#Amazon third-party sellers

[moghedien]

Ok obviously ordering from Amazon is bad and best avoided when possible, but sometimes I need a cable that I can’t find locally and it turns out no matter how hard to try to confirm that I’m receiving a OEM cable, to the point where it says that I’m ordering it directly from Nintendo, I still end up with bootlegs that aren’t even the right plug style

Like seriously just don’t buy electronic stuff from Amazon at this point, it’s just not worth it

[featuresofinterest]

god i hope the cpsc takes the shot. i think this would dramatically change their entire business model. amazon makes so much money by selling defective or mislabeled or just plain dangerous products and then faces little liability because this stuff is actually being sold by random third-party sellers that don't get vetted at all and can be hard to prosecute because they're in china or wherever. this is a big part of what makes amazon so powerful and it would be good for everyone if they were forced to bear more responsibility for the damages caused by the crap available on their website

[robertreich]

How Amazon Is Ripping You Off

Shopping on Amazon? Stop! Watch this first.

Amazon is the world’s biggest online retailer. This one single juggernaut of a company is responsible for nearly 40% of all online sales in America. In an FTC lawsuit, they’re accused of using their mammoth size, and consumers’ dependence on them, to artificially jack up prices as high as possible, while prohibiting sellers on Amazon from charging lower prices anywhere else.

They’re accused of using a secret algorithm, codenamed "Project Nessie," to charge customers an estimated extra $1 billion dollars,

If this isn’t an abuse of power that hurts consumers, what is? So much for all of those “prime” deals you thought you were getting.

Project Nessie isn’t the only trick Amazon has been accused of using to exert its hulking dominance over the online retail industry — leading to higher prices for you.

Much of the FTC’s antitrust lawsuit centers around the treatment of independent merchants who sell items on Amazon’s online superstore — accounting for 60 percent of Amazon's sales.

Amazon allegedly uses strongarm tactics that force these sellers to keep their prices higher than they need to be. Like barring them from selling products for significantly less at other stores — or else risk being hidden in Amazon’s search results or having their sales stopped entirely.

And Amazon is accused of engaging in pay-to-play schemes and charging merchants excessive fees that end up costing you even more.

Independent sellers are effectively forced to pay Amazon to advertise their products prominently in search results. If they don’t fork over cash, then their products get buried underneath products of companies who do. This hurts sellers but also harms shoppers who have to parse through less relevant products that may be more expensive or lower quality.

And to be eligible for the coveted “Prime” badge on their items — which is considered crucial for competing on the platform — independent sellers are pushed into paying Amazon for additional services like warehousing and shipping, even if they could get those services cheaper elsewhere. If sellers forgo trying to qualify for Prime, their goods apparently become harder for customers to find.

When all of these extra fees are added up, Amazon takes around a 50 percent cut of each sale made by a third party. It’s projected that Amazon will earn around $125 billion from collecting fees in the U.S. in 2023, most of which get passed on to you.

By charging all of these extra fees and stifling independent companies from selling their products for less elsewhere, Amazon is using its dominance to essentially set prices for all consumers across the internet.

And when you combine Amazon’s control of ecommerce with all of the other industries it has entered by gobbling up companies — such as Whole Foods, One Medical, and MGM — you’re left with a behemoth that simply has too much power.

This is all part of a much larger problem of growing corporate dominance in America. In over 75% of U.S. industries, fewer companies now control more of their markets than they did twenty years ago.

The lack of competition and consumer choice has resulted in all of us paying more for goods because corporations like Amazon can raise their prices with impunity. By one estimate, corporate concentration has cost the typical American household $5,000 a year more than they would have spent if markets were truly competitive.

This power isn’t just being used to siphon more money from you. A giant corporation has the power to bust unions, keep workers’ wages low, and funnel money into our political system.

It’s a vicious cycle, making giant corporations more and more powerful.

But under the Biden administration, the government is making a strong effort to revive antitrust law and use its power to reign in big corporations that have grown too powerful.

We must stop the monopolization of America. This FTC lawsuit against Amazon is a great start.

[leonardcohenofficial]

vinyl + turntable basic info / general tips

while i am by no means a real audiophile or vinyl expert here are some tips that have worked for me over my almost two decades of collecting!

turntables + speakers

do not buy suitcase players. i cannot overstate this enough. do not buy suitcase players. the all-in-one players are generally cheaper, but there isn't enough support from the platter because they are smaller than 12 inch LPs. this can lead to shitty sound quality, the needle can fall out of the groove, and you can actually break your records. save up and pay a little more and get a proper turntable

there is a lot of debate about belt vs. direct drive turntables (belt drive turntables use a belt to spin the turntable while direct drive turntables have the motor directly under the platter) and which is better. very generally speaking if you want better sound quality, belt drive is the way to go; if you want a player that's a little easier to use that's also a little more durable, direct drive is a better option (most DJ turntables are also direct drive, as a side note)

i currently have three turntables and they are all audio-technica, which is a well respected brand (especially for beginners)—i have an AT-LP60X ($149) which is a belt driven player, as well as two AT-LP120XUSB ($349 each) which i use for practicing DJing/selecting. i also have a stanton M.203 mixer (insane to me that it's listed for $350 on amazon, i paid eighty bucks for mine on ebay), audio-technica ATH-M20x headphones (they were a gift but are listed for $49 on amazon) and a set of edifier R1280DB bluetooth speakers ($149). the speakers are hooked up directly into my mixer, but because both the speakers and the AT-LP60X are bluetooth, i can also play records on that turntable too

