Amazon's ads strategy helped pump its profits while steering shoppers to higher-priced goods, the agency alleges.

Jeff Bezos urged Amazon to flood search results with junk ads, FTC alleges::Amazon’s ads strategy helped pump its profits while steering shoppers to higher-priced goods, the agency alleges.

  • Fuzzypyro@lemmy.worldEnglish
    441·
    8 months ago

    What is it with these “allegations”? This is the kind of stuff they would brag about on investor calls.

    • flawedFraction@lemmy.worldEnglish
      28·
      8 months ago

      In legal proceedings, statements like this are allegations. They are not considered to be true or factual until proven in court. You’ll see the word allegedly used even if it seems very obvious that someone did something because that is the correct way to report it.

      • meseek #2982English
        6·
        8 months ago

        Yeah it’s legalize gymnastics. Only when convicted can you pin their crime.

        Beforehand, they are the alleged killer. Even if they were found at the scene with a gun in their hand, till the jury renders the verdict, they are only alleged to be the killer.

        • Fades@lemmy.worldEnglish
          11·
          8 months ago

          You say it like it’s a bad thing, personally I prefer the innocent until proven guilty approach

          • meseek #2982English
            2·
            8 months ago

            I think it’s more a case by case. In this case, there was sooooo much clear evidence. Like indisputable.

            But generally, no I fully agree. Imagine some random lunatic says you raped his daughter. Even in our current climate you’d be kinda fucked but if news was allowed to report like you just plain did it, trial or evidence be damned… awww jeeezzz.

        • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          8 months ago

          I could just see something like the defendent somehow getting a guards gun and shooting a jury member.

          The next day they are in court, 1 dead juror missing, and telling the jurors he allegedly shot at them.

          I know that wouldn’t happen, but would be funny (ignoring the whole murder part)

  • SeaJ@lemm.eeEnglish
    23·
    8 months ago

    Jesus. I just thought the coders used a fucking terrible algorithm. That didn’t cause me to buy more; it just caused me to use Amazon less. The other thing that made me use it less was the mountains of shit tier products that come up in a search.

    • Nommer@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      8·
      8 months ago

      Same. I cancelled my prime after the last fuckup they did because I realized how little I used Amazon in the last year or two. I was wasting cash because I stopped shopping there from the awful search results and bad policing of fake products and scams. I got tired of using DDG to find what I wanted on Amazon. These billionaires are so out of touch with the rest of the world.

      • Colonel Sanders@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        8 months ago

        It’s not so much that they’re out of touch (though they are) as it is that they just don’t give a fuck. Any way to return a profit or bump the stock price a few cents is all that matters.

  • phxEnglish
    91·
    8 months ago

    Yeah I can see that. Amazon shows up as a top result for nearly anything that’s a product, regardless of whether it’s a product they actually carry.

    Sometimes clicking through leads to a competing product - often with a name more random than found in an Ikea catalogue - or sometimes just completely unrelated shyte.