Conditions of Use change... No more arbitration for disputes!
This was a surprising email I just got from Amazon:
Dear xxxxxx,
We wanted to let you know that we recently updated our Conditions of Use.
One of our updates involves how disputes are resolved between you and Amazon. Previously, our Conditions of Use set out an arbitration process for those disputes. Our updated Conditions of Use provides for dispute resolution by the courts.
Please visit https://www.amazon.com/conditionsofuse to read our updated terms in full.
As always, your use of any Amazon service constitutes your agreement to our Conditions of Use.
Thank you,
Amazon
Seller_ZDGgATBGegBqy
Amazon would only make a change like this if they believed that it improved their chances of winning.
They must be ready to unleash an army of bots to make sure that they cannot have any product that could possibly make them liable.
You think that bots have been bad? You ain’t seen nothing yet.
Seller_OIwySjujrWvUg
This is actually for Amazon customer/buyer, I could be wrong here but I don’t think it applies to sellers on Amazon.
Seller_BwCRZStszCnCv
Just received the notice also. However, it was with reference to the conditions of use for Amazon buyers. It remains to be seen whether we’ll get a similar notice applicable to our selling accounts. Two different issues, as buyers have the benefit of state consumer protection statutes.
My guess is that somebody challenged the arbitration clause in court and won.
Seller_ZDGgATBGegBqy
This is why there are several recent threads about “Account at Risk of Deactivation”.
The first new round of bots has been let loose.
There will be more. Batten down the hatches, everyone.
Seller_LwUhSN3kUAXlg
Of course, and for the same reasons. Hiring a rabid law firm to do that on sellers’ behalf would be much more effective (and trivially easy … they’d just need to open a thread asking “any sellers have any problems with Amazon not upholding their own TOS?”)
Note that the trial venue is WA, so if you’re going to file solo, you may prefer arbitration, which can sometimes be done remotely.
I suspect that all any of this would do is raise Amazon’s costs (and cause them to bite down harder on anything that might result in a lawsuit, which they will do in their typical, over-broad, ham-fisted way, making life more miserable for all of us). In court, the side with mo’ better lawyers wins, and Amazon has warehouses full of them.
Ultimately, the only way to get Amazon to stop throwing their weight around for better or worse is to have congress trim them down to size … making a bunch of pieces that are Not Too Big to Flail without experiencing repercussions. Which is why Amazon spends so much on Lawyers, Lobbying, and setting jurisdictions against each other in a currying-favor war.
