Andrew Kenney, Denverite:

It was Sgt. Jamie Milliman [at the door], a police officer with the Columbine Valley Police Department who covers the town of Bow Mar, which begins just south of [Chrisanna] Elser’s home.

[…]

“You know we have cameras in that jurisdiction and you can’t get a breath of fresh air, in or out of that place, without us knowing, correct?” he said.

“OK?” Elser, a financial planner in her 40s, responded in a video captured by her smart doorbell and viewed by Denverite.

“Just as an example,” the sergeant told her, she had “driven through 20 times the last month.”

This story is a civil liberties rollercoaster. Milliman was relying on a nearby town’s use of Flock license plate cameras and Ring doorbells — which may also be connected to the Flock network — to accuse Elser of theft and issue a summons. Elser was able to get the summons dropped by compiling evidence from, in part, the cameras and GPS system on her truck. Milliman’s threats were recorded by a doorbell camera, too. The whole thing is creepy, and all over a $25 package stolen off a doorstep.

I have also had things stolen from me, and I wish the police officers I spoke to had a better answer for me than shrugging their shoulders and saying, in effect, this is not worth our time. But this situation is like a parallel universe ad for Amazon and its Ring subsidiary. Is this the path toward “very close to zero[ing] out crime”? It is not worth it.

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In 2023 Lina Khan, then-chair of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission, sued Amazon over using (PDF) “manipulative, coercive, or deceptive user-interface designs known as ‘dark patterns’ to trick consumers into enrolling in automatically-renewing Prime subscriptions” and “knowingly complicat[ing] the cancellation process”. Some people thought this case was a long-shot, or attempted to use Khan’s scholarship against her.

Earlier this week, the trial began to adjudicate the government’s claims which, in addition to accusing Amazon itself, also involved charges against company executives. It was looking promising for the FTC.

Annie Palmer, CNBC:

The FTC notched an early win in the case last week when U.S. District Court Judge John Chun ruled Amazon and two senior executives violated the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act by gathering Prime members’ billing information before disclosing the terms of the service.

Chun also said that the two senior Amazon executives would be individually liable if a jury sides with the FTC due to the level of oversight they maintained over the Prime enrollment and cancellation process.

Then, just two days into the trial, the FTC announced it had reached a settlement:

The Federal Trade Commission has secured a historic order with Amazon.com, Inc., as well as Senior Vice President Neil Lindsay and Vice President Jamil Ghani, settling allegations that Amazon enrolled millions of consumers in Prime subscriptions without their consent, and knowingly made it difficult for consumers to cancel. Amazon will be required to pay a $1 billion civil penalty, provide $1.5 billion in refunds back to consumers harmed by their deceptive Prime enrollment practices, and cease unlawful enrollment and cancellation practices for Prime.

As usual for settlements like these, Amazon will admit no wrongdoing. The executives will not face liability, something Adam Kovacevich, head of the Chamber of Progress, a tech industry lobbying group, said today was a “wild … theory” driven by “Khan’s ego”. Nonsense. The judge in the case, after saying Amazon broke the law, gave credence to the concept these executives were personally liable for the harm they were alleged to have caused.

Former FTC commissioner Alvaro Bedoya on X:

Based on my initial read, do the executives need to do anything separate from that? Do they pay any fines? Are they being demoted? Are they subject to extra monitoring? Do they need to admit any guilt whatsoever? The answers, as far as I can tell are no, no, no, no, and no. What’s worse, the order applies to the executives for only three years — seven years less than the company.

Two-and-a-half billion is a lot of dollars in the abstract. CIRP estimates there are 197 million U.S. subscribers to Amazon Prime, which costs anywhere from $7 to $15 per month. For the sake of argument, assume everyone is — on average — on the annual plan of $11.58 per month. It will take barely more than one billing cycle for Amazon to recoup that FTC settlement. The executives previously charged will bear little responsibility for this outcome.

Those million-dollar inauguration “investments”, as CBS News put it, sure are paying off.

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Allison Smith, Modern Retail (via Michael Tsai):

Amazon revealed at its annual Accelerate seller conference in Seattle that it is shutting down its long-running “commingling” program — a move that drew louder applause from sellers than any other update of the morning.

