[retSava]

This is one of many exploitative habits of Amazon. Others include not ensuring products follow regulation, eg on hazardous substances (lead, etc), or on electrical safety. They also make your local {book, game, hobby, ...} shop go bankrupt.

You don't -have- to buy there, if you have the financial means I urge/recommend/encourage you to buy locally or from a responsible seller. Even if they are slower, less things on offer, etc. You probably already know some small local stores you would be sad to see shut down. Support them! (if you don't already)

[mikepurvis]

> follow regulation

This one bit me recently when I bought a package of budget light fixtures (in Canada, from amazon.ca) and then my licensed electrician informed me that he wouldn't be able to install them as they didn't have a CSA or UL mark. (edit: originally I had mis-recalled and said CE here)

To their credit, Amazon did allow me to return them without penalty, and now my review there warns other consumers that those are only for DIY use and even then you are risking your home's insurance coverage.

[embedding-shape]

> and now my review there warns other consumers that those are only for DIY use

Actually make sure with a incognito window that this review is actually visible. I've noticed that some reviews of mine have been "shadow-banned" and while it looks like they're still there when I'm logged in, once I try in a incognito window the review doesn't show up publicly anymore. My reviews were just basically facts about the products themselves, and received no word from Amazon about breaking any rules.

[realityking]

> This one bit me recently when I bought a package of budget light fixtures (in Canada, from amazon.ca) and then my licensed electrician informed me that he wouldn't be able to install them as they didn't have a CE mark.

The CE mark signifies compliance with European Union standards and regulations. Why would you expect Amazon Canada to care about that?

[TruePath]

I couldn't think of something worse than demanding Amazon decide what is counterfeit or violates regulations and policing that rule. The law on both those points is far too complex for the result to be anything but Amazon blocks what the big brands tell them to and protect them from competition.

Amazon is essentially a logistics company with a search engine. It doesn't really make sense to have them enforce regulations or counterfeiting rules than it would to make UPS and google. It's not like they hide who the seller is on any item (it's listed as sold by).

What your complaining about is a fundamental consequence of anything that lowers the barriers to selling goods. You once needed to buy a storefront to sell retail goods, later you at least needed sufficient name recognition for people to visit your website -- that investment gave anyone whose goods were counterfeit as well as regulators assets to seize.

But just like making it easy for every citizen to publish their thoughts means we see lots of hate and dumb shit online -- anything that lowers the barriers to selling retail goods (in general a good thing) will make it easy to sell counterfeit or defective crap.

In the long run, I suspect tech will make reputable 3rd party evaluations easier to access but let's not blame Amazon for not becoming an arm of the state and judging what is and isn't legal.

[retSava]

It's far easier and efficient to have the seller be responsible for what they sell, rather than every buyer learn relevant regulations and research whether any potential buy follows that.

And regulations are necessary since many sellers are without ethics/morals and simply want to sell.

The cost to the individual can be huge (eg cancer, home burnt down), and the society as well (environment etc).

I get the line of thought that "a simple product search engine like Amazon" shouldn't be held responsible for every single small item sold, but I think they should. The information and power balance is incredibly offset here.

Don't forget that Amazon is one of the largest companies on this planet, to a large extent because they take this shortcut of "money first, responsibility later". So I do blame Amazon (among others). The old discussion of privatization of profit and society takes the risk and cost...

[II2II]

> You don't -have- to buy there, if you have the financial means I urge/recommend/encourage you to buy locally or from a responsible seller

That is assuming the component is even available locally or from a responsible seller. I live in a small city (half a million people). It is often impossible to find parts locally even for popular products that were purchased locally. Then there are parts where it is impossible to find official replacements, either because it is outside of the product's support windows, or because the replacement parts were never available to start with.

[retSava]

Yup, an important caveat. And sometimes, it may not be available, due to it not legally being allowed to be sold there (eg not following relevant regulations). And that's a valid enough reason for it not to be sold there, regardless of seller.

[thayne]

For some kinds of things, I don't have a local store that sells it. Maybe that's less of an issue if you live in big city, but not everyone does.

[retSava]

Yup, an important caveat. And sometimes, it may not be available, due to it not legally being allowed to be sold there (eg not following relevant regulations). And that's a valid enough reason for it not to be sold there, regardless of seller.