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Re:Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA... by stickfigure on Sunday August 16, 2020 @01:13AM (#24175356)
> Imagine you went into a retail store with a faulty product

I understand where you are coming from, but there are lots of consignment stores and flea markets, at least in the middle parts of the US. The person you pay at the front counter simply records the transaction for the merchant. Amazon is a sort of cross between traditional retail and a consignment store, so it's not obvious (or "common sense") where product liability should lie.

Re:Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA... by fxtentacle on Sunday August 16, 2020 @02:15AM (#24175664)
Amazon is sort of like a consignment store where all the products from all the merchants are mixed into one large bin and you need special equipment to figure out the seller of each item, but of course it's fully acceptable for them to just give a fake name and address. Plus nobody checks what you sell for legality.

If a consignment store would allow random people from all over the world to sell illegal and dangerous goods with a fake ID while dodging taxes... would anyone find that tolerable?

Why accept the website equivalent?

Re:Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA... by ChuckMcM on Sunday August 16, 2020 @02:10AM (#24175639)
This is laid out in the judgement[1]. In California, if you are an integral part between the manufacturer and the consumer, especially if you are the one that "owns the relationship" you are on the hook for strict liability.

[1] Starting from Page 17 -- https://cases.justia.com/california/court-of-appeal/2020-d07...

Re:Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA... by imglorp on Sunday August 16, 2020 @06:40AM (#24176734)
Then maybe this return policy will only apply to buyers in CA?
Re:Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA... by myself248 on Sunday August 16, 2020 @08:25AM (#24177213)
Now I'm wondering if I can establish personal nexus in CA sufficient to qualify for such protections, while continuing to reside in place without all the Californians...
Re:Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA... by dangus on Sunday August 16, 2020 @10:58AM (#24178323)
There’s something off about this comment, and simultaneously I’m aware that my response is reading way too far into it.

The last phrase you use continues to perpetuate the odd perception that Californians are weird extreme hippie aliens that Middle America should avoid at all costs.

And then, your comment simultaneously envies California’s strong worker and consumer protections.

It’s almost as if Californians aren’t weirdo hippies and they’re just normal people who have demanded and received robust environmental, safety, labor, and privacy protection.

I’d love to live in California right next to those weird Californians and be able to make CCPA requests. I’d also love for non-competes to be illegal.

It’s almost as if other states’ citizens have been failed by their governments in comparison, and/or their citizens are too unaware of these issues to have lobbied for data protection laws.

It has astonished me that a certain political party has just gotten away with labeling an entire state in our country as a bad place, especially one as big and diverse as California.

Maybe that certain political party would have a chance to win California if Joe from Texas didn’t think California was a Mad Max liberal wasteland and considered taking a new job there.

Re:Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA... by myself248 on Sunday August 16, 2020 @06:01PM (#24181743)
Oh no, I love the weird extreme hippie aliens. And the strong worker and consumer protections. It's the Hollywood and the Disney and the Dot-com bros I'm avoiding at exactly those other costs.

That plus the completely unsustainable water situation that I refuse to be a part of worsening.

Re:Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA... by amluto on Sunday August 16, 2020 @10:29PM (#24183301)
As I understand it, the water situation is all kinds of screwed up, but much of the residential water is sustainable. SF, for example, uses mostly surface water and has access to a lot of surface water. One might argue whether the dam that supplies the water is a good thing or a bad thing and whether the allocation of SF’s water is reasonable, but it appears to be sustainable. In addition, residential water usage just isn’t that much.

Agricultural water in the drier parts of California is an entirely different story.

Re:Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA... by egypturnash on Sunday August 16, 2020 @11:10AM (#24178426)
And, on the converse, maybe a certain political party would have a chance to win the Midwest and the South if everyone on the coasts didn't think the Midwest and the South was a conservative hellscape and... oh what am I saying, they'd all move to the big cities, which are gerrymandered into impotency when it comes to setting policy and choosing who runs the damn state.

(god I am so glad that Louisiana managed to go into this pandemic with a DINO governor, it would have been even worse with someone licking Trump's bootheels setting policy)

Re:Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA... by kevin_thibedeau on Sunday August 16, 2020 @12:32PM (#24179103)
I've come close to death multiple times because those conservative hellscapes can't be bothered to salt their roads. Big government does offer some perks.
Re:Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA... by ChuckMcM on Sunday August 16, 2020 @12:45PM (#24179212)
Sounds like a variation of the Texas joke.

That said, California (like Texas) is a large enough state that you can find pretty much any community you feel comfortable with here. You can also find any climate you feel comfortable with (except for Arctic), and you can find a house at any price you may want to pay, but you may not be able to find a union of the choices.

As such, generalizations rarely achieve the goal intended unless that goal is to inflame.

An alternative would be establishing a similar legal notion of strict liability in the jurisdiction where you happen to reside. This requires that you give up none of the features of your current residence, rather it involves becoming more active in its governance which, frankly, is something I wish more people would do.

Re:Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA... by djsumdog on Sunday August 16, 2020 @09:28AM (#24177587)
California is big enough and the scope wide enough that Amazon will most likely have to address it for the entire country. I doubt we'll see some items taken off listings in California but still available in Texas. That would open up a whole new can of poop.
Re:Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA... by wtallis on Sunday August 16, 2020 @01:27AM (#24175427)
Consignment stores and flea markets are for secondhand goods. Most of what is sold on Amazon is represented by Amazon as new rather than used.
Re:Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA... by stickfigure on Sunday August 16, 2020 @01:33AM (#24175462)
This is not correct. There are plenty of subdivided retail marketplaces (with a single cashier) that sell new products. There's one here where I live in Winters (just north of SF), and I found them frequently in the midwest when I lived there. Merchants rent small blocks of space from the establishment; what they put on the shelves is really up to them.

