In the suit, Amazon argues that the company should not have legal responsibility to recall and remedy consumers for unsafe products sold on its marketplace by third-party sellers. Amazon claims that it is just an intermediary and logistics provider for third-party sales, similar to a delivery service, not a distributor or retailer that has a legal responsibility to carry out recalls. The CPSC ordered Amazon to recall more than 400,000 unsafe products in July 2024, after more than three years of adjudication.
“Instead of demonstrating its commitment to consumer safety, Amazon has fought the CPSC every step of the way for more than three years, and now it’s going to court. The law is clear that Amazon is a ‘distributor’ in this case and must carry out a recall. It’s absurd to suggest that because a company hosts a marketplace online it should be exempt from sensible requirements that help get hazardous products out of people’s homes and prevent them from being sold. The court should reject Amazon’s arguments. Taking Amazon at its word would mean hazardous products slipping through the cracks, even when they are capable of injuring or killing people.”
If you buy an ACME widget at K-Mart, and it bursts into flames, do you sue ACME, or K-Mart?
Sue acme for damages, and kmart posts notices near the service counter to inform other buyers of the danger. I worked at kmart.
I’m assuming K-Mart also takes them off the shelves.
Oh, right, yes lol. And more notices hung at the empty shelves too.
Both, actually.
I don’t disagree. But I think they’re trying to make the nuance that Amazon isn’t the one that sold the item (K-Mart in your example). Instead, the third-party was the seller. And I guess that just makes Amazon a facilitator or something that isn’t responsible.
If the difference between Amazon-sold product’s and third-party-sold products isn’t clear (and it isn’t) then Amazon should be held responsible. It’s like if those AT&T sales people at Costco sold you a phone that caught your face on fire, then Costco is reasonably responsible because they are lending their credibility to a negligent third party. Possible mitigated if they made a good faith effort to distance themselves from third party sellers.
So there is some nuance to it (IMO).
If someone posts csam on this site and the admin willingly ignores it, they can’t really argue that they aren’t responsible for it.
The “willingly” makes the difference there. That changes it from negligence to intentional, and those are legally distinct.
If Amazon, or another marketplace, isn’t aware of the danger of a product sold by a vendor on their platform, it’s not clear if Amazon, or the market provider, is responsible. Amazon is arguing that they aren’t, but I don’t know enough of the law to say if that is a settled question.
Amazon definately knows the return rates and reasons products get returned. It’s absurd that they wouldn’t know.