An nameless reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Amazon and a who’s who of online-only retailers are attempting to kill proposed federal and state laws that may make the businesses disclose contact info for third-party sellers. The payments would pressure Amazon and others to confirm the identities of third-party sellers and supply shoppers with methods to contact the shops. The proposed laws is pitting brick-and-mortar retailers — together with Dwelling Depot, Walgreens, and JC Penney, which assist the payments — in opposition to on-line retailers like Amazon, Etsy, eBay, Poshmark, and others, which argue that the laws would hurt small sellers. […] The net retailers argue that the payments would compromise the privateness of third-party sellers. On some platforms, nearly all of retailers run their companies out of their houses. Etsy, for instance, says 97 % of its sellers do. A survey of Amazon sellers discovered that 70 % have work exterior of their Amazon companies, suggesting that they, too, run the enterprise from their houses.
That anonymity, although, offers cowl for fraudsters. It is not unusual to seek out counterfeit and probably dangerous gadgets on market websites. In 2018, the Authorities Accountability Workplace ordered 47 gadgets, together with footwear, journey mugs, cosmetics, and telephone chargers, from third-party sellers on “well-liked shopper web sites” and decided that 20 of them had been counterfeit. Even non-counterfeit gadgets purchased from third-party sellers have been implicated in shopper hurt. In April 2018, a 19-month-old in Texas was injured after ingesting a battery that fell out of a unfastened battery compartment in a third-party Apple TV distant. The mother and father requested Amazon to cease promoting the faulty product and requested contact info for Hu Xi Jie, who ran the Amazon retailer “USA Procuring 7693” that bought the distant. Hu Xi Jie by no means responded, and Amazon was not in a position to find the person. The mother and father sued Amazon in Texas state court docket, arguing that the retailer is chargeable for the faulty product. Amazon, however, says it serves as a intermediary and bears no legal responsibility. It is that argument, amongst others, that has brick-and-mortar retailers pushing for adjustments. Client product legal guidelines maintain companies like Goal and Dwelling Depot chargeable for accidents if the shops don’t take ample measures to maintain faulty merchandise from reaching shoppers. On-line marketplaces have not been topic to these guidelines since they do not management third-party sellers.
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