change your needle! general rule of thumb is to replace your needle every thousand hours of listening; for the average person if you change it once a year you should be good, i'm on the cautious side and change them every six months

i really like my setup; it's on the cheaper side when it comes to "grownup" gear but true audiophiles would probably scoff at my basics. regardless of what you end up getting, a decent turntable that doesn't have the speakers built in that fits within your budget and a good set of speaker or headphones is all you need

buying records

any time that you can, i recommend buying vinyl directly from the artist! whether it's through bandcamp their website or at a show i think it's better to buy direct when you can (and often times it's cheaper than buying through a third party)

when you can, buy local. not only is it good to support independently owned shops, developing a relationship with local music people is great and if they're good they'll start to know you/your tastes. it also allows you to get good at crate digging, because you never know what you're going to find in a dollar section

utilize listening stations if the store has them! people can be pretty fast and loose with grading used records, so it's better to listen to it and see if the audio quality corresponds with the price (i don't always buy mint/nearly mint records and can tolerate a fair amount of noise but not if i'm being ripped off lmfao)

look things up on discogs to see if you're getting ripped off. not only is discogs great for keeping track of your collection (also you can friend me here!), the online marketplace is great for checking average sale prices for a given release. also handy for seeing how rare a release is!

buying records on discogs can be a crapshoot, ebay even more so. read seller's reviews; if there's feedback that they generally grade conservatively, that's a good thing

i have such a large collection that maintaining a record of what i have is really necessary; discogs is really fantastic for this. you can even scan barcodes on specific releases to find them through the discogs app! it's super handy for me as sometimes i forget that i have certain albums already and end up buying multiple copies and having to get rid of them (i need to get better at cataloguing immediately after i get new stuff, i currently have about forty five records i still need to add lmfao)

storing + maintaining records

keep your records clean! get a good cleaning kit and have microfiber cloths on hand to keep your vinyl as dust free as possible. also use those storage sleeves, it makes a different in keeping your records cleaner longer

a general rule of vinyl storage that i learned from the owner of the shop that i've been going to since i was nine years old is to store them in less than 70 degrees F environments with less than 70% humidity (funnily enough this is apparently the same rule for cigars)

i recommend those ikea square storage bookcases, as they're generally study, aren't too expensive, are pretty easy to put together, and hold a lot of records (do not store your records in milk crates long term)

actually listen to your records! there are very few releases i keep sealed for the sake of keeping them in mint condition. vinyl can be a very expensive habit (800+ records later i am living proof lol) but it's no fun to keep them sitting around. have fun collecting and play your music!

[st-just]

“Seller services,” as Amazon refers to these and other sources of revenue, are a large and growing part of Amazon’s revenue — larger than Amazon Web Services and quite profitable. They also mean that letting a seller market off-brand products on your platform is often going to be more profitable than selling your own discount brands: Undercutting an independent seller’s small coffee-grinder business is, it turns out, a bad look and, in the big picture, maybe not worth the trouble. Sellers serve a lot of purposes for Amazon and joke among themselves about the free labor they provide. In exchange for access to the largest sales channel on the internet, they do a lot more than just pay Amazon its fees. They perform market research, obsessively investigating review data and marketplace trends to figure out what’s going to be popular on the platform next. (Recent red-hot third-party product types include miniature waffle-makers, reading lights that drape around your neck, and dog puzzles.) They handle customer service. They exert downward price pressure on one another, and they absorb a lot of risk (dozens of dog-puzzle sellers fail so that one may thrive). No matter what happens to them, whether their own businesses succeed or fail, Amazon makes money. This is a great deal for Amazon, and over the years it has become Amazon’s main deal — in 2021, the company estimated that activities on its marketplace created “more than 1.8 million U.S. jobs” and shared success stories from its hundreds of thousands of American sellers, some of whom had become millionaires. It was a slow and, in hindsight, astounding transformation in which the “everything store” substantially outsourced its store.

-John Hermann, The Junkification of Amazon

[thebibliosphere]

Got it a couple months ago for $9

Now it’s $33 or $58 for medium heat before postage to Australia

Is there an Amazon issue? Or is my device glitching?

It was the cheapest plan despite being the newest iPhone at the time

I assume you're talking about Hunger Pangs.

With regard to paperbacks, this has nothing to do with your mobile app. It's just the cost of physical print and third-party sellers.

If you got a paperback for $9 you likely got it used or on sale because the current listing price is $17.99 across the board, which in Australia works out at about $25-ish with the exchange rate. Before that, the minimum price was $14.99, which in Aus was $20.

The increase from $14.99 to $17.99 was due to the cost of printing going up again this year. Prior to that, I was earning 1 cent from my US paperbacks. I now earn 90 cents.

The $50 paperbacks are not being sold by Amazon Au Print. They're being imported from Amazon Germany for some reason. I have no idea why. The increase in price is likely a reflection of shipping costs. Hopefully, it should rectify itself at some point, but I have no control over it in the meantime. Also, sometimes, you'll see third-party retailers listing books well above the asking price. Authors also have no control over that. Our minimum pricing is often just taken as a suggestion. Retailers can't go under our minimum price unless there's a sale on, but they can always go over it if they want.

