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Comment by gervu | Hacker News Reader

It seems like a lot of things that sound an awful lot like fraudulent practices from a lay perspective don't actually reach a useful or provable definition when it comes to legal liability.

But saying something is sold by a specific party which I then choose to do business with, then substituting goods that are likely to be from any of numerous other parties, some of which I may be explicitly trying to avoid doing business with...I would at least be interested in hearing why that doesn't count as fraud or false advertising or some such, or maybe some trademarks issue.

At least, I'd love to hear a less rage-inducing justification for putting up with allowing this behavior than "it was buried in a ToS somewhere that lying about who my goods came from is okay, actually."

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That phrasing is part of the problem, not the solution. You're conflating the idea of a manufacturer (Proctor & Gamble in this case) with a reseller. Amazon tells you both, but since the retail products are (should be) identical, neither they nor you really care whether or not this particular box came from "Joe's Nutrition" or "Sally's Supplements", and worrying about that distinction is like arguing against the fungibility of money (did that dollar bill in your pocket, which you got from an ATM, "come from" your job or your side gig?).

It's not the comingling that is the root cause here, it's the fraud. It doesn't matter whether or not Amazon buys their pills from Joe or Sally, what we care about is that they're not selling fake pills. Focusing on comingling seems to be missing the point. We have even less ability than Amazon to detect the fact that Joe is selling fake pills, so they'd still make it into people's mailboxes.

> worrying about that distinction is like arguing against the fungibility of money (did that dollar bill in your pocket, which you got from an ATM, "come from" your job or your side gig?)

That's an interesting argument except for the fact that the source of money is extremely important for fraud and tax purposes. Money laundering is specifically the co-mingling of "inventory" to hide the source. Amazon is product laundering.

When the product comes from "Sally's Supplements" then if there is an issue with the product then that's first and foremost Sally's problem. It might go up to Procter & Gamble or maybe it doesn't get that far.

The source of the product and who supports it is very important.

>Amazon tells you both, but since the retail products are (should be) identical, neither they nor you really care whether or not this particular box came from "Joe's Nutrition" or "Sally's Supplements"

Sounds like it is time for a "Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Retail Products" with the first entry being that every item with the same SKU is identical to every other item with that SKU.

You would think at the very least Amazon would need to maintain a chain of custody for each individual item that is meant for human consumption. What happens if there is a Tylenol poisoning [1] like scare with one of these supplements? Would Amazon legitimately have no way to track down the source of the contaminated product? If they can, what would be the possible explanation of not displaying the source to the user beyond "it is cheaper if we don't"?

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Tylenol_murders

It's not just products for human consumption that can cause injury. A shoddily made counterfeit phone charger can start a fire and burn down your house.

Counterfeiting is going to happen. Typically you deter it by detecting it and punishing the counterfeiters. Commingling defeats this. I guess we can make Amazon inspect everything they receive from third party sellers thoroughly enough to reliably detect counterfeits themselves, but that seems much less likely to happen.

Well, one can think of it as follows:

1. You place an order from supplier A.

2. Supplier A buys the unit from supplier B (and pays the balance by transferring another unit A => B).

3. The now supplier A's unit gets sent to you.

I.e. somewhat similar to e.g. dropshipping and other such practices which are traditionally perfectly legal.

It seems it would be quite hard to argue false advertising on that (as you got the item from A - generally it does not matter who A got it from, unless A claims to be the manufacturer), which I guess is why it has not happened yet.

But I could still see it happen, especially if the counterfeiting problems worsen. Maybe the fact that Amazon does it automatically for the sellers (with their approval) could be considered a factor that makes this different from the traditional stock supply cases.

There’s a huge and fundamental difference between what you describe and what Amazon is doing. What you describe involves both A and B. A is figuratively putting their name on the product, and they have an incentive to make sure that everything is above board. You are getting it from A, by way of B.

The way Amazon does it, A isn’t involved in the choice of who supplies the product, they just receive the money. They don’t even know who supplied the product, if I understand things correctly. You’re just buying from B, while Amazon says you’re buying from A.

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