The decision marks the end of a controversial practice in which Amazon pooled identical items from different sellers under one barcode. The system, intended to speed deliveries and save warehouse space, had also allowed counterfeit or expired goods to be mixed in with authentic ones, according to The Wall Street Journal. For years, brands complained that commingling made it difficult to trace problems back to specific sellers and left their reputations vulnerable when customers received knockoffs. In 2013, Johnson & Johnson temporarily pulled many of its consumer products from Amazon, arguing the retailer wasn’t doing enough to curb third-party sales of damaged or expired goods.

I had no idea Amazon did this until I complained on Mastodon about how terrible its shopping experience is, and Ben replied referencing this practice, nor did I know it has been doing so for at least twelve years. I am certain I have received counterfeit products more than once from Amazon, and I think this is how it happened.

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Ashley Belanger, Ars Technica:

But the judge apparently did not find Amazon’s denials completely persuasive. Viewing the FTC’s complaint “in the light most favorable to the FTC,” Judge John Chun concluded that “the allegations sufficiently indicate that Amazon had actual or constructive knowledge that its Prime sign-up and cancellation flows were misleading consumers.”

[…]

One such trick that Chun called out saw Amazon offering two-day free shipping with the click of a button at checkout that also signed customers up for Prime even if they didn’t complete the purchase.

“With the offer of Amazon Prime for the purpose of free shipping, reasonable consumers could assume that they would not proceed with signing up for Prime unless they also placed their order,” Chun said, ultimately rejecting Amazon’s claims that all of its “disclosures would be clear and conspicuous to any reasonable consumer.”

This is far from the only instance of scumbag design cited by Chun, and it is bizarre to me that anybody would defend choices like these.

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Louise Matsakis, Big Technology:

Shein and Temu’s users aren’t just browsing. Shein reportedly earned roughly $45 billion last year, and is currently trying to go public. PDD Holdings, Temu’s Chinese parent company, reported earlier this week that its revenue surged more than 130% in the first quarter. PDD is now the most valuable e-commerce company in China.

The two startups are sending so many orders from China to the US that it’s causing air cargo rates to spike, and USPS workers have said publicly that they are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of Temu’s signature bright orange packages they have to deliver. “I’m tired of this Temu shit, ya’ll killing me,” one mailman said in a TikTok video last year with over two million likes. “Everyday it’s Temu, Temu, Temu — I’m Temu tired.”

You might recognize how both Shein and Temu grew using the same tactic as TikTok: relentless advertising. (Which is something Snap CEO Evan Spiegel complained about despite TikTok’s huge spending on Snapchat.)

Both these companies are an aggressive distillation of plentiful supply and low cost to buyers. For people with lower incomes or who are economically stressed, the extreme affordability they offer can be a lifeline. Not everybody who shops with either fits that description; Matsakis cites a UBS report finding an average Shein customer earns $65,000 per year and spends more than $100 per month on clothes. But there are surely plenty of people who shop on both sites — and Amazon — because they simply cannot afford to buy anywhere else.

Every time I think about these retailers, I cannot shake a pervasive sadness. Saddened by how some people in rich countries have been compromised so much they rely on stores they may have moral qualms with. Saddened by the ripple effect of exploitation. Saddened by the environmental cost of producing, shipping, and disposing of these often brittle products — a wasteful exercise for many customers who can afford longer-lasting goods, and the many people who cannot.

Derek Guy has written about the brutality of the garment industry in the U.S., but notes how clearly different these fast and ultra-fast fashion brands are from inexpensive clothing:

Given the opacity in the supply chain, your best single measure for whether something is amiss is price. If you are paying $5 for a cut-and-sewn shirt, something bad is happening. Does this mean that every expensive shirt was ethically made? No. But you know the $5 shirt is bad.

Guy also wrote about the difference between cheap and fast fashion.

This whole industry bums me out because I try to appreciate clothing and fashion. I like finding things I like, dressing a particular way, and putting some effort into how I present myself. Yet every peek behind the curtain is a mountain of waste and abuse, and the worst offenders are companies like Shein and Temu — and, for what it is worth, AliExpress and facilitators like Amazon.

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