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If Amazon's retail profit relies on allowing fraud and illegal activity to happen with their knowledge, that's just not something we should accept. Making more money for shareholders shouldn't happen at the expense of knowingly defrauding customers. The decision to not prevent fraud on Amazon just means the cost of dealing with that fraud is borne by the customers.


On the other hand, we balance health hazards to the public against economic activity.

"Minimal risk while still permitting economic growth / treating disease" vs "no risk"

It's fair to apply the same standards to internet companies. A hyper efficient Amazon has social benefits.

(That said, I agree that the optimal point for Amazon and most internet companies is a lot stricter than how our current laws are enforced)


This clearly falls into "fraud waiting to happen" rather than "minimal risk" though. It's fairly simple to treat Amazon as the actual seller and just hold them liable if there is false advertising. There's a difference for a Shopify type system that gives individual sellers their own storefront or Ebay where the seller is clearly communicated, but Amazon often obscures the seller info and represents itself as the seller so it seems fair and reasonable.




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