After a spy camera designed to look like a towel hook was purchased on Amazon and illegally used for months to capture photos of a minor in her private bathroom, Amazon was sued.
The plaintiff—a former Brazilian foreign exchange student then living in West Virginia—argued that Amazon had inspected the camera three times and its safety team had failed to prevent allegedly severe, foreseeable harms still affecting her today.
Amazon hoped the court would dismiss the suit, arguing that the platform wasn’t responsible for the alleged criminal conduct harming the minor. But after nearly eight months deliberating, a judge recently largely denied the tech giant’s motion to dismiss.
Amazon’s biggest problem persuading the judge was seemingly the product descriptions that the platform approved. An amended complaint included a photo from Amazon’s product listing that showed bathroom towels hanging on hooks that disguised the hidden camera. Text on that product image promoted the spycams, boasting that they “won’t attract attention” because each hook appears to be “a very ordinary hook.”
Let’s change a couple of words and see whether your opinion changes
If it’s reasonable to expect physical retailers to take some responsibility for the legality and safety of items in their stores, then what’s different about it being a virtual store?
If the product has some danger that the retailer wouldn’t know about, then they shouldn’t be held responsible.
For example, suppose a store sold toasters and some had faulty wiring that caused fires. We wouldn’t expect stores to personally inspect every toaster. This issue would be on the manufacturer.
However, if a product was obviously unsafe/illegal based on the description and intended usage, then the store should be held responsible. If a store stocked “Electric Bathtub Toasters - use in your bathtub - Now with exposed wiring!”, then they absolutely should be held responsible for injuries caused from use of the product.
That’s comparing several thousand items to several millions. Same with vendors. A brick and mortar doesn’t have millions of vendors to monitor.
They still obtain, sell, and profit off of all of those items, whether it’s in the hundreds, billions, or anything in between. If they can’t be bothered to do their job correctly because they’re ‘too big to
faileven try’ then it’s still their fault. They have the ability and the means to NOT sell those items; nobody is pointing a gun at Bezos, forcing him to sell these things. Just an insane level of recklessness and callous disregard for all but profit. Even eBay has a fairly solid system checking and removing prohibited items, but 23 out of Amazon’s 33 product categories are partially or entirely “ungated,” meaning putting products up for sale don’t require any sorts of checks or approval