A US safety regulator announced Tuesday that it voted unanimously to hold Amazon responsible for faulty or unsafe products sold by third-parties on its website and app.
The US Consumer Product Safety Commission, tasked with ordering companies to recall dangerous products sold in America, said it found more than 400,000 defective products sold on Amazon’s platform that the online retailer now must recall or face legal consequences.
More than 60% of sales in Amazon’s stores come from independent sellers, the company said in January, and the battle over who should be held liable for these products when they fail has been battled in court for years. But the CPSC Tuesday said an administrative law judge sided with the agency, ruling that Amazon acted as a distributor for third-party goods, and the company’s notifications to customers that products they purchased had a “potential” safety issues were insufficient to protect consumers.
In addition Amazon have that whole system where you buy a product and you just get a random version of that product they have in stock rather than one from the precise seller you ordered from. That takes choice away from the consumer to avoid certain brands which should make Amazon responsible for the outcome if they provide an inferior version of the product ordered.