[follow-up-news]

Amazon is responsible under federal safety law for hazardous products sold on its platform by third-party sellers and shipped by the company, a U.S. government agency ordered Tuesday. In a unanimous vote, the Consumer Product Safety Commission said it determined that the e-commerce company was a “distributor” of faulty items sold on its site and packed and shipped through its fulfillment service. That means the company is on the hook, legally, for the recalls of more than 400,000 products, including hairdryers and defective carbon monoxide detectors, the agency said. It ordered Amazon to come up with a system for notifying customers who purchased faulty items and to remove the products from circulation by offering incentives for their return or destruction. Overall, Amazon accounts for roughly 40% of e-commerce sales in the U.S., according to the market research firm Emarketer. The company sells many items directly to consumers and also partners with nearly 2 million third-party sellers, who drive the majority of the sales on the platform. The online retailer has fought the “distributor” label since 2021, when the Consumer Product Safety Commission filed an administrative complaint against the company for distributing hazardous items.

[horreurscopes]

hello followers i need some advice esp if anyone here works as a customer service rep. i've always been able to resolve my issues even when they're technically outside policy by being nicey but insistent, asking to be transferred, etc. it's never a bad time for me or the phone reps, it just requires a while lot of patience and the ability to remain calm and empathetic. however i'm dealing with a broken headset that's still within warranty, got it a year ago from the razer storefront on amazon but it was fulfilled by a third party seller which i'm just finding out. both amazon and razer hit me with a new avoidance technique that i can't figure out how to bypass: the team that can fix my issue (a refund, a replacement) is not available to talk on the phone; they will open a case and i can communicate through email with them "they'll get back to you in 24-48 hours". obviously this just hits a wall where i get the script for "we can't help you" through email over and over again which is sooo upsetting

usually asking to be transferred to someone who can bypass the policy works eventually but it seems they've gotten really tight on the "sorry everyone else you can talk to has the same permissions i do." it feels like i've finally been defeated by Big Corp now that i can't seem to reach anyone by phone who could actually get me a refund/replacement because "hey can you transfer me to someone who can help with this" no longer works and completely shuts down the ability to connect human being to human being and i don't want to go all "can i speak to your manager" because i'm sure that's not gonna gain me any goodwill points. does anyone have any idea of how to get to the right person through clever schemes and jedi mind tricks ):

[cindylouwho-2]

RECENT ECOMMERCE NEWS (INCLUDING ETSY), AUGUST 2024

Hello, and welcome to my very last Ecommerce News update here on Tumblr.

After today, these reports will now be found at least twice a week on my Patreon, available to all paid members. See more about this change here on my website blog: https://www.cindylouwho2.com/blog/2024/8/12/a-new-way-to-get-ecommerce-news-and-help-welcome-to-my-patreon-page

Don't worry! I will still be posting some short pieces here on Tumblr (as well as some free pieces on my Patreon, plus longer posts on my website blog). However, the news updates and some other posts will be moving to Patreon permanently.

Please follow me there! https://www.patreon.com/CindyLouWho2

TOP NEWS & ARTICLES 

Etsy has banned gift certificates/cards sold by individual shops, as of Sept 15. Only Etsy Gift Cards are now allowed. The second quarter report press release says they plan on selling Etsy Gift Cards through third parties, but no official word on how and when yet.

Many Amazon Handmade sellers were unable to list new items after a site update on July 31 [post by me on LinkedIn]. While Amazon told sellers to apply for an exemption from the Product ID requirement, some report that is not working, or that they do not have the option to apply for one. 

Reminder that Canadian Etsy shops will be charged a 1.15% Regulatory Operating fee on the item price and shipping cost as of August 15. [I’ve set a bunch of things to expire. If Etsy isn’t profitable enough to pay its taxes, maybe they should consider cutting executive pay instead of squeezing microbusinesses even more.]

ETSY NEWS��

Etsy has updated its Privacy Policy, to take effect August 31. Changes include mention of biometric data. Note that some parts of the policy are screenshots, and therefore not easily searchable nor accessible to screen readers - I am not sure how they can get away with that. I used the Wayback Machine to do a comparison of the parts that software can actually read.   There’s also a new US regional privacy policy, which currently covers laws in several states.  

Etsy is promoting a Labour Day sale August 21-September 2, and has already set up the "Cyber Savings Sale" (November 18-December 3) for Cyber Week. You can schedule the official sales through links in the announcement.

Forbes covered Etsy’s sex toy ban [soft paywall; not safe for work photos]. To no one's surprise, plenty of the banned items are still found on site, including toys and vintage Playboy magazines. 

Etsy is accused of allowing shops based in “illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory” and profiting off of them. Etsy’s response: "[W]e have shared this information internally with the appropriate teams for review."

Etsy's promised program for buyers - Etsy Insider - will be rolling out as invite-only beta in September. It's a paid membership for US buyers and includes:

Free US domestic shipping on millions of items

A birthday bonus

Limited edition annual gift, designed by an Etsy seller

First access to special discounts and select merchandise

While some of the "special discounts" are paid by sellers, that is a voluntary program shops can sign up for here. That form also allows you to sign up to offer new items to Etsy Insiders first - “drops” - which does not involve offering discounts. Etsy has done these sorts of "offers" in the past, and I believe they have already reached out to sellers for the first round of offers in September (based on some emails I have received from shop owners).

