
Amazon seller lost $400K in sales after being attacked by 'virus of Amazon' - SREinSF
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/17/amazon-seller-targeted-virus-of-amazon.html
======
djaychela
If what's claimed in this article is true (and obviously it's difficult to
check as it's one person's word against another, although a lot of the
evidence does point against Krasr), then it illustrates another time when
something as large as Amazon - which clearly relies a great deal on automated
systems - is totally incapable of handling the situations it finds itself in.
If it was run solely on humans (and they took their job seriously), then it
would have been resolved much quicker, in the same way the handling of cases
on YouTube and so on will always lag behind the application of intelligence to
the problem.

For 99% of situations, I'm sure the automated systems that have been set up
work OK, but they can clearly be gamed when there are loopholes (and there
have been loads of them - whether it's marking an item as 'fake' on eBay, and
getting refunded for it and getting to keep it, or lying about your item's
location, or spurious copyright claims at a crucial time on YouTube), but the
problem is that 1% gamification can mean the ruin of people who've worked hard
to create a business, and they have no way to recover the damage caused. There
are no meaningful consequences for those who have gamed the system to destroy
their competition; the worst case scenario is that they'll start up with
another name.

I'm finding it increasingly difficult to view those who are running
marketplaces such as Amazon, YouTube and eBay with positivity because of these
issues; the way that they are addressed is with a generic "We work to keep up
with these situations" type response, but I don't think they really do, as it
doesn't effect their bottom line in any significant way, so there's no reason
for them to take it seriously or devote any worthwhile resources to solving
the problem. I know it's a small fraction of their total business, but to me
it's how unusual situations are dealt with that show the real sentiment behind
any business.

~~~
merb
well I think the article is fishy. especially because of the headline. It
says: $400k lost, yeah thats a ton of money, but than it says: "built revenues
in his skin care business to more than $10 million annually in seven years"

I mean if I have a REVENUE of $10 million annually I would have savings of
more than $400k dollar?!

Also if the product did not have had a trademark its just fine that somebody
could clone the product. what is not so fine are of course fake reviews and
other stuff, but thats illegal and every sane person would actually use a
lawyer. Also amazon actually suspended his account for infridgement cases and
I highly doubt that their system is so bad that it does that automatically.
Because that would be more than insane.

every story has his two sides and this story looks fishy on both ends.

~~~
PhasmaFelis
> _I mean if I have a REVENUE of $10 million annually I would have savings of
> more than $400k dollar?!_

You might perhaps google the difference between "revenue" and "net income".

> _Also amazon actually suspended his account for infridgement cases and I
> highly doubt that their system is so bad that it does that automatically._

Have you missed the last several years of tech news?

------
cynix
It's funny that he's angry at his competitor for copying his product, because
his own product is a copycat of Panasonic's.

~~~
chrischen
If you read the article it's not just copying the product. The krasr company
is also accused of committing fraud and various probably illegal tactics.

------
mjw1007
One thing that stands out in this story is that we don't have an authenticated
email system that most people are willing to use, and this causes real
problems.

~~~
toyg
The problem is the industry at large rather than "people". If the likes of
Amazon and Google were willing to actually treat authenticated email with
priority or higher trustfulness of some sort, people would use it. But they
treat everything in the same way, so why should I bother?

If the largest players could agree on one standard for secure email, I bet
lots of people would transition overnight.

~~~
pmx
I think the biggest problem is that "normal" people have no clue that email is
as insecure as it is. They trust that if an email says it's from a specific
address, it must be.

The issue has to be fixed on a system level so spoof emails are impossible,
because thats how most users think it is already.

------
homero
[https://www.krasr.com/](https://www.krasr.com/) is now attacking this article
by redirecting to an ad

~~~
psergeant
The fuck did I just click on? That must have cycled through at least 30 scammy
domains before rendering my iOS safari tab completely unusable.

------
chrischen
> Facebook's vulnerabilities were exposed during the 2016 election when
> Russian propagandists infiltrated the network and targeted people with fake
> news

What's the source on this? Do they mean some people bought "advertising"?

~~~
csa
Yes.

The Federal Election Campaign Act prohibits foreign nationals from buying
"advertising" that influences the campaign. I think the FEC would say that
foreign nationals are prohibited from:

Making any disbursement for an electioneering communication.

([https://www.fec.gov/updates/foreign-
nationals/](https://www.fec.gov/updates/foreign-nationals/))

This is considered to be something sacred in US politics ( _cough_ even though
we interfere with non-US elections all the time _cough_ ).

~~~
colejohnson66
> This is considered to be something sacred in US politics ( _cough_ even
> though we interfere with non-US elections all the time _cough_ ).

I never understood the uproar with Russia and the election. It just seems so
hippocritical. Is there any valid reason to be upset when someone does it to
us when we do it to others all the time?

~~~
mcphage
If you’re upset about us doing it because it’s wrong, why wouldn’t you also be
upset when it’s done to us? It doesn’t magically not become wrong, just like
if you murdered a murderer, it doesn’t magically get you out of jail.

~~~
colejohnson66
> If you’re upset about us doing it because it’s wrong, why wouldn’t you also
> be upset when it’s done to us?

Because people _don’t_ seem to get upset about it. Because “democracy is best”

~~~
mcphage
> Because people don’t seem to get upset about it.

Speak for yourself; the US history of regime change contains some of the
biggest stains in our history.

