Technology

59605 readers

3434 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related content.
Be excellent to each another!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

427

Arizona accuses Amazon of being a monopoly and deceiving consumers with “dark patterns” (www.theverge.com)

submitted 6 months ago by ForgottenFlux@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

25 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Arizona's Attorney General, Kris Mayes, filed two lawsuits against Amazon on Wednesday for allegedly engaging in deceptive business practices and maintaining monopoly status. The first lawsuit accuses the company of using dark patterns to keep users from canceling their Amazon Prime subscriptions, violating Arizona's Consumer Fraud Act. This is similar to a complaint filed by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) against Amazon in June.
The second lawsuit alleges that Amazon unfairly maintains its monopoly status through agreements with third-party sellers that restrict them from offering lower prices off of the platform than they do on Amazon, violating Arizona's Uniform State Antitrust Act. This practice has also been targeted by other state attorneys general in cases filed against Amazon.
Additionally, the lawsuit accuses Amazon's Buy Box algorithm of being biased towards first-party retail offers or sellers who participate in Fulfillment By Amazon, leading consumers to overpay for items that are available at lower prices from other sellers on Amazon. This aspect is also reflected in the FTC's recent antitrust lawsuit against Amazon, which has been joined by more than a dozen state attorneys general.
Arizona seeks to stop Amazon from engaging in these allegedly deceptive and anticompetitive practices and award civil penalties and disgorgement of ill-gotten gains.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Corr@lemm.ee 4 points 6 months ago (4 children)

I don't mean to support amazon in this, but the article outlines them promoting their own products over others? Unless the buy box implies something other than "we would like you to buy this", I dont really understand the issue with that particular point

[–] Saik0Shinigami@lemmy.saik0.com 14 points 6 months ago (3 children)

I mean even in that case where you think it benign, yes...

If I search for a specific product by name, and an amazon variant exists, they push their above the one I was specifically searching for.

[–] criticon@lemmy.ca 13 points 6 months ago (1 children)

For example:

[–] Saik0Shinigami@lemmy.saik0.com 20 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Exactly an example. This is the "dark pattern".

Notice that it's so perfectly crafted that the "add to cart" for the Anker is off the page. Making it 2 actions to get to the one you actually wanted, and just one for theirs. This is why the lawsuit is for "Dark patterns" and monopolization. It's super anti-consumer, but likely makes them boatloads of money and they do this stuff EVERYWHERE.

[–] Corr@lemm.ee 3 points 6 months ago

Thanks for elaborating. I essentially don't use amazon so I'm not familiar with their newest shitty practices. This is obviously very anti consumer, I just failed to see it as explained in the article

load more comments (1 replies)