Re:U.S. House committee approves blueprint for Big Tech crac...
by timoth3y on Friday April 16, 2021 @09:56PM
(#26841003)
I agree. I don't think Amazon can continue this kind of legal equivocation much longer. The claim to be "a neutral market" when questions of consumer protections arise and "just one web store among many" when questions of improper use of their market ownership arise.
The California decision makes a lot of sense.
Looking at their business model with their ownership of the customer relationships, control of the payment methods, and the co-mingling of inventory, it's hard to claim that Amazon is just matching buyers and sellers.
I'm not really in the "break-up big tech" camp. We already have the laws needed to make companies play fair, we just need to enforce them.
That said, the whole Amazon Basics model is kind of questionable. I could see that being split off and forced to operate without access to private market data or preferential placement in the marketplace.
Amazon claims this, but at least in California they still face product liability: https://www.natlawreview.com/article/california-court-appeal...
While on its face the outcome doesn't seem surprising to me, this may nonetheless turn out to be a very important national precedent as California was, IIRC, the first jurisdiction to both clearly establish strict product liability for manufacturers and also extend that liability to intermediate sellers in the distribution chain.