You can now sign up for “Etsy Up”, the virtual sellers conference scheduled for September 10. However, despite saying they have announced “our agenda”, all that is provided is a vague set of topics (other than the fact they will be announcing the Etsy Design Awards Finalists). It makes me wonder if there are official Etsy announcements coming soon that they don’t want to reveal too early by posting the real agenda. If yes, around August 15 is a good bet, given that  Etsy’s Search Analytics will end that day, and many new policies kick in on September 15, just one month later.

The Etsy app is showing rectangular listing images in search for some visitors, but it appears to be a test [Reddit thread with screenshot]. I wouldn’t change anything at this time. 

No, Etsy has not replaced your listing tags. I covered that topic here on LinkedIn. 

I wrote about the new Listing Image Requirement policy and the email Etsy sent to some sellers on Monday July 29. [post by me on Patreon] And not everyone is being fooled by Etsy’s new Creativity Standards, but some acknowledge it will be difficult for Etsy to turn away factory-made goods at this point. [Disclosure: I am quoted in that article]

ECOMMERCE NEWS (minus social media)

Amazon

Amazon’s second quarter revenue was below expectations, and the company predicts nothing better in the third quarter. 

In a surprising change, Amazon has decided to cancel overage fees for Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) inventory storage, retroactive to July 1. 

Canadian Amazon sellers will be subject to a new digital services fee as of October 1. This is due to Canada’s new digital services tax. 

In a case that may have an impact on other larger ecommerce sites, a court ruled that Amazon is responsible for recalls of products sold through Amazon, including through “Fulfilled By Amazon”. 

US Amazon shoppers can now link their Pinterest and TikTok accounts to Amazon to be able to buy directly from Amazon ads on social media. This is already available on Facebook, Instagram and Snap. 

Amazon is changing its refund policy for Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) users: if sellers do not receive an automatic reimbursement for loss, damage and returns, they will now only have 60 days to apply for one.  A lot of ecommerce experts think Amazon is making a mistake in setting up a China to US section on the site.

eBay

eBay second quarter revenue and profit was higher than expected, but the third quarter projections are low.  

The eBay app has taken a lot of flack for inserting ads between each item in a purchase history. 

Poshmark

As marketplaces popular for pre-owned items compete for the best new stock, Poshmark is offering “rewards” for listing at least 1 item a week. 

Shopify

Shopify had a better-than-expected second quarter, and expects a decent third quarter as well. Getting larger businesses to use Shopify has helped the tech company, but I still wonder how that affects the small and micro businesses who used to be the target market.

Walmart

The Walmart Marketplace has added Chile as its fourth country, after the US, Canada and Mexico. 

All Other Marketplaces

Hundreds of business owners who sell on Temu held a protest at the marketplace headquarters on July 29. Fines for returns are one cited issue. 

Payment Processing

Credit cards issued by Chase in the US will no longer allow third-party buy-now-pay-later purchases, as of October 10. Conveniently, they offer their own option, Chase Pay Over Time. PayPal has expanded the quicker checkout solution Fastlane to all US businesses, which fills in customer information without a log in.

[heckyeahponyscans]

While I'm on the topic of the 2023 retro Collector ponies, I just checked Amazon and found Minty and Butterscotch for $10 USD each. Yes, finally an uninflated price!!! Still waiting on the others to drop.

I wonder if this means Basic Fun has finally started stocking them? The higher prices are markups from third party sellers.

>> link to Butterscotch <<

>> link to Minty <<

[mostlysignssomeportents]

How Google’s trial secrecy lets it control the coverage

I'm coming to Minneapolis! Oct 15: Presenting The Internet Con at Moon Palace Books. Oct 16: Keynoting the 26th ACM Conference On Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing.

"Corporate crime" is practically an oxymoron in America. While it's true that the single most consequential and profligate theft in America is wage theft, its mechanisms are so obscure and, well, dull that it's easy to sell us on the false impression that the real problem is shoplifting:

https://newrepublic.com/post/175343/wage-theft-versus-shoplifting-crime

Corporate crime is often hidden behind Dana Clare's Shield Of Boringness, cloaked in euphemisms like "risk and compliance" or that old favorite, "white collar crime":

https://pluralistic.net/2021/12/07/solar-panel-for-a-sex-machine/#a-single-proposition

And corporate crime has a kind of performative complexity. The crimes come to us wreathed in specialized jargon and technical terminology that make them hard to discern. Which is wild, because corporate crimes occur on a scale that other crimes – even those committed by organized crime – can't hope to match:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/12/no-criminals-no-crimes/#get-out-of-jail-free-card

But anything that can't go on forever eventually stops. After decades of official tolerance (and even encouragement), corporate criminals are finally in the crosshairs of federal enforcers. Take National Labor Relations Board general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo's ruling in Cemex: when a company takes an illegal action to affect the outcome of a union election, the consequence is now automatic recognition of the union:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/06/goons-ginks-and-company-finks/#if-blood-be-the-price-of-your-cursed-wealth

That's a huge deal. Before, a boss could fire union organizers and intimidate workers, scuttle the union election, and then, months or years later, pay a fine and some back-wages…and the union would be smashed.

The scale of corporate crime is directly proportional to the scale of corporations themselves. Big companies aren't (necessarily) led by worse people, but even small sins committed by the very largest companies can affect millions of lives.

That's why antitrust is so key to fighting corporate crime. To make corporate crimes less harmful, we must keep companies from attaining harmful scale. Big companies aren't just too big to fail and too big to jail – they're also too big for peaceful coexistence with a society of laws.

