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Comment by Gys | Hacker News Reader

Is this really true? Banning the sales of seeds will not change anything because seeds were not ordered anyway. Seeds are send instead of the originally ordered item (the item to be reviewed). Seeds are light and cheap and will continue to be used.

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They're banning FOREIGN plant sales. There are import and customs controls in place that Amazon does not follow or require sellers to adhere to.

These mystery seeds are bringing increased scrutiny to imports, and Amazon is taking this move to reduce it's liability.

I'm sure they weighted the alternatives (e.g. wait for legal action, implement change) and determined the least expensive route was to just stop the business.

An anecdote: I bought some seeds on amazon a few years back and they ended up coming from China with a customs declaration filled out as "bookmarks". I decided not to plant them.

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/pw/ACtC-3eNO55-KL0ynsmXLT8...

My understanding is that these seeds were originally shipped as seeds, but then the listing was reused for some other item, which miraculously has a ton of reviews on day one. By banning seeds Amazon are, in the strictest sense of the phrase, closing the loop hole of being able to send seeds for cheap reviews.

Unfortunately they leave the loophole of completely changing a product listing wide open.

Maybe they should stop allowing listings to be reused for other items.

Perhaps this is a measure intended to create the impression that Amazon is addressing the problem, rather than actually addressing the problem (I assume that's harder to do.)

This seems to be the standard platform playbook. If your platform is being used for bad behavior, create a policy stating people shouldn't use it for that, and when Congresspeople ask about the problem, just state you have a policy and hide behind your Section 230 immunity like your life depends on it.

Sending plastic beads (or crap) instead of seed would be good for environment

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