Originally published at: Reuters: Amazon's own documents prove it copied successful products | Boing Boing
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I don’t think you’ll find anyone will argue that Bezos is a wonderful human being contributing to the betterment of planet Earth, unless they are on his payroll.
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Nothing new about the wheeze—grocery stores have been doing this to name brands for decades
Grocery stores have been white labeling products—licensing a product made by someone else to sell under the store brand—but that is a mutually consensual arrangement. But what you’re saying Amazon is doing seems to be a whole other level of subterfuge.
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There is stealing Amazon style as well. Stores that identify products that sell well and make copies under their own brand without any licensing agreement. Not much a small company can do against a big retailer. It’s just a coincidence the products are rather similar and try to prove anything else.
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Most name brands insist they don’t make white-label stuff for grocery stores, don’t they?
Wal-Mart cola, for example, is not made for it by Coca-Cola or Pepsi. It’s made for it by a bottling plant in Tampa owned by Cott.
Though I suppose it must be true that the contract you sign to get into Wal-Mart will include something amounting to “Coca-Cola/Nestlé/Pespi/Kraft etc is officially OK with Wal-Mart selling copycat products” whereas Amazon claims it doesn’t.
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Maybe I’m wrong, but I thought that the denial of white labeling was a charade, because if the customer knew that the store brand canned corn was really Del Monte, for example, they would stop buying the more expensive Del Monte branded version. Also I know with Costco, it’s almost a game online to figure out which company really makes which Kirkland product. But it’s a big world, so it’s probable that both things are true.
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Love the idea of multinational grocery conglomerate kayfabe
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If this is illegal then why does Microsoft still exist
Lol, that’s a funny thought, but it doesn’t have to be that extreme. There’s an awful lot of corporate behavior that is hidden by non-disclosure agreements.
If a product is a perfect copy of a most sold items, it is a most sold item by definition. /s
That’s easy; Microsoft was fined a rather lot of money back in the elder days of the commercial internet for (essentially) killing Netscape by including internet explorer with the OS. There was a federal lawsuit that Microsoft ‘sort of’ lost, in that they had to do a few things, but by the time they got to it, the damage was done.
It’s the trope namer for “embrace, extend, extinguish”, which Microsoft continues to do to this day- Just look at the consumer version of Skype.
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So, we’re going to see Amazon face severe legal consequences for anti-competitive business practices right?
Right…?
Wait, how much gets donated to various politicians? Oh…
Nevermind.
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It’s uncanny.
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