Yes, this is commonly secondhand goods. But not always. The shop in Winters is all new products, more like a brick-and-mortar Etsy. It's a thing.

Re:Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA... by kadoban on Sunday August 16, 2020 @02:01AM (#24175595)
That starts to be somewhat comparable, but still doesn't feel much like Amazon.

Amazon isn't separate blocks of space, and merchants don't really rent their own areas. On a website that'd look like amazon.com/mycrapcompanystore/ or something.

As a customer I just go to amazon and search for what I want. They choose what specific items I should see, in what order, and I am barely aware of who actually sent the item to Amazon. You have to look pretty closely to even tell. In many cases it's just not even possible to choose, with the way Amazon combines their stock.

Re:Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA... by crooked-v on Sunday August 16, 2020 @02:10AM (#24175640)
Ebay is a good contrast here, as while it has the same general search-for-a-thing idea, it makes it very clear that you're buying this one specific item from this one specific merchant.
Re:Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA... by myself248 on Sunday August 16, 2020 @08:27AM (#24177219)
And I'd argue that's a far superior model. I go to eBay for a lot of items that I suspect may be graymarket but I'm willing to risk it, specifically BECAUSE I know exactly which seller sold me the thing, and I can go back on them if it's bad, and eBay has pretty good protections for buyers.

I could buy the same goods on Amazon but have none of the traceability or protections.

Re:Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA... by AkelaA on Sunday August 16, 2020 @12:02PM (#24178850)
Plus Ebay incentives sellers to upload their own photos and written descriptions of the product they're selling, rather then having generic product pages for multiple listings.

If I'm buying a second hand item like an old video game or something I always use Ebay since I can see what the product actually looks like and can make my own judgement on condition based on the photos. Something you can't really do on Amazon.

Re:Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA... by duskwuff on Sunday August 16, 2020 @02:15AM (#24175666)
Technically there is a "storefront" page for each seller on Amazon, but it's not easy to get to and is awkward to navigate. Here's an example of one:

https://www.amazon.com/s?me=A30QSGOJR8LMXA

Overall I'd agree, though -- Amazon has gone out of their way to take focus away from the individual merchants on their site and give customers the impression that they're buying items "from Amazon".

Re:Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA... by vkou on Sunday August 16, 2020 @02:11AM (#24175647)
When I buy a widget from Amazon, I'm not actually getting a widget from some particular merchant on Amazon.

I'm getting a widget that was pulled out of a co-mingled inventory box at some Amazon warehouse.

Amazon owns the entire shopping experience, end-to-end. They run the website. They design the website. They handle payments. They advertise the items ("Customers who bought Foo also bought Bar"). They handle shipping. They handle refunds. They handle warehousing.

But they don't seem to want to own the responsibility. I'm assuming that's because it's not the profitable part of this equation.

Re:Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA... by donatj on Sunday August 16, 2020 @03:24AM (#24175937)
That’s not entirely true. Some sellers keep their stock in amazons warehouse but others, I believe most, drop ship their items themselves.

Like 12 years ago I used to build stock/cart systems for said drop shippers.

Re:Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA... by lozaning on Sunday August 16, 2020 @04:30AM (#24176198)
Anymore if you're not FBA you'll never get the buy box.
Re:Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA... by manigandham on Sunday August 16, 2020 @04:10AM (#24176126)
No, you buy direct from Amazon or from 3rd-party sellers. These sellers can store and ship by themselves, or pay to have it stored and shipped by Amazon (this is called FBA - Fulfilled by Amazon) because it's faster and qualifies immediately for Prime which customers want.

You can tell the difference when you buy, it's just not blatantly obviously unless the main Amazon listing is out of stock and you click on the "other sellers" link yourself. Go to your orders page and every product will tell you the "sold by" name.

Re:Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA... by manderley on Sunday August 16, 2020 @06:20AM (#24176656)
What that person is saying is that you can apparently get co-mingled inventory by a third-party even when buying from Amazon itself.
Re:Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA... by jacobush on Sunday August 16, 2020 @04:51AM (#24176282)
It sounds like a judge must decide if it’s co-mingled or not, from the consumer’s perspective.
Re:Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA... by Stratoscope on Sunday August 16, 2020 @05:55AM (#24176540)
You must be talking about Winters Collective?

I didn't know about it before, so I tracked it down and it sounds like such a nice place! I used to drive up and down 505 all the time visiting family in Oregon. It's been a while, but a stop in Winters will be in store for my next trip.

"a unique collection of vendors who work in partnership to market as a group and showcase the goods of several small businesses in one creative space."

https://winterscollective.com/

Re:Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA... by myself248 on Sunday August 16, 2020 @08:29AM (#24177231)
We have a thing like that in Michigan called Gibraltar Trade Center. At least, parts of GTC operate that way. There are also individual booths with individual cashiers.

It's a great place to get a hepatitis tattoo, scam "6,000,000-watt" car stereo amplifier, or dubious candles that all smell like crayons plus whatever they claim to smell like. And these days, covid too.

Re:Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA... by stickfigure on Sunday August 16, 2020 @11:19AM (#24178476)
Winters Collective is... not like that. It's a small storefront (maybe 1000 sq ft?) selling local handmade crafts. Etsy really is the best comparison. It's nice, but probably appeals mostly to tourists.

Downtown Winters is a great stop if you're coming up/down the 505. It's cute. Main street is closed off to vehicles and set up with tables for open air dining and wine tasting. There are two wineries, two breweries, and remarkably good restaurants for a town pop 7,000.

Re:Amazon Liable for Defective Third-Party Products Rules CA... by rorykoehler on Sunday August 16, 2020 @10:12AM (#24177965)
Liability sits with whoever gets my money (ie Amazon). It’s not complicated.