Technology

The important stuff:

Amazon has been fined in Poland for misleading consumers about the conclusion of sales contracts on its online marketplace. The sanction, of close to $8 million (or in local currency: PLN 31,850,141), also calls out the e-commerce giant for deceptive design elements which may inject a false sense of urgency into the purchasing process and mislead shoppers about elements like product availability and delivery dates.

consumers who ordered products on Amazon could have their purchases subsequently cancelled by the tech giant as it does not treat the moment of purchase as the conclusion of a sales contract, despite sending consumers confirmation of their order — even after consumers have paid for the product. For Amazon, the conclusion of a sales contract only occurs once it has sent information about the actual shipment.

Amazon failed to clearly communicate this salient detail to shoppers, finding it only provided the information at “the last stage of purchase”. It also found the information was sometimes “difficult” for consumers to access, noting for example Amazon could use a grey font on a white background in text displayed at the very bottom of a page

Its enforcement also calls out Amazon for using deceptive design to encourage shoppers to click buy by presenting misleading information about product availability and delivery windows — such as by listing how many items were in stock to be purchased and providing a countdown clock to order an item in order to get it on a particular delivery date. Its investigation found Amazon does not always meet these deadlines for orders, nor ship products immediately as they may be out of stock despite claims to the contrary shown to consumers.

So basically, because the moment of purchase is not the conclusion of a sales contract amazon reserves the right to just cancel your order, the writing that states this is purposefully hidden, the countdown timers are meaningless, the purchased product may not even be in stock, they don't ship products when they say they do, and the products sometimes don't arrive when they say they will. Who would have guessed.

$8million isn't even a rounding error to them....

This is the best summary I could come up with:

It also found the information was sometimes “difficult” for consumers to access, noting for example Amazon could use a grey font on a white background in text displayed at the very bottom of a page — a classic example of so-called ‘dark pattern design‘.

“Thus, Amazon misleads consumers as to the moment of conclusion of the sales contract,” the authority wrote [in Polish; this is a machine translation].

“For many people, this can also have negative consequences: The consumer does not receive the product, so he cannot use it, he loses the opportunity to buy at an attractive price that may no longer apply, and his money is frozen until he returns it.”

Its enforcement also calls out Amazon for using deceptive design to encourage shoppers to click buy by presenting misleading information about product availability and delivery windows — such as by listing how many items were in stock to be purchased and providing a countdown clock to order an item in order to get it on a particular delivery date.

Its investigation found Amazon does not always meet these deadlines for orders, nor ship products immediately as they may be out of stock despite claims to the contrary shown to consumers.

Commenting in a statement, the UOKiK’s president, Tomasz Chróstny, said: “Information about product availability and its fast shipping is very valuable for consumers and for many people it may be the main reason why they make a purchase decision.

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