I am as sure as I can be that fewer people would go to a .tk or .vu etc website with the same equanimity as a .uk one.Certainly. So if Amazon decided to move all its operations to, say, some Pacific island which is completely outside of U.K. jurisdiction, how would any law in the U.K. affect things? They'd continue to provide services just as now, and it would still be the person buying the goods from the Chinese supplier who, legally, would be importing them. You'd have exactly the same problem as already exists.
Is it Amazon's fault if people can't be bothered to read what's in front of them and which indicates quite clearly that a certain order is to be fulfilled by the Acme Export Co. instead of by Amazon itself?
It seems it is.You often talk about people being responsible enough to learn how to carry out a certain wiring job properly and safely before just tearing into it and getting stuck. Is it too much to ask to expect people actually to look at Amazon's site enough to understand that in many cases Amazon is just the middleman?
So are you suggesting that we must continue to allow people to be put at serious risk because their low intelligence, or naivety, or misplaced trust in a household name like Amazon makes it all their fault, and we must not do anything to limit Amazon's ability to profit from the sale of the items which put those people at serious risk?
There's a huge difference between that example, and the endemic problem of poor-to-the-point-of-lethally-dangerous quality electrical goods. I would be amazed to learn that you genuinely don't realise that.I acknowledge that some people do seem incapable of reading what's in front of them. For example, I've seen reviews of DVD sets on Amazon U.K. in which somebody is complaining about having to return a set because they were "disappointed that all the notes on the box are in Dutch" even though it's quite clearly stated that the item in question is a Dutch import. Or they ask questions about a product which are already clearlt answered in the description. But that doesn't make Amazon's model of acting as a middleman for other sellers wrong.
I thought your position was that it is not even slightly reasonable to expect eBay, Amazon et al to check what people were doing with the eBay, Amazon et al resources which they were paying eBay, Amazon et al to use?If we're talking about deceptive practices by the seller, then we're on slightly different grounds and yes, I would like to see eBay, Amazon et al actually clamp down on such things - Sellers on eBay who give a product location as London, for example, but who in fact are in China and shipping directly from China.
Done to whom? Where is that person? Who, and under what legal auspices, will do the "something" to them?If deception is involved, such as claiming to be shipping within the U.K. when it's coming from China, claiming that a product is compliant with some standard when it is not, or selling counterfeit goods, then no, there needs to be something done.
We could start with as far as it does now when people pick up an item from a shelf in a High St shop.But on the other hand, just how far do you want "consumer protection" legislation to go in guarding against some people being unable to read what's in front of them, or simply not bothering to read it?
The shop is responsible for the item being there for people to buy.
We end the fiction which says that when Amazon etc provide the entire web retailing infrastructure and sometimes the physical logistics infrastructure of warehousing and delivery for an item being available for people to buy that they are not in any way responsible for it being available for people to buy.
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