I... can't see how this is legal. If I were Amazon and I heard about this, you'd have a cease and desist order at your doorstep the next day...
If this is legal, though, please do explain.
If this is legal, though, please do explain.
Zinc Save is a browser extension that acts like that friend. From what I see it isn't doing anything that a real human can't do by themselves (comparing prices on different websites and looking up coupon codes) but it just automates the process to make it easier for you.
The more equivalent analogy is, you're shopping at a store and right as you're in the checkout line, a guy runs in the store from outside and steps in front of the cashier with an ipad and a Square credit card scanner and says he'll go get the exact same items from somewhere else and bring them right to your car for less than what you're about to pay for all the things in your cart. Don't you think the store would get a little pissed about that?
What makes your example illegal is that the person is advertising their service to customers without the customer's permission, just going up to them in the store and spamming them. Additionally store management can rightfully ask the theoretical interceptor to leave the premises and stay out.
With Zinc Save the customer chooses to install the browser extension and ask for Zinc's help to find the best deals. Additionally no web store can justly make demands that customer's browsers display the store without modifications. If the customer chooses to install an extension that adds extra functionality to the store pages then that is the customer's choice. Zinc Save doesn't need Amazon's consent to inject a button, they just need the consent of the customer with the browser, and that consent is granted when the customer installs the add on.
Don't get me wrong here, I would happily use any service that would save me money if I didn't believe it was a bit shady. I'm just kind of foreseeing a bit of a legal issue if this somehow took off and got on Amazon's radar and their sales started noticeably dropping.
If legal action could NOT be pursued, it would be easy for Amazon to update their code to prevent any sort of injection like this, and it would turn into a cat-and-mouse game of who could update their code more quickly:
setInterval(function() {
var button = document.getElementById('zincbutton'); //or whatever
button && button.remove();
}, 100);It's like meeting up with your friend outside the store to go shopping, and he has a big binder full of coupons that he's cut out of newspapers and circulars, and he has a credit card that he uses when checking out that has a nice rewards bonus. He uses his coupons and reward bonus to save you money and pass the savings back to you. In return he keeps a portion of the savings. So Amazon might not have that big of an axe to grind with them because its not really hurting them that much.
But I totally agree about the cat and mouse issue. I don't think this company has a very solid business model, because if history shows anything its that these kind of browser extensions require constant updating to keep them operational, especially if the website is actively trying to block them by changing the DOM, JS, etc. The ongoing development and maintenance costs of keeping this extension operational are going to severely eat into any minor profits that they make, especially if Amazon closes or limits some of the savings exploits / coupons that they are using currently.
Still I wish them the best of luck in their venture. I'm sure it will be a fun and interesting project for their devs, and if they succeed at becoming profitable all the better.