarked brands, either.
nomel|2 years ago
As as consumer, this is precisely where I want competitors ads. Competition is a good thing, for me.
neogodless|2 years ago
Should companies be able to do this?
Is Amazon a marketplace, or the marketplace? Rewind 15 years ago, and I compared local retail, Amazon, NewEgg, Buy.com, etc. I researched each product, and then researched which site would give me a good price plus shipping. Of course Amazon won this battle and edged out many competitors.
But most people tend to go to Amazon, and let Amazon make decisions for them. That's kind of our own fault, but it's also worrying. Now I won't argue that Apple is or isn't the best maker of whatever product someone went to Amazon to shop for. But I still would like the products to be presented equally and fairly.
But... I suppose I want companies to be able to give each other money to get different levels of service, too. How do you draw this line?
toast0|2 years ago
I'm not a huge fan of advertising in retail, but even in offline retail, manufacturers/distributors are paying for shelf space, either directly in dollars or offset from the product cost / managed through other terms. Having your product accessory or competitor shelved nearby a more well known product is helpful; ads in a retail website are analogous to that.
smoldesu|2 years ago
I'm not really sure what your point is here. What's wrong with comparing products across brands?
Terretta|2 years ago
If there's a product page on Amazon about Samsung, you're saying Motorola can't advertise below the fold?
Search terms feel like a different thing. TV Guide search for Mercedes, land on a show about BMW? No. Google search for Samsung, Motorola is top result? No.
PS. Use kagi.com and it's not a problem.
fallingknife|2 years ago
yazaddaruvala|2 years ago
Context: It’s been a few years but I built many of these counterfeit detecting systems from greenfield. Including the early architecture integrations with the ads teams.
AMA (I can’t always say everything, but I’ll answer to my best ability in the morning)
pbhjpbhj|2 years ago
Was there any concern on liability as presumably Amazon can detect lots of counterfeits but choose not to?
Was there any effort to prevent sellers they know are selling junk, or going to sell junk, from using the site?
tracerbulletx|2 years ago
iris2004|2 years ago
hedora|2 years ago
Of course they are.
I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic, but Coca Cola exists precisely because of those sorts of distribution and product placement deals.
Grocery stores are paid a ton of money to place products in favorable spots on the shelves and end caps. That and the consumer surveillance loyalty cards are a huge fraction of their profits.
(I’d ban both practices if I were supreme dictator. Sadly, I am not.)
NovemberWhiskey|2 years ago
0cf8612b2e1e|2 years ago
As a consumer, it shows that Amazon is aware of counterfeits, and has the ability to limit them, but does nothing unless the seller can raise an appropriate fit. Have I previously purchased counterfeit Samsung X? Sounds like Amazon might have a good intuition, but does nothing to stop it.
viknesh|2 years ago
jrockway|2 years ago
I looked more closely and they don't seem to sell iPhones, which is I guess where I get the impression from. Their other items have weird prices that are different from the Apple Store, which also screamed "scam" to me. But I guess not?
neogodless|2 years ago
The Apple storefront. Lots of macbooks and watches to buy.
Oddly enough, the iPhone only shows up in searches as used/renewed items, not brand new. Is that an Amazon thing or an Apple thing?
wnevets|2 years ago
I wonder how many of these thumb drives are legit. https://www.amazon.com/s?k=2+tb+thumb+drive&crid=YZ410MSN6L1...
ren_engineer|2 years ago
malfist|2 years ago
Customer Obsession and Earns Trust might be two of Amazon's Leadership Principles, but no principles stand in the way of cold hard cash.
neilv|2 years ago
I wonder whether they used Samsung's factory tooling for that.
macNchz|2 years ago
People in my world goggle at me when I say I don’t shop on Amazon, but whenever I do go on there I couldn’t be happier not to be paying for the privilege of combing through all of that garbage. (Amazon Visa rewards card holder since 2007 and had Prime 2010-2019)
kube-system|2 years ago
unknown|2 years ago
[deleted]
DueDilligence|2 years ago
[deleted]
lessbergstein|2 years ago