
EBay Sues Amazon, Alleging Sellers Were Illegally Poached - denzil_correa
http://fortune.com/2018/10/18/ebay-amazon-poaching-sellers-lawsuit/
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DubiousPusher
Having had periods of fairly active selling on eBay, I can say eBay has done
as much as anyone to get sellers to leave their platform.

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dplgk
Who doesn't want to pay 20% commission?

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wgerard
I'm sure no one would ever admit it, but I'm like 75% positive Amazon did the
same thing on Etsy when they launched Amazon Handmade.

75% because I'm just recalling based on some forum posts I read around the
time they launched, which of course I might be mistakenly remembering or
interpreting incorrectly.

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NeonVice
What law was broken?

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kylnew
Maybe violating the eBay terms of use? They are pretty explicit about not
trying to lure people to buy from you outside of eBay, iirc. What happens when
a corporates violates another companies terms of use aggressively to promote
competition?

~~~
twblalock
The eBay terms of use are not law. Breaking those kinds of agreements is a
civil matter. The lawsuit is alleging serious criminal things, like fraud, in
addition to breaking the terms of use.

~~~
jdmichal
Fraudulently creating accounts for the purposes of performing activities known
to be against the ToS prior to even creating the account.

"The Amazon employees acknowledged they were breaking eBay’s rules and
actively tried to avoid detection, the lawsuit says."

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twblalock
Yeah, but is that actually criminal fraud according to the law?

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jdmichal
As debacle notes [0], the CFAA is a hell of a drug. [1] I could certainly see
a case that this is "exceeding authorized access", with "authorized access"
being defined by the rules established by the ToS when the account granting
access was established.

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18250970](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18250970)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act#C...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Fraud_and_Abuse_Act#Criminal_offenses_under_the_Act)

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smrtinsert
Didn't they do this to Angie's List too? Awful ethics.

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mox1
If a start-up did this, we would just call it "growth hacking".

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rnotaro
Lawsuit complaint document available here:
[https://cmportal.scscourt.org/Portal/DocumentViewer/Index/Q9...](https://cmportal.scscourt.org/Portal/DocumentViewer/Index/Q9EzCn1UFbPgZcNdA53-STDlgd1zLeEzQRdpMlGJbBHTfoab7aEpFjS04YRxNdUrEuBIZueiMtw5FHHFNN2nIRLkdJ1o-_omHAE4ylIrUIvQe2k6rRkuJEJLW7Ir9_4s0?p=0)

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writepub
This suit is frivolous - in a free market sellers and platforms should be free
to do as they please, including pitching an alternative platform.

That said, Amazon deserves this suit - remember, this is the same company that
routinely sues former employees for non-compete, & pays wearhouse employees to
favorably post on social media. They deserve a taste of their own corporate BS
lawsuit

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O1111OOO
I don't understand the issue here. Seems to me that in free market, Amazon has
the right to reach out to perspective partners wherever they may doing
business. Ebay, likewise, could do the same.

Many years ago, I use to shop ebay and always dreaded the clumsy checkout
process (among other things including the issue of _trust_ ). I don't know if
it's improved... To me, that's the core issue. Companies like eBay, Walmart
and others want to compete on the same level as Amazon but they don't do
enough to improve services (customer service, shipping, checkout, UIs, etc).

Instead of competing on overall value, they turn to "IP" lawsuits, poaching
and general bullying.

There's a flipside too. Large companies tend to have an advantage but in this
case, eBay isn't small. They can improve in many ways but like Sears... they
are stuck in a specific and closed mindset.

I give Amazon lots of credit for being free-thinking and innovative. They
started with books and somehow managed to get into cloud services in a huge
way. They don't corner themselves. Ebay needs to think outside of their
comfortable box because, down the road, consumers will need the competition.

~~~
jdmichal
This post is a little ironic on the pro-Amazon front, what with the
complaining about Ebay's checkout process while Amazon holds the one-click-buy
patent...

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sigstoat
the patent expired last year. ebay could've had some version of it ready to
roll out automatically within seconds of whatever expiration time was approved
by the legal department.

personally i've never used one click purchasing on amazon, and their checkout
still feels better than ebay's.

the real irony is:

> (among other things including the issue of _trust_ )

when amazon is comingling inventory and generally confusing people about who
they're purchasing from.

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O1111OOO
> sigstoat: the real irony is:

>> me: (among other things including the issue of trust)

> sigstoat: when amazon is comingling inventory and generally confusing people
> about who they're purchasing from.

I was referring to sellers being allowed to include their own JS and Flash on
listings[0] and the high-profile hacking cases along with ebay's
response[1,2]. Sellers were also allowed to include 3rd-party templates to
list their items (which can lead to yet another attack vector). This may still
be happening but like I said, I abandoned ebay some time ago.

Also, when purchasing on ebay, you're always dealing directly with a seller.
It's a marketplace, a bazaar. It's their business model (but like I said, it
can mutate into something else). Unlike Amazon (where you always "feel" you're
dealing with a single company - comingling aside), on ebay you never feel like
you're dealing with a single entity.

As a result, I always felt on high alert: investigating sellers, viewing their
reputations, etc... it's time-consuming and an effort. It constantly forces me
to question... to trust.

[0] [https://hacked.com/biggest-hacks-
breaches-2014/](https://hacked.com/biggest-hacks-breaches-2014/)

[1]
[https://www.eecs.yorku.ca/course_archive/2015-16/W/3482/Team...](https://www.eecs.yorku.ca/course_archive/2015-16/W/3482/Team12_eBayHacks.pdf)

[2] [https://news.netcraft.com/archives/2016/02/18/ebay-
scripting...](https://news.netcraft.com/archives/2016/02/18/ebay-scripting-
flaws-being-actively-exploited-by-fraudsters.html)

~~~
brianwawok
Good news! EBay doesn’t allow active content anymore. So no JavaScript.

