Comment by Abishek_Muthian | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Abishek_Muthian | Hacker News Reader

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Abishek_Muthian

Only 3rd party sellers are allowed in India due anti-competitive/eCommerce regulations, Couple of years ago I left a negative review for an item when the seller/manufacturer who failed to uphold their warranty statement as described in their product listing calling out the false statements in the product listing.

The seller reached out to me on LinkedIn, Out of frustration I blocked the seller on LinkedIn. I still feel bad about the entire scenario, I wonder whether I was too harsh.

Now there are several products on amazon.in where ordering requires you to interact with the seller on WhatsApp, e.g. Name board, You need to message via WhatsApp to the seller with the text. So obviously they pester you to leave a positive review through WhatsApp.

If Amazon cared a bit about Privacy, they would have integrated it part of ordering process in the website itself. Compared to Amazon, even Uber is better at masking customer's phone number from drivers(They route it through their number).

So Amazon is basically a type of eBay in India?

You're right about the whole phone number masking thing. It's pretty simple to implement these days, so any platform that doesn't do it is probably not all that concerned about looking after their customers. There's a taxi ordering startup here in Dublin where I live that has only 10 employees and they use phone number masking, if they can do it then there's no reason why Amazon can't.

Amazon does operate its own sellers but through joint ventures - but the link isn't openly acknowledged on the site.

The largest one is Cloudtail. Another is Appario.

Amazon just announced that they are parting ways on the Cloudtail joint venture.

https://www.reuters.com/business/amazon-end-relationship-wit...

https://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/amazon-i...

Yeah they were violating the regulations with Cloudtail & Appario and with growing pressure they've no choice now.

But still there are loads of sellers claiming to be an 'Amazon Brand'[1] on their listing. If Amazon does have something to do with them, Then again it's a violation of the regulations.

Then, What about 'Amazon Basics' products[2]? I'm sure Amazon manufactures them.

The whole thing is messy and keeps changing according to the 'Mega Billionaires' fight to hold their position, But if this results in temporary consumer choice until one of them wins and we have to pledge our souls then it's fine with me.

[1] https://www.amazon.in/s?k=amazon+brand

[2] https://www.amazon.in/s?k=amazon+basics

It's good to know that small players care about Privacy in Dublin, Then again it's the small players who can; Trillions of $ doesn't come without hiding bones in the closet.

How much of it has to do with GDPR?

Probably not a lot.

It could be argued that the taxi driver needs a customer's phone number if there is a problem, so therefore it wouldn't be an issue under the GDPR. The app developers probably only mask numbers as a courtesy, and not necessarily as a legal requirement.

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