The revival of antitrust enforcement is such a breath of fresh air, but it's also fighting headwinds. For one thing, there's 40 years of bad precedent from the nightmare years of pro-monopoly Reaganomics to overturn:

https://pluralistic.net/ApexPredator

It's not just precedents in the outcomes of trials, either. Trial procedure has also been remade to favor corporations, with judges helping companies stack the deck in their own favor. The biggest factor here is secrecy: blocking recording devices from courts, refusing to livestream the proceedings, allowing accused corporate criminals to clear the courtroom when their executives take the stand, and redacting or suppressing the exhibits:

https://prospect.org/power/2023-09-27-redacted-case-against-amazon/

When a corporation can hide evidence and testimony from the public and the press, it gains broad latitude to dispute critics, including government enforcers, based on evidence that no one is allowed to see, or, in many cases, even describe. Take Project Nessie, the program that the FTC claims Amazon used to compel third-party sellers to hike prices across many categories of goods:

https://www.wsj.com/business/retail/amazon-used-secret-project-nessie-algorithm-to-raise-prices-6c593706

Amazon told the press that the FTC has "grossly mischaracterize[d]" Project Nessie. The DoJ disagrees, but it can't say why, because the Project Nessie files it based its accusations on have been redacted, at Amazon's insistence. Rather than rebutting Amazon's claim, FTC spokesman Douglas Farrar could only say "We once again call on Amazon to move swiftly to remove the redactions and allow the American public to see the full scope of what we allege are their illegal monopolistic practices."

It's quite a devastating gambit: when critics and prosecutors make specific allegations about corporate crimes, the corporation gets to tell journalists, "No, that's wrong, but you're not allowed to see the reason we say it's wrong."

It's a way to work the refs, to get journalists – or their editors – to wreathe bold claims in endless hedging language, or to avoid reporting on the most shocking allegations altogether. This, in turn, keeps corporate trials out of the public eye, which reassures judges that they can defer to further corporate demands for opacity without facing an outcry.

That's a tactic that serves Google well. When the company was dragged into court by the DoJ Antitrust Division, it demanded – and received – a veil of secrecy that is especially ironic given the company's promise "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful":

https://usvgoogle.org/trial-update-9-22

While this veil has parted somewhat, it is still intact enough to allow the company to work the refs and kill disfavorable reporting from the trial. Last week, Megan Gray – ex-FTC, ex-DuckDuckGo – published an editorial in Wired reporting on her impression of an explosive moment in the Google trial:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/03/not-feeling-lucky/#fundamental-laws-of-economics

According to Gray, Google had run a program to mess with the "semantic matching" on queries, silently appending terms to users' searches that caused them to return more ads – and worse results. This generated more revenue for Google, at the expense of advertisers who got billed to serve ads that didn't even match user queries.

Google forcefully disputed this claim:

https://twitter.com/searchliaison/status/1709726778170786297

They contacted Gray's editors at Wired, but declined to release all the exhibits and testimony that Gray used to form her conclusions about Google's conduct; instead, they provided a subset of the relevant materials, which cast doubt on Gray's accusations.

Wired removed Gray's piece, with an unsigned notice that "WIRED editorial leadership has determined that the story does not meet our editorial standards. It has been removed":

https://www.wired.com/story/google-antitrust-lawsuit-search-results/

But Gray stands by her piece. She admits that she might have gotten some of the fine details wrong, but that these were not material to the overall point of her story, that Google manipulated search queries to serve more ads at the expense of the quality of the results:

https://twitter.com/megangrA/status/1711035354134794529

She says that the piece could and should have been amended to reflect these fine-grained corrections, but that in the absence of a full record of the testimony and exhibits, it was impossible for her to prove to her editors that her piece was substantively correct.

I reviewed the limited evidence that Google permitted to be released and I find her defense compelling. Perhaps you don't. But the only way we can factually resolve this dispute is for Google to release the materials that they claim will exonerate them. And they won't, though this is fully within their power.

I've seen this playbook before. During the early months of the pandemic, a billionaire who owned a notorious cyberwarfare company used UK libel threats to erase this fact from the internet – including my own reporting – on the grounds that the underlying research made small, non-material errors in characterizing a hellishly complex financial Rube Goldberg machine that was, in my opinion, deliberately designed to confuse investigators.

Like the corporate crimes revealed in the Panama Papers and Paradise Papers, the gambit is complicated, but it's not sophisticated:

Make everything as complicated as possible;

Make everything as secret as possible;

Dismiss any accusations by claiming errors in the account of the deliberately complex arrangements, which can't be rectified because the relevant materials are a secret.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/09/working-the-refs/#but-id-have-to-kill-you

My next novel is The Lost Cause, a hopeful novel of the climate emergency. Amazon won't sell the audiobook, so I made my own and I'm pre-selling it on Kickstarter!

Image: Jason Rosenberg (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/underpants/12069086054/

CC BY https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

--

Japanexperterna.se (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/japanexperterna/15251188384/

CC BY-SA 2.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/

[news4dzhozhar]

Sorry it's taken so long to respond to some messages but I wanted to post this info about mail, books and sending money as I get asked about it alot.