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cwkoss
Why should the court reward eBay's poor business controls?

Their messaging system, and they permitted the messages. How is this Amazon's
fault?

eBay is taking the ridiculous stance that it's TOS provides liability to the
customer for using their service wrong. If I made a website with a TOS that
said "Anyone who browses to this website and fails to click the 'get lisence'
button in the footer on EACH PAGE owes me $1 Million Dollars!", I'd be laughed
out of court trying to enforce it.

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debacle
You're holding up a massive straw man.

A C&D like this is pretty standard fare between competing businesses. If you
sell widgets and WidgetCorp sells widgets, you are completely allowed to try
and poach their customers, but WidgetCorp is allowed you prevent you from
doing that _in their store_. Furthermore, if the accounts were specifically
created for this purpose it's a clear violation of the TOS and there may
potentially be damages there, or even possible criminal charges (thanks to the
wonderful CFAA - ack).

~~~
cwkoss
Asking the courts to enforce a cease and desist seems fairly reasonable
(perhaps a bit heavy handed), but I absolutely disagree with the idea the
courts should impose monetary damages on Amazon for using eBay's website
'improperly'.

In your example, it'd be reasonable for WidgetCorp to trespass you from the
store if you're trying to compete on their property. However, I believe it
would be unreasonable for Widgetcorp to try to sue for the revenue of the
sales that were successfully made before they trespassed you.

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TangoTrotFox
I don't understand how some people are saying this would be an unethical
action. This is competition, which is how better services end up being
provided to users, and for better prices. It's _not competing_ that's
unethical, and is what leads to monopolies, price fixing, and other anti-
competitive behavior. If they don't like Amazon "poaching" users of their
site, then they should offer even more desirable terms to their users.

That it's even possible to try to sue for something like this is a sad
reflection of how much our laws have interfered in normal market operation,
and enabled companies to try to create ways to legally sidestep competition.
_You can 't inform our users you could offer them a better deal. It's against
our terms and services! We sue!_

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eiaoa
> I don't understand how some people are saying this would be an unethical
> action. This is competition, which is how better services end up being
> provided to users, and for better prices. It's not competing that's
> unethical, and is what leads to monopolies, price fixing, and other anti-
> competitive behavior. If they don't like Amazon "poaching" users of their
> site, then they should offer even more desirable terms to their users.

This is a really weird perspective. Not all "competition" is the same; there
are such things as _fair_ competition and _unfair_ competition. Having your
employees seek work at a competing factory to sabotage its operations is
definitely a kind of competition, it's just the _unfair_ kind.

~~~
TangoTrotFox
Providing basic information to people is about as fair a notion of competition
as there is.

I think the most reasonable real life metaphor for this scenario would be a
for-sale bulletin board on private property where people put things up for
sale, and the owner of the land where the bulletin is placed takes a cut of
all sales. The owner of this property also wanted to try to protect their
profits and so made people sign a piece of paper stating 'I won't inform other
users about better deals'. Amazon signed it and then told the sellers about
better deals anyhow.

In my opinion the behavior that was both unfair and unethical was eBay trying
to prevent fair competition for their users.

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eiaoa
Let me put it simply and clearly:

Amazon has no right to use Ebay's systems however it chooses and against
Ebay's wishes, full stop. Ebay has every right to forbid that its systems be
used for anything it dislikes, including as an advertising platform for its
competitors.

If you disagree, and still think that Amazon should be able to exploit Ebay's
systems to give "basic information to people"; then you must agree that I
should be able to hack your computer to play audio loops giving the people
around you "basic information" about how your ideas are wrong.

If Amazon wants to advertise, it needs to restrict itself to avenues that are
legitimately available to it, such as Google adwords, etc.

For competition to work, the competitors need to have something like "bodily
integrity." One competitor shouldn't be able to "infect" another to weaken it.
We want the competitors to focus on strengthening themselves, not weakening
others.

~~~
TangoTrotFox
You're setting up quite the extreme straw man. Amazon was using the site in a
'normal' fashion to do something that eBay did not want. This has nothing to
do with hacking or other sorts of nonsense. Sites can put whatever they want
in their terms of service. This does not make them law, and in many cases the
clauses are in no way enforceable.

Amazon could add in their terms, 'You may not speak negatively of Jeff Bezos
on our software.' and it's completely meaningless. They could close any
accounts that do as much, but they could do that for any reason they want
already - making the term rather pointless. And the same is true here. eBay
tried to shove in ridiculous anti-competitive rules in their terms. Amazon
didn't care. So now they're adding just another chip on the mountain of
lawsuits they're already involved in as a spiteful hail mary.

~~~
eiaoa
> You're setting up quite the extreme straw man. Amazon was using the site in
> a 'normal' fashion to do something that eBay did not want. This has nothing
> to do with hacking or other sorts of nonsense.

That hacking aside is a red herring.

> Sites can put whatever they want in their terms of service. This does not
> make them law, and in many cases the clauses are in no way enforceable.

Sites are owned by particular people and organizations, and they have a right
to set the terms (withing reason). It's just a like a landlord who puts a term
in their contract saying you can't exercise your right of free speech by
yelling your opinions through the wall of your apartment at 3AM.

> Amazon could add in their terms, 'You may not speak negatively of Jeff Bezos
> on our software.' and it's completely meaningless.

That term is not meaningless, even if it's in bad taste, and I think that's
the fundamental point of our disagreement.

