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Comment by chance_state | Hacker News Reader

So not only does Amazon co-mingle inventory to cause this problem in the first place, but then they turn around and charge brands if they want to enter this anti-counterfeit program. Incredible.

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It's a standard protection racket; create and profit from crime, and then charge the victims for your protection against the crime you are profiting from so you profit either way.

What’re the odds of using RICO here?

As the 'R' in RICO stands for 'Racketeer' (which is explicitly a set of repeated criminal acts) and as Amazon hasn't been alleged to have committed any crimes ...

I'd say slim to none.

This subthread is entirely about the allegation that Amazon engaged in a repeated pattern of actively promoting wire fraud (a RICO predicate offense) as a commercial enterprise.

They haven't previously been charged with a RICO predicate offense, but RICO doesn't require you to be separately charged with a predicate offense (either before or concurrently with RICO charges), only that the required relation to a predicate offense be in the allegation supporting the RICO charge. In fact, the central point in RICO is to allow charging people/orgs involved in schemes to promote predicate offenses for commercial benefit who might not otherwise be able to be charged as principals of those offenses.

So the best move for Amazon would be to do nothing / status quo?

It's not like Amazon does this without any costs on their ends.

It would follow the Backpage precedent consistently at least - and people would hate it.

If they complain about the ethics of industry are low now wait until they cause "Johnny Tightlips" to become the safe legal standard.

The best move, ethically, would be for Amazon to pay for the additional costs of fraud mitigation required by their commingling practice out of the additional profits which motivate the practice, rather than profiting by creating a negative externality.

The simple fact that Amazon shuts down stores that are found to be fraudulent kills any kind of RICO bullshit you want to spew.

Hey so it was a suggestion. No need for the hostility.

Its almost _never_ RICO:

https://www.popehat.com/2016/06/14/lawsplainer-its-not-rico-...

Thanks, that’s fascinating. I mean, I had a feeling this was the case, but I figured I’d ask.

That is quite the inversion of burden of proof there. Amazon is a marketplace in the first place as opposed to a portal of stores. They sell by product. They have no obligation to do otherwise or to bar all secondary sellers. It is a privledge in the first place and they are entitled to demand that it not be used to shut out secondary markets.

>They have no obligation to do otherwise or to bar all secondary sellers.

Even secondary sellers of counterfeit goods? Of course they are.

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