Because the SAMs are still in place, Dzho can only send and receive mail (letters, cards) from immediate family.  If you want to send him books, here is the mailing info and instructions/rules for doing so:

All books must be brand new, soft cover ONLY (hard cover will cause the delivery to be delayed as the prison removes the hard cover for security reasons) and be mailed direct from Amazon.com  As Amazon also sells new & used books from other sellers you need to make sure that any book you want to send is NOT coming from one of these many outside third party sellers but directly from Amazon themselves.  None of the books plots can be violent or overly sexual (no nudity)…basically just common sense stuff when it comes to topics. Absolutely no spiral-bound books will get in so don’t send those.

With SAMs in place if too many books are received in a short period (I think 10 per month was the limit when he was still in Devens) they may be sent back or “donated” (as they put it) to the other inmates/library. If they are “donated” due to the limit being reached, you won’t be advised that the book never made it to Dzho as Amazon only sends delivery confirmations.  

ADDRESS:

Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev #95079-038

USP Florence ADMAX

PO Box 8500

Florence, CO 81226

Everything must be sent via postal mail, so make sure your package will not be sent via UPS, FedEx, DHL or some other carrier. POSTAL MAIL ONLY.  Amazon will automatically send via USPS since it’s going to a post office box and not a physical address. If you use a vendor other than Amazon make sure you validate that the book will be sent via postal service.

If you are avidly anti-Amazon.com, you can use Barnes & Noble, Books A Million, or even your local “mom and pop” bookstore provided they will mail it directly to the prison for you. If you choose to go the local bookstore route make sure they use a “professional” mailing label and not a handwritten one -  it will be rejected. 

I don't believe any type of packing slip or gift receipt is passed along to Dzhokhar with the books received to avoid any messages getting through so it is unlikely he will know who has sent him what.

For those asking about putting money on Dzhos commissary account, please know that his family does this regularly.  There is also a multi million dollar judgement against him from a lawsuit by the victims so if his balance gets over a certain amount, the BOP seizes the funds to apply towards the (basically bottomless) restitution fund.  If you still want to send funds, there are three ways to send money. Western Union, Money Gram or by postal mail.

Instructions are here: http://www.bop.gov/inmates/communications.jsp#mg 

If you go the postal mail route, you have to send a money order (nothing else - only a money order) to a different address as the Federal BOP handles money in 1 central location vs each individual prison.  The money order should be sent to:

Federal Bureau of Prisons

Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev #95079-038

Post Office Box 474701

Des Moines, Iowa 50947-0001

They'll deposit into his account from there. 

Hope this is helpful to all those who have asked 🙂 Let me know if there are any other questions

[smilingformoney]

Do you think if we place an Amazon order for a Sinclair now, the pacakage might be delivered for Christmas? Or does the boyfriend shop not operate as a third party seller? I need a catalogue.

considering the quality of Amazon stock, be careful ordering a Sinclair off there bc u might end up with one of those awful AI Alans instead

[coffinup]

"Why shouldn't I just get a casket from Costco?"

This is a question that comes up a lot when faced with casket prices. You go into a funeral home to make arrangements for a loved one, you're confronted with the high price points of caskets and coffins, and think to yourself, "well, these are just the ones the funeral home is selling. I could probably find one cheaper elsewhere."

Part of the rules and regulations set to us by the FTC is that we can't dissuade families from buying things from outside the funeral home, with very few exceptions. If someone said they were going to buy a casket from Amazon, I legally couldn't dissuade them from doing that. I could, however, explain to them the benefits to buying a casket from a funeral home or casket manufacturer if I wanted to.

Now that being said, I'm going to briefly give my honest opinion of alternative containers and caskets from other sources. Since this is an informal setting, I'll give my two cents.

I'm sure everyone has, at some point in their life, bought something at a cheaper price from somewhere and had it not be super great. You run the risk of a cheaper solution not being as well-made, and the same can be said of caskets. Caskets are, at the end of the day, a manufactured product. That means you could very well find a good alternative, or you could get something that didn't exactly match what you thought you were getting. The other risk is shipping; casket companies and funeral homes use very specific carriers, or even dedicated employees, that are trained in proper handling and delivery of caskets. Batesville has specialized delivery trucks that are designed for overnight shipping and are specifically designed to HOLD caskets. A common carrier or an Amazon carrier probably aren't going to have these specialized trucks, and would ship a casket like they would ship anything else. Now that might work just fine, but there's more liability involved. When a family orders a casket from an outside source, we explain to them that they have to be present when that casket is delivered. So when it arrives, we have the delivery person unload it and we don't touch it until the next of kin arrives, and then they have to watch us open it. That way, we can prove that any damage or mistakes were part of the seller/carrier, and not inflicted by us. When a family buys a casket from us, we don't have to do this. It's logistically easier for the funeral home AND the family.

Funeral homes legally have to be extremely upfront about the quality of their caskets, if you go to a funeral home that has physical examples of the caskets they provide, that's a good sign. It means that what you're seeing is what you're getting.

Something to keep in mind with online retailers is that at best, you have a couple images of the item you're purchasing and the item you get is extremely similar to the one in the picture. At worst, you get a retailer using an image from another seller and shipping you a similar item that may not be exactly the same, but is close enough. Actually, there was someone I heard of in recent years that thought they were ordering a full-sized casket and instead got a child-sized plastic prop instead. Whoops! Always check the product dimensions I guess!

USA based casket manufacturers have to hold to a certain set of safety standards and manufacturing expectations. For instance, you would reasonably expect that when pallbearers lift a casket, the bottom of the casket isn't going to fall out like in that clip from I Think You Should Leave. You probably would also expect the handles to not rip off, the lid to close all the way, etc. Funeral homes and casket manufacturers are always ensuring that a casket will function as intended and is built to high-quality. A massive online retailer or big box store MIGHT not have the same quality standards.

