[HN Gopher] Brits make Amazon, Meta stop using third-party data ...
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Brits make Amazon, Meta stop using third-party data to undercut
rivals
Author : LinuxBender
Score : 124 points
Date : 2023-11-05 17:10 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theregister.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theregister.com)
| tshanmu wrote:
| sad that el reg is also doing this: "In Amazon's case, the
| e-commerce giant used vendors' sales figures to decide which
| items it should sell, and how much to price products to get an
| edge over everyone else. The internet behemoth also promoted its
| own products with its Buy Box feature and it further cut into
| retailers' margins by charging extra costs if they wanted to use
| Amazon's Prime delivery services, the CMA said.
|
| Now Amazon has committed to doing less of that. "
|
| less of that -> became stop :(
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Doing what? That's their dry humor. Are you new to reading The
| Reg? Or the British press in general?
|
| The rest of the article explains in detail all the ways they're
| being forced to curtail what they've been doing.
| andylynch wrote:
| The Reg's usual cynical attitude is probably warranted here.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| So basically, Amazon is not allowed to look at what products are
| selling well on Amazon before they decide which products to make.
| However, Amazon is still allowed to sell products, and presumably
| market research firms are going to give them the same results,
| more or less. So what did this accomplish, really? It seems like
| some UK lawmaker is up for reelection and wants a feather in
| their cap.
| m3047 wrote:
| As the market makers they have data which is otherwise only
| available to the sellers themselves. If they have to buy market
| intelligence from third parties it won't be as good, plus those
| third parties now have intelligence about what intelligence
| Amazon is willing to pay for which I'm sure they can sell on to
| the highest bidder.
| rkagerer wrote:
| Could the left hand sell said data to market research
| analysts first, before the right hand buys their reports?
| actionfromafar wrote:
| The Five Eyes approach! Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook and
| eBay could all share their customer data with each other.
| avar wrote:
| Well, yes, and that's not some circumvention of measures
| like this, but the intent of these sorts of anti-
| competitive laws.
|
| Amazon can use the same data they've been using all this
| time, but they must not put themselves in a special
| position in acquiring that data. If they want to publish
| their sales data for free or for a price that they
| themselves pay, that's fine, as long as others can also get
| the data.
| Arelius wrote:
| Wouldn't selling it, perhaps not be particularly fair.
| Like, couldn't they sell it at a price that would eat up
| all potential profits from the company using the data.
| But it'd be fine since they could run that segment of the
| company at a loss to bolster profits in other parts of
| the company?
| pdpi wrote:
| At that point, Amazon's data will be up for sale for
| everybody else to buy too, which fixes the problem.
| andylynch wrote:
| It strikes me as very similar to the ever present conflict of
| interest in the securities world between clients and broker-
| dealers. A business like Amazon's retail one is quite like the
| latter, and I would be totally unsurprised to see more and more
| legislative pressure applied to force them to segregate if not
| choose between their 'agency' and 'prop'-type franchises;
| especially outside the US. Stuff like the EU's DMA are just
| first steps; in securities trading a lot of this stuff sails
| into criminal rather than civil law.
| skizm wrote:
| What products or services does Meta sell on FB marketplace?
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Not only does the article cover this, there's links to further
| coverage about Meta's involvement in the "more context"
| section.
| richwater wrote:
| Every single grocery store uses data to curate and prioritize
| house brand products.
|
| Somehow this is lauded in the food industry, but demonized in the
| tech industry.
| andylynch wrote:
| It's not lauded. Suppliers hate the power the big supermarkets
| have over them. But stores' data is probably down the list
| after the payment terms they dictate, _not being paid_ , and
| payment for in-store product placement etc
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Suppliers are welcome to get into the dirty business of
| dealing with the retail public for 2% profit margins.
| mcenedella wrote:
| Dumb government. Higher prices and less variety for you.
|
| Why can't they just let adults buy and sell the way they want to?
| logifail wrote:
| > Why can't they just let adults buy and sell the way they want
| to?
|
| Perhaps we should all go and (re-)read the history of Standard
| Oil just to refresh our memories of what it looks like if we
| were to let that happen?
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Oil_Co._of_New_Jersey...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Successors_of_Standard_Oil
| mcenedella wrote:
| You're arguing that govt action in 1911 effectively
| alleviated oil and gas industry influence on the economy and
| politics?
|
| Why then did John D Rockefeller (correctly) advise "buy
| Standard Oil stock" on hearing the news?
| https://www.nytimes.com/1998/05/20/business/us-v-
| microsoft-t...
| EliRivers wrote:
| _Why can't they just let adults buy and sell the way they want
| to?_
|
| Would be nice but Amazon are quite keen on not letting that
| happen.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Amazon has never stopped anyone from putting up a website and
| shipping things to customers.
| EliRivers wrote:
| They certainly have stopped people doing it at prices
| cheaper than they sell through Amazon. They're running a
| protection racket.
| mcenedella wrote:
| How's that? Amazon is lobbying for legislation to prevent you
| from purchasing from someone?
| r_thambapillai wrote:
| There's a really interesting analogy here with the LLM platforms
| that both are a vendor to companies that use their APIs, but also
| potentially compete with those companies as well as they evolve
| their offering over time. It would be interesting to see if this
| kind of regulation could be applied in that context as well.
| Dudester230602 wrote:
| This is why I don't understand new LLM start-ups. They hope
| their low-hanging integration or LLM-flavor-of-the-day fruits
| do not attract attention long enough.
| ukoki wrote:
| The law just needs to be: You can be the platform or you can be
| on the platform, but not both.
| throw__away7391 wrote:
| I agree. There are similar laws for many other industries
| already that either prohibit or put operational restrictions
| such that their "on the platform" subsidiaries are on equal
| footing with competition.
|
| Enron was breaking this principle when their energy traders
| would call up a power plant they also owned and ask for an
| unscheduled outage. I don't remember if this was specifically
| illegal in this case, but I used to have to take an online
| class once a year to remind me not to share any non-public data
| with marketing in one such regulated industry and that there
| would be serious consequences if this rule was broken.
| givemeethekeys wrote:
| Yup. A complete ban on in-house brands for anyone operating a
| marketplace.
| gnicholas wrote:
| Including grocery stores?
| happytiger wrote:
| Ok, honest question. Wouldn't this just encourage conglomerate
| interests to capture the value outside the company? Seems like
| a logical place for a large PE funded wedge company if the
| opportunity was made available like that. Going from one player
| to two is very possible if we do something simplistic -- it's a
| big juicy target and a land grab if it's simply divested. How
| can we insure a healthy diversity instead of the immediate
| reconsolidating that would come with a simple separation of
| interests?
|
| I am for these changes, just asking the question I honestly
| worry about.
| Osiris wrote:
| Same should go for internet.
|
| You can own the infrastructure or you can provide the service,
| but not both.
| spacebanana7 wrote:
| The distinction between platform and product is much hazier
| in software compared to physical industries.
|
| For example, it's taken for granted that most personal
| computing platforms have built in PDF viewers, but this
| wasn't always the case and used to be a distinct product
| category (and still is to some extent). Similar for media
| players, some networking software, and spreadsheet apps.
|
| Should Cloudflare be allowed to offer reverse CDN services
| for uploading content? Or would that unfairly compete with
| companies like Mux?
|
| (Entertaining the notion that Mux is built on CF)
| Osiris wrote:
| How would something like this be enforceable?
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(page generated 2023-11-05 23:01 UTC)