Small business owners across the country are pushing back against Amazon's AI shopping tools, saying the company lists their products without permission.

“I typed in YamzWorld into the Amazon app and lo and behold there were all my products there with my pictures from my website as well,” Montes-Tarazas said.

While he receives payment for sales, Montes-Tarazas said the arrangement strips away his ability to build direct customer relationships.

“I do get the sale and I do get the money, but customers never get to interact with my website, they have no ability to sign up for my mailing list. They have no idea who I am as an artist or what I stand for,” Montes-Tarazas said.

  • ProfessorScience@lemmy.worldEnglish
    521·
    6 hours ago

    Could he not put terms of use on his website prohibiting the use by AI agents, and sue Amazon if they don’t comply?

    • cybervseas@lemmy.worldEnglish
      58·
      6 hours ago

      Filing a suit against Amazon… which attorney is going to take that case, and how much money would you need to pay them? 😕

    • NateNate60@lemmy.worldEnglish
      81·
      6 hours ago

      Weird clauses in terms of use are frequently just toilet paper when it actually comes down to enforcing them in court. You can “sue” but you might just win $1 because the judge would find that you have not suffered any monetary damages. You got paid for the item, after all, and “building a relationship with your customers” has no quantifiable and measurable value which can be proven in court, so judges default to one dollar.

      There is also the aspect of whether an AI agent has the legal capacity to contract on behalf of Amazon or the buyer, and on whose behalf they contract if they do. I’m not aware of any American cases which have held that AI agents are “agents” (an entity with the legal power to act on behalf of another) within the meaning given to that word under the law of agency. The Civil Resolution Tribunal in British Columbia, Canada, ruled in Moffat v. Air Canada that AI chatbots can bind the organisation who uses them and makes them available to customers. This opinion is not binding precedent, but I think courts worldwide should use it as a template for AI agency powers. If the AI has no power to contract, then the sale is void in its entirety.

      I believe Amazon would argue three points:

      1. That the AI agent has power to contract, but that the “user” of the AI is the shopper, and Amazon is merely providing the agent for the shopper to use.
      2. That if the clause banning AI agents from buying is enforceable, it voids the transaction in its entirety, and thus the seller owes Amazon a refund.
      3. That even if the AI had the power to bind Amazon, that the ability to build direct customer relationships has no proven dollar value and thus damages should be limited to nominal amounts (i.e. one dollar).
      • MrFinnbean@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        2 hours ago

        “building a relationship with your customers” has no quantifiable and measurable value which can be proven in court

        With utm tags in weekly news letters etc. you can pretty easily calculate traffic coming to your site and conversion rates of how many people make purchases after clicking links.

        And even without utm tags you can show spikes in purchases and traffic after sending emails.

        It would be easy to show data: This many people go to my site This % of those people subscribe to my mailing list. This many % of people buy after receiving the email. Average purchase is xx$.

        This many people never went to my site because amazon.

      • pelespirit@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
        5·
        5 hours ago

        Isn’t this just like Doordash though? I’m not sure how these were resolved though.

        In May 2021, DoorDash was criticized for unauthorized listings of restaurants who had not given permission to appear on the app.[72] The company was sued by Lona’s Lil Eats in St. Louis, with the lawsuit claiming that DoorDash had listed them without permission, then prevented any orders to the restaurant from going through and redirecting customers to other restaurants instead, because Lona’s was “too far away,” when in reality it had not paid DoorDash a fee for listing.[73] This aspect of DoorDash’s business practice is illegal in California.[73]

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DoorDash#Litigation_for_illegal_unauthorized_restaurant_listing

        • NateNate60@lemmy.worldEnglish
          11·
          3 hours ago

          That’s a different thing. In that case, Doordash actually blocked people from ordering from the restaurant in question and redirected them elsewhere. Had the restaurant been listed without its permission and all it did was cause a Doordash employee to appear at the restaurant, place an order on the users behalf, then go deliver it, it would be a similar case to this one.

          I doubt many restaurants would have a problem with Doordash listing them without their permission if all that happened when someone placed an order, is that they get a call from Doordash (automated or not) to place a to-go order, and then someone picks it up later and pays for it.

      • ProfessorScience@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        5 hours ago

        Interesting! I can’t imagine Amazon would want to argue #2, though, since it seems like that would completely undercut their ability to use AI agents in this way.

        I hadn’t really thought about the implications of the ability of an AI agent to contract, though. That seems like really murky (and intriguing) territory; whether they can or cant, either way would have a lot of interesting implications.

        • NateNate60@lemmy.worldEnglish
          11·
          5 hours ago

          It is a conditional argument. It is vacuous if the court rules that the AI is an agent that can bind a principal. If and only if the court rules that the AI agent can’t contract on behalf of a principal (for the purchase of goods or otherwise), then Amazon should get a refund.