The primary problem we see with caskets ordered from third party sources is damage during shipping, and delayed shipping. The main problem with this is that if we have to order a new one, that might be a cost that we either have to eat, or gets put onto the family (who was trying to save money in the first place!), and it might push any scheduled services back, or cut it close. Which is just adding more stress onto an already stressful situation. Just like with a car-seat, we can't guarantee that what looks like a superficial scratch might not go deeper and be worse than it looks like on the surface.

The third and last point I will make is about the price: A lot of the time when you add up the item cost and overnight or rushed shipping cost, the final price may not actually be all that much less than if you bought it from a funeral home or manufacturer. Now when I say this, I'm mostly referring to what you would think as a traditional casket, like this one. (Fun fact: when I searched for images of caskets, Amazon was one of the first results to come up.)

There are a TON of options for what is referred to as "alternative containers" that come from reputable sources that do sell their products online. like wicker caskets. I have absolutely nothing against people using a non-casket container, in fact, I would encourage it if it makes the experience more personalized and meaningful. The main thing I would ask the family to consider is, if there is any doubt about how sturdy the container is, that it be just used for viewing and not have pallbearers. But even if they do want pallbearers, we can easily use a church truck or a bier to move the container with the person inside of it, so as long as the container can withstand that, then we're good.

The main point I'm trying to make is this: when you order a product from a massive retailer that doesn't specialize in caskets, you run the risk of the manufacturing standards not being up to the same standards, and you run the risk of spending more money than you originally thought. Funeral homes HAVE to be up-front about the exact costs of everything. I'm sure everyone's familiar with the fact that online retailers especially can tack on a lot of hidden fees. Because big-box and online retailers aren't subject to the Funeral Rule (because they aren't selling services AND merchandise, just merchandise) they can hide things in fine print and tack extra costs under a "service fee" label.

That being said, there is nothing stopping you from using an alternate container. And often funeral homes have a running list of alternate containers that they can help provide to. Many people are surprised to hear that yes, you actually CAN just have a cheap plain pine box, and the funeral home can have it shipped same-day or overnight.

If you have something specific in mind, it can't hurt to ask the funeral director if they have a source for what you're looking for. You might be surprised! A good funeral home will keep an up-to-date and running list of a lot of options when it comes to containers, service venues, officiants, etc. Even if someone hasn't ordered a six-sided wood coffin in years, we still always know exactly where to get one if someone asks. If someone wants their loved one laid into their old canoe, I'd allow that and inform them and my staff about how we'll go about handling that. You also should never be embarrassed to just straight up say "what's the cheapest option?". There's a WIDE range for prices for caskets that are still beautiful. You also do not HAVE to have a casket to have a burial!

TLDR; buying a casket online might seem like a tempting prospect, but you have to be warry because massive online retailers don't have the same standards. If money is the issue, you do not have to have a casket; ask your funeral director about alternative options!

As always,

Memento Mori

[liyahd-m]

How to make money with Amazon

There are several ways to make money on Amazon:

Sell products as a third-party seller: Utilize Amazon's platform to sell products, either as an individual or professional seller.

Amazon FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon): Leverage Amazon's logistics and customer service for your products.

Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP): Self-publish ebooks and paperbacks.

Amazon Associates (Affiliate Marketing): Earn commissions by promoting Amazon products on your website or social media.

Amazon Mechanical Turk: Complete small tasks for a fee.

Amazon Influencer Program: Promote products and earn commissions as a social media influencer.

Sell handmade products on Amazon Handmade: Showcase and sell artisanal goods.

Amazon Dropshipping: Sell products without holding inventory, by partnering with a supplier.

Create and sell an Amazon Alexa skill or app: Develop voice-activated skills or apps.

Amazon Wholesale: Buy products in bulk and resell them on Amazon.

Remember, each method requires dedication and compliance with Amazon's policies.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

[The Daily Don]

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

September 26, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

Today, on the anniversary of the creation of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in 1914, the FTC and 17 state attorneys general sued Amazon for using “a set of interlocking anticompetitive and unfair strategies to maintain its monopoly power.” The FTC and the suing states say “Amazon’s actions allow it to stop rivals and sellers from lowering prices, degrade quality for shoppers, overcharge sellers, stifle innovation, and prevent rivals from fairly competing against Amazon.” 

The states suing are Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington.

While estimates of Amazon’s control of the online commerce market vary, they center around about 40%, and Amazon charges third-party merchants for using the company’s services to store and ship items. Last quarter, Amazon reported more than $32 billion in revenues from these services. The suit claims that Amazon illegally overcharges third-party sellers and inflates prices.

This lawsuit is about more than Amazon: it marks a return to traditional forms of government antitrust action that were abandoned in the 1980s. Traditionally, officials interpreted antitrust laws to mean the government should prevent large entities from swallowing up markets and consolidating their power in order to raise prices and undercut workers’ rights. They wanted to protect economic competition, believing that such competition would promote innovation, protect workers, and keep consumer prices down. 

In the 1980s, government officials replaced that understanding with an idea advanced by former solicitor general of the United States Robert Bork—the man whom the Senate later rejected for a seat on the Supreme Court because of his extremism—who claimed that traditional antimonopoly enforcement was economically inefficient because it restricted the ways businesses could operate. Instead, he said, consolidation of industries was fine so long as it promoted economic efficiencies that, at least in the short term, cut costs for consumers. While antitrust legislation remained on the books, the understanding of what it meant changed dramatically.

Reagan and his people advanced Bork’s position, abandoning the idea that capitalism fundamentally depends on competition. Industries consolidated, and by the time Biden took office, his people estimated the lack of competition was costing a median U.S. household as much as $5,000 a year. 

On July 9, 2021, Biden called the turn toward Bork’s ideas “the wrong path” and vowed to restore competition in an increasingly consolidated marketplace. In an executive order, he established a White House Competition Council to direct a whole-of-government approach to promoting competition in the economy. 

“[C]ompetition keeps the economy moving and keeps it growing,” Biden said. “Fair competition is why capitalism has been the world’s greatest force for prosperity and growth…. But what we’ve seen over the past few decades is less competition and more concentration that holds our economy back.”

In that speech, Biden deliberately positioned himself in our country’s long history of opposing economic consolidation. Calling out both Roosevelt presidents—Republican Theodore Roosevelt, who oversaw part of the Progressive Era, and Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who oversaw the New Deal—Biden celebrated their attempt to rein in the power of big business, first by focusing on the abuses of those businesses, and then by championing competition. 

While still a student at Yale Law School, FTC chair Lina Khan published an essay examining the anticompetitive nature of modern businesses like Amazon, arguing that focusing on consumer prices alone does not address the problems of consolidation and monopoly. With today’s action, the FTC is restoring the traditional vision of antitrust action.

President Biden demonstrated his support for ordinary Americans in another historic way today when he became the first sitting president to join a picket line of striking workers. In Wayne County, Michigan, he joined a UAW strike, telling the striking autoworkers, “Wall Street didn’t build the country, the middle class built the country. Unions built the middle class. That’s a fact. Let’s keep going, you deserve what you’ve earned. And you’ve earned a hell of a lot more than you’re getting paid now."

Even as Biden was standing on the picket line, House speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) released a new budget plan that moves even farther to the right. Yesterday, former president Trump backed the far-right extremists threatening to shut down the government, insisting that holding the government hostage is the best way to get everything they want, including, he wrote, an end to the criminal cases against him. 

“The Republicans lost big on Debt Ceiling, got NOTHING, and now are worried that they will be BLAMED for the Budget Shutdown. Wrong!!! Whoever is President will be blamed,” Trump wrote on social media. “UNLESS YOU GET EVERYTHING, SHUT IT DOWN! Close the Border, stop the Weaponization of ‘Justice,’ and End Election Interference.”

McCarthy is reneging on the agreement he made with Biden in the spring as conditions for raising the debt ceiling, and instead is calling for dramatic cuts to the nation’s social safety net, as well as restarting construction of a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico, as starting points for funding the government. Cuts of more than $150 billion in his new proposal would mean cutting housing subsidies for the poor by 33%, fuel subsidies for low-income families by more than 70%, and funding for low-income schools by nearly 80% and would force more than 1 million women and children off of nutritional assistance. 

The “bottom line is we’re singularly focused right now on achieving our conservative objectives,” Representative Garret Graves (R-LA) told Jeff Stein, Marianna Sotomayor, and Moriah Balingit of the Washington Post. The Republicans plan to preserve the tax cuts of the Trump years, which primarily benefited the wealthy and corporations. 

At any point, McCarthy could return to the deal he cut with Biden, pass the appropriations bills with Democratic support, and fund the government. But if he does that, he is almost certain to face a challenge to his speakership from the extremists who currently are holding the country hostage. 

This evening, the Senate reached a bipartisan deal to fund the government through November 17 and to provide additional funding for Ukraine (although less than the White House wants), passing it by a vote of 77–19. Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) urged the House Republicans to agree to the measure, warning them that shutdowns “don’t work as bargaining chips.” Nevertheless, McCarthy would not say he would take up the bill, and appears to feel the need to give in to the extremists’ demands. Moreover, he has suddenly said he thinks a meeting with Biden could avert the crisis, suggesting he is desperate for someone else to find a solution. 

Former president Trump has his own problems this evening stemming from the civil case against him, his older sons, and other officers and parts of the Trump Organization in New York, where Attorney General Letitia James has charged him with committing fraud by inflating the value of his assets. Today New York judge Arthur Engoron ruled that Trump and his company deceived banks and insurers by massively overvaluing his real estate holdings in order to obtain loans and better terms for deals. The Palm Beach County assessor valued Mar-a-Lago, for example, at $18 million, while Trump valued it at between $426 million and $612 million, an overvaluation of 2,300% (not a typo). 

Engoron canceled the organization’s New York business licenses, arranged for an independent receiver to dissolve those businesses, and placed a retired judge into the position of independent monitor to oversee the Trump Organization. 

This decision will crush the heart of Trump’s businesses, and he issued a long statement attacking it, using all the usual words: “witch hunt,” “Communist,” “Political Lawfare” (ok, I don’t get that one),  and “If they can do this to me, they can do this to YOU!” Law professor Jen Taub commented, “It reads better in the original ketchup.” Trump’s lawyers say they are considering an appeal. The rest of the case is due to go to trial early next month.

Finally, today, the Supreme Court rejected Alabama’s request to let it ignore the court’s order that it redraw its congressional district maps to create a second majority-Black district. Alabama will have to comply with the court’s order. 

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON