Slashdot Mirror
Toys 'R' Us Wins Suit Against Amazon
theodp writes "Having prevailed in its bitter lawsuit against Amazon.com, Toys 'R' Us will create a new and independent Web site. A NJ judge found Amazon breached its agreement and ordered the two companies to sever their partnership Thursday. In a 131-page opinion, the judge termed Amazon's attempts to throw out e-mail evidence on the grounds that Internet communications lack reliability 'incomprehensible' and took a dim view of the testimony of some Amazon execs, including CEO Jeff Bezos' candor and 'rather childlike' explanations."
I always wondered why for what was supposed to be Toys R'Us online presence, you could generally find the same crap cheaper through the same website. Interesting to hear; interesting how long it will take TRU to get their act together and start selling themselves.
I wish there was a choice that said "Factually Wrong -1" when I mod.
I agree somewhat on the lack of credibility point, it's extremely easy to fake emails.
naming the new site Amazon'Rn't Us.com
geek page at KY speaks
I would have thought that Toys R Us, with its years of experience in marketing towards children, would have more childlike explanations. Oh well :)
OLPC Australia
131 pages? Screw RTFA!
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
You'd think that as soon as the judge permitted the dissolution of the relationship, all mentions of Toys 'R' Us would be gone. But the Toys 'R' section of Amazon's site is oddly still up at this hour.
I didn't realize that Toys R' Us was in a lawsuit with Amazon. Seems back in 2000 they agreed to work together in the online world with a 10 year contract. Toys 'R Us thought they had an exclusive contract with Amazon, but when Amazon started selling things from other retailers Toys 'R Us wanted out (understandably). Amazon tried to force them to stay.
Rather lousy thing to do if you ask me. Good business is about building mutually beneficial partnerships, not about beating up your neighbor and taking his lunch money. If I owned a company I would be wary of doing business with Amazon.
Qxe4
The article is horrible (it ends in the middle of a sentence!), and it is impossible to say exactly what Amazon was claiming regarding the emails. It talks about Amazon claiming hearsay, and then talks about the judge saying things about the realiability of internet communications. Either the author of the article or the judge seems to be using a non sequitur. It just makes no sense.
And she repeatedly complained about the ambiguous use of language in memorandums, contract agreements and discussions, concluding that "the language as drafted whether intentional or inartful gave Amazon the words to play the game their way."
If the language was so ambiguous, wouldn't it also give Toys 'R' Us the "words to play the game their way (emphasis added)"? And what does she mean about memorandums and discussions. I didn't know memorandums and discussion had to be written and spoken in accurate legalese. If the article is accurate (and I'm interpreting it correctly) it sounds like the judge is siding with Toys'R'Us just because they entered into a bad contract!
Again, the article doesn't tell us much, but it looks like Amazon has good grounds for an appeal. The judge can't just throw out a contract because its a bad deal for one side. And the judge can't allow hearsay, which it sounds like she's done. I mean, it sounds on the one hand that she is chastising Amazon for wanting to (rightly) exclude hearsay, and on the other hand is chastising them for the quality of that hearsay!
So, a company which spams, files frivolous patents, files lawsuits based on an allegedly "purely defensive" patent portfolio, pretends to oppose the current patent system while systematically abusing it, and is consistently "the worst neighbor we can get away with being" as a matter of policy...
Failed to act in a forthright manner?
Amazon? DECEITFUL? HOW CAN THIS BE?!?
Oh, that's right. They've been like this since day 1.
What amazes me is the number of apologists who will do anything but admit the plain reality. Amazon sucks. We would be better off with pretty much any other company replacing them.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
The dumbing down of these kinds of things just give more room for the media to maniupulate the story. Nothing to see here.
While looking for work a year ago, I attended a job search seminar - one of the persons I met there was a former executive at Toys R Us - he briefly summed up what killed the Toys R Us business model - Walmart.
Walmart simply sucked away any profit margins the Toys R Us Franchise once had - especially during the biggest toy buying season - Christmas.
According to him, going online with Amazon was a desparation move to gain some profitability back from Walmart - managed by Toys R Us execs who had not a clue about managing an online store.
"Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair" - George Washington
A lot of brick and mortar companies didnt have an infrastructure in place to handle a large ecommerce presence several years ago. Amazon did so they all just went with the Amazon portal thing. Today most companies are far more aware of the web, technologies etc.
Eventually you will lose control of your online business to Amazon. I wondered when one of these companies would come to that realization. Web presence is no longer just a trivial thing. Wonder whos next? Target?
Amazon's attempts to throw out e-mail evidence on the grounds that Internet communications lack reliability
Wah?
I hope I am not the only person that thinks this is a total contradiction!
Yes, shop online with us... Sure, purchase goods using the Internet... Absolutely, we can email you a new password/invoice/receipt number... Use email to communicate for business purposes - you must be F&*king crazy!!!!
If I tried to explain why, in this day and age, when running an entire business empire online, I considered "Internet communications" unreliable, I think my efforts would end up "incomprehensible" too!
Optimist: The thumb drive is half empty! Pessimist: The thumb drive is half full...
It certain circumstances, where a contract is unfair, a judge can declare it invalid. However, in this case, the judge didn't "throw it out", he found that Amazon.com breached it.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Where is the judge's decision that attacks Bezos and the position that Amazon took?
I'm hoping to read it, because I'm leery of articles that paraphrase this stuff -- I always like to read the original source.
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_
If I may be deadly serious for a moment: my pals and I have sent each other "spoof" emails as practical jokes for years now.
Am I the only one who finds it extremely dangerous that email is accepted as "evidence" in 2006 by people who can't begin to understand "this tech stuff"?
Yikes.
Math is math. Regular expression is regular expression. The tools are there. The future is now.
Can't tell from the article if it applies, but I can sure think of a few reasons why e-mail is not the best evidence.
Does the livedoor mess make it into the English news?
I don't feel that it is a contradiction, just incomplete. Without feedback and do-overs the Internet would be horribly unreliable. Email is unreliable, too many things can happen to it between the sender and the receiver, including being blocked by blocklists. Web pages are magnitudes more reliable because you know whether the operation that you just attempted has worked, and can go back and correct or rtry if it didn't work.
Twofold:
We R Toys thought they were getting an exclusive wrap on all the toy-sales-hookup at Amazon.com; Amazon.com thought it was picking up brand recognition from We R Toys.
In the end, Amazon.com was selling toys from other mechanisms, and We R Toys wasn't kicking the profits to the moon with the joint adventure.
In the end, both parties (IMHO) have lost something here. Instead of just agreeing to void the contract and going their separate ways, they had to fight it out in an ugly and public way. Interestingly enough... of the many folks to whom I have spoken (over the past few years), at Christmas time, they didn't even know they were actually buying the toys from TRU - they thought they were shopping at Amazon.com. It's interesting how that whole deal morphed out.
A Passionate Independent Musician
I'm happy for Toys R Us because basically, and I think a lot of other people thought this too, is that I was buying toys from Amazon.com. So at least they get thier brand identity back. It was nice you can return the stuff to any Toys R Us store, though.
:).....
This does suck in a way as it'll be the end of the crazy super bargain deals where Toys R Us has a 33% off each item (3 item minimum) and an Amazon.com coupon for an additional %20 off that amount. It was a killer deal back in September where I got the Star Wars Lego Imperial Star Destroyer (reg price $300) for like 55% off. I'm going to miss those kind of deals. *sniff* *sniff*
However when my apartment office recieved it and showed it to me I could actually see the lego box a few feet away since the box lid tape was completely torn off. That was a scary moment, but it wasn't damaged. They also sent another large lego set WITHOUT ANY BOX WHATSOEVER! Just slapped a sticker on it and shipped it.
So you know, I hope to god Toys R Us can ship things better than these bastards. I don't ever want the apartment management seeing what I got. So good riddence to amazon.com. Oh and don't even get me started with how I bought japanese jpop cd bootlegs from their zShops and didn't know about it for 9 months!
According to the ruling in the case, Amazon.com has 14 fulfillment centers operating 24 hours a day except for Christmas and New
Reuters contributed to the story.
New Year's? New locations? New York? New London?
Someone needs to RTA before they publish it.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
CEO Jeff Bezos' candor and 'rather childlike' explanations.
I guess he should stop acting like a ToysRUs kid now.
From the article: "[Judge] McVeigh also rejected Amazon's efforts to defend itself by asking her to throw out e-mail evidence that may have included hearsay. She said she found it "incomprehensible ... that a corporation dealing primarily in Internet commerce finds Internet communications to lack reliability."
Actually, your honor, I'd say that a corporation dealing primarily in Internet commerce would be an excellent judge of the reliability of Internet communications. As a consumer, I'm rather glad that they take a dim view of its reliability and apply the appropriate security measures -- measures to which the e-mails in question were probably not subject.
Please donate your spare CPU cycles to help fight cancer and other diseases
(Disclaimer: I'm a former Amazon employee who worked with a group that had a close relationship with TRUS)
I think the TRUS relationship was weighing heavily on both companies. Amazon doesn't like to sell toys directly, as they're very difficult to manage in a supply chain -- they're bursty, vulnerable to all kinds of trends that are difficult to predict, and very fragile to ship. TRUS' technical staff was often frustrated by the weird working relationships imposed by our respective corporate bureaucracy. And finally, it really cramped Amazon's ability to create new products and services, since we were constantly having to consider whether a new feature would ruffle TRUS' feathers.
I think both parties are better off with a divorce. It's quite a risk for TRUS to create a new online store from scratch, but they've got some good people who've had several years of experience working with Amazon. I wish them the best of luck.
It's a widespread problem across the entire MSNBC.com website. The site is crappy anyway, and the way they place the ads sometimes breaks the page (ad covers text) ***even*** when using IE.
it's simple to spoof an email, I can send mail as jonathan@pcphi...com any time I want to. I can also alter mailbox information, mess about with mail headers, make it say anything I want it to.
Sending sensitive information over email is as sane as sending it on a postcard... encrypt and sign it people...
Deleted
Anyone want to lay odds that Amazon starts opening mall stores?
Read any good sonnets lately?
The way that contracts work, if Party A drafts a contract to enter into agreement with Party B, should there be any ambiguity the contract is interpreted to the benefit of Party B as they did not draft the contract. This protects parties from being take advantage of by ambiguous statements made on purpose. If there is room for interpretation, then the contract could benefit Party A or Party B. Since Party A drafted the contract, it would be unfair for the ambiguity to benefit them.
But IANAL
How's this for comprehensibilty?:
I could fake a mail from you to Saddam Hussain stating that you would like to assasinate one of your political leaders for one hundred billion dollars. (hello to the security people now joining us, calm down, it's just an example). This email chain has dates and times.
Now, try and prove to me the following: a) you didn't write it at all, b) it is exactly as first sent, c) the message was never sent in the first place.
Computer logs are even less reliable than eyewitnesses. And eyewitnesses are pretty unreliable as well...as any lawyer/judge/cop.
I also agree that this is a good move. I've been very frustrated with the TRUS "store" within Amazon. Countless times I've wanted to buy something only to find out that TRUS was selling it, which meant I also had to pay shipping AND tax. Maybe now Amazon will sell video games directly.
And the men who hold high places must be the ones who start
To mold a new reality... closer to the heart
The judge did not say the internet emails were not reliable. RTFA. In the article, it says:
... that a corporation dealing primarily in Internet commerce finds Internet communications to lack reliability."
She said she found it "incomprehensible
What she found "incomprehensible" was that a company dealing in internet commerce could claim that internet communication is not reliable.
What this shows, is that the judge really doesn't understand the internet, and all the different applications and protocols. Clearly there are ways to secure e-commerce transactions, and just as clearly, email can be faked.
And that is why you don't own a company of consequence. Business is about making money, not being some kind of 'good neighbor' to competitors.
While it's true that every business looks out for #1, I think you overstate the case in the opposite direction of the grandparent post.
Businesses have cultures and characters, just like people. And partners/allies approach businesses taking these into account; the reputation of a company can create revenue or costs accordingly. Those revenues and costs may not be the determining factor in every or even most situations, but they are real.
"Who steals my purse, steals trash, but he that filches from me my good name robs me of that which not enriches him and makes me poor indeed." Of course Shakespeare put these words into the mouth of a scheming liar. Their truth is situational: it depends on your purse, and how much you need your reputation. If you're a poor tribal clansman, it is very true. You don't have material wealth worth mentioning, and you are mutually dependent on others like yourself for survival and defense. If, on the other hand, you're Louis XIV, you have no friends -- only rivals who have revealed their hands to various degrees. You're reputation is relatively unimportant, as people are tied to you by law and custom. Your purse is relatively more important becuase by it you maintain those laws. No one expects you to keep your word; your actions are like the weather. People can predict them in a general climactic way or a short term by scanning the horizon for fair or stormy weather. But nobody takes you word for what the weather will be at the end of next week.
Businesses exist along the same continuum, from small consultancies whose only real asset is their reputation up to the Sun King of all businesses: Microsoft. Within it's sphere, Microsoft wields unchallengeable power. Nobody who allies themselves with Microsoft today seriously believes that Microsoft won't issue a writ of execution later on if it suits them. This is the natural course of any entity which has untrammelled power backed by money. Other companies who are trying to work in the margins of Microsoft's domain cannot afford to act this way; it's not that they wouldn't; they're just not in a position to. If a company is going to draw customers away from Microsoft, then it has to convince those customers that it's trustworthy. Lack of trust and affection may very well hinder Microsoft's plans outside its core businesses, for example in the music field, where customers do not feel the weight of compulsion.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Maybe now Amazon will start stocking Toys R Us type stuff themselves, instead of forcing me to go with third-party sellers. I have Amazon prime, and would like to use it for video games and the like, but can't because Amazon never stocks the stuff themselves. (And Amazon prime only works with items Amazon sells themselves.)
"He who would learn astronomy, and other recondite arts, let him go elsewhere. " -- John Calvin, commenting on Genesis 1
I have. Their stores pretty much suck. The only reason they still exist is momentum and because WalMart beat down all the competition. I think their own in-house internet presence may just be the end of them.
Web 2.0 == Giant Blogspam Circle Jerk
good, im glad Toys R' Us is leaving the Amazon site... free shipping from amazon is always nice, and toys r us did not offer it. they also lock out sellers from anything they offer online. i collect boardgames so this is good news to me, hopefully soon i will no longer have to spend $100 to get free shipping... lol
If the story is true, it's your brother's fault for not contacted them _properly_. I worked there for a year or so, and am fully aware that they make it as has as possible to find the phone number, but it's not too hard to email them. You just can't randomly send off an email to refundmymoney@amazon.com and except to get a response. Those that actually contacted them properly don't have these types of experiences. When I was there, Amazon would throw money at customers to make them happy. "Didn't get your stuff? Here's ten bucks."
And yes, they are horribly corrupt. And incompetent. I've seen it myself.
Maybe you can answer this for me. I worked for Amazon for about a year. I always wondered why they charged so damn much for shipping the T.R.U. stuff. I mean, it was like $.75 a pound or something crazy.
http://www.judiciary.state.nj.us/toysrus/index.htm
I'm glad that Jeff showed candor. Very good.
Amazon most certainly will start selling videogames directly now.
As another former Amazon employee who worked on the TRU projects, I can say that Amazon's customers are likely much better off without the TRU partnership.
Here's why:
- Dozens of merchants will now sell toys directly in the Amazon.com toy store, driving prices down and options up.
- The selection will increase. More merchants equals broader selection.
- Amazon can create new features and form new partnership without TRU around it's neck.
When I was there, we couldn't even sell Magic: The Gathering or Pokemon (some of, if not *the* bestselling products in the industry at the time) because Toys R Us lost money selling 3 dollar products online, which was a consequence of the way the contract was written.
Amazon was making bank off this relationship. My impression was that Amazon was spending *far* less than the $50 million per year that TRU was paying. I could never count more than about a dozen people working directly on the project (myself included). There were probably a bunch more in the warehouse and lots of operational expenses there, but I couldn't say.
TRU, on the other hand, was losing money the whole time. They blew it when they negociated the contract and both sides knew it.
The new toysrus.com, whatever it will look like, will never be able to compete with Amazon on price and selection because of Amazon's multiple merchants strategy. They'll have to compete on brand, for better or for worse. Good luck to both of them.
What they should have done all along is give toysrus.com their own site, a la target.com (which is run by Amazon). Then have TRU sell product on amazon.com/toys as just another merchant.
Barring that, by breaking up, everybody wins. Amazon gets to sell whatever they want, TRU stops bleeding money, and the customer gets a better Amazon toy store and another option in toysrus.com.
That judge may get upset when someone starts sending emails from his email address. Of course, I don't know what kind of information is in the emails, but it is entirely possible to send false emails, even fraudulent ones. Just login to an insecure SMTP server and you're set. Not that I recommend anyone do this, by the way. It can both be unethical and illegal, unless you have permission to use the server and the permission of the owner of the address. Still, emails are highly suspect to problems, and email should always be considered an "insecure medium."
"the way they place the ads sometimes breaks the page"
Disabling JavaScript often fixes it. (And, yes, why they're using JavaScript for page layout...?)
Farmer's markets are even pretty good for home-made and second-hand toys, as are church bazaars (as distinct from what--cathedral cathedrals?), swap meets and flea markets. It's a way of participating in recycling and saving big bikkies at the same time. Farmer's markets are terrific for fresh vege, and the best way to get inexpensive organic meat is to get to know the farmer and the butcher themselves. Informal networks of people who can provide things you need in exchange for stuff you have, but don't need-- it's very much like the open source community, and promoting local food security in the face of rising petroleum prices.
Speaking of which, the profitability of all "globalized" markets pretty much rests on the shifting sands of cheap oil. It won't be cheaper for Walmart to ship cheap sweatshop crap from abroad when the price of oil goes way up. "But That's Bad for the Economy!" Shouts Wall Street. No, it's only Bad for Globalized Megacorps -- but it's good for local barter economies, good for public transportation, good for bicycle mechanics, good for local manufacturers and farmers, who may soon be able to undercut the likes of Walmart on cost while beating Walmart on quality -- just because the shipping costs of locally-produced goods are so much lower.
I had the opposite experience with Amazon.ca I bought two DVD's during the last Christmas Season... I contacted Amazon via their webform with the order number when the items had not arrived after a month past the expected arrival date and they sent me a second set of DVD's.
I was so impressed that I've done much more of my shopping on Amazon lately.
I will add to your comment about farmer's markets and talk about small local grocers, because over the last year or so I have stumbled across a fact that surprised me quite a lot.
Down the street from my house here in the city of San Francisco I have a little corner produce store. You can get pretty much any fresh food that you can get from Safeway: vegetables, fruit, dried goods, eggs, milk, etc.
First I started shopping there because it was just as convenient to get to as Safeway, and buying local seemed like a good thing. Then I noticed that the quality of the produce was much, much better than Safeway's. Safeway is buying in massive volume and they are buying vegetables that have been grown, treated and/or engineered to have long shelf lives. The stuff at this corner store is coming from the farmers to my street corner. It looks and tastes better in every way.
But, as I said, over the last year I noticed something even more surprising. You might think, based on what I've said, that I'm paying a little more to support my convictions and/or get nice produce. That's usually how it works: Buy from the big vendor, get the deep volume discounts. Buy from the little guy and pay more. BUT NO! The fact of the matter is that just about every single thing I buy at the corner store is cheaper than the same thing at Safeway.
There are some exceptions; mostly packaged foods like salad dressings or mayo. But mushrooms that cost $2.49/lb at Safeway cost $1.89 at the corner store. A container of milk that's $2.19 at Safeway is $1.79 at the corner store. Even something like a sack of flour or a packet of yeast costs less.
The lesson is that Safeway's business model does not necessarily work the way you think big retailers' business models work. I expect what they do is negotiate deep discounts with the packaged, prepared food vendors: Hot Pockets, Lean Cuisine, etc., and they sell them to the consumer at a minimal profit margin. They make up the difference on produce, fresh fruits and vegetables, and dry household goods.
Your average Joe Consumer is used to comparing prices on individual branded items. If a 12-pack of Coke normally costs $3.50, he'll notice when it's on sale for $1.99 and that will get him into Safeway. That same consumer, however, has fallen out of the habit of comparing pricess on piecemeal, by-the-pound items like fruits and vegetables -- and so that's where Safeway jacks up its prices.
Try it sometime. If you have access to a local green grocer, shop there a few times and make a note of what you pay for things. Then see what happens when you try to buy the same items the next week at your local Safeway or Albertson's. I bet you'll be surprised. Shop at the green grocer and you support local business, get better quality food, and pay less.
(Oh, and you should be eating more fruits and vegetables anyway.)
Breakfast served all day!
you obviously aren't a 4 or 5 year old kid. toys r us is my son's vacation destination of choice.
If the appeal is successful, it will be because of this very thing: Email is unreliable, and being an internet business, Amazon.com would know that!
If you don't believe that email is unreliable, try responding to the "From" column on some of your spam and see how many of those "From" addresses are legitimate!
It's quite a risk for TRUS to create a new online store from scratch, but they've got some good people who've had several years of experience working with Amazon. I wish them the best of luck.
Yeah? look at http://www.toysrus.ca/ . How hard it could be? like 2 weeks of inventory sync? Ok it is little bit more complex, but if they want they can get set up and become operational in less then a month. toysrus.ca is running on WCS and IBM can sell them hosting service, rent hardware and provide all the know-how.
I think that they do not need luck, they already got all they need.
Click on "your account", "communications preferences", login and select receive no e-mail on the right side of the screen. Anything else you get is either transaction email (you bought something) or a phishing attempt.
As much as I disagree with Amazon's patent policy, I disagree with your assessment of their customer service, and I venture to guess something else "happened" in regards to the scenario that you're talking about regarding your brother.
The one time that I had problems with Amazon is that the shipper was reporting my order as being delivered (in this case, it was a book), but I never had not received the product. After getting no help from DHL or the post office, I contacted Amazon. I received an email reply within an hour from a CSR, saying that they would ship the book again. I received it a couple days later, and was charged nothing more.
To be sure, I sent an extra email to Amazon expressing my gratitude for their great customer service. You don't see that very often these days.
A community-oriented lyrics site
What this shows, is that the judge really doesn't understand the internet, and all the different applications and protocols.
Protocols are irrelevant. What this shows is her BS meter was functioning correctly. Amazon's business model DEPENDS upon email. You remove email from the equation, and it breaks down to a very very large degree, regardless of "secure transactions" and things of that nature. For a company whose commerce depends upon email so fundamentally to claim that email is unreliable is a steaming pile of bullshit and the judge was very very clueful to this.
As for the GP, the courts are there to make sure that contracts are fair and within the law. If you signed a contract that was leading you to bankruptcy, it is your right to seek help from the courts and it is entirely within the mandate of the courts to invalidate a contract which is leading someone to their demise.
Perhaps the Judge in this case wanted Amazon to do more than merely assert that it was "unreliable" and instead to have them either:
1) Show that the email was spoofed (can't be too hard; I've tracked plenty of spam with forged headers... I don't generally expect large organizations to route their email through compromised Windows computers running in DSL ranges, nor do I buy that someone's hostname was _SHADOW_SHADOW_SHADOW... so as to overflow where it would normally display the IP).
2) Show that there were missing emails that would have put the discussion in a different context and explain exactly why these emails were missing.
Otherwise I have to question whether they were merely lying by coming up with a somewhat plausible excuse for which they have absolutely no proof.
See? If Reuters hadn't sent their contribution to the story via email, you'd have the rest of it!
LONG LIVE BEZOS!!!1
*hops on his segway to traverse the newly built inter-city highways after Dean Kamen's invention "revolutionized the world"*
Less Talk. More Stab.
This was when they ran their website independently. And then in 99 they couldn't fulfill everyone's order?1 22399a.htm
http://retailindustry.about.com/library/weekly/aa
I believe this is why they parterned with Amazon in the first place.
Seconded. PC-PHIX (888080) is the sixth biggest asshat in, like, the whole world totally forever - after the five who modded him up.
1/3 of jokes get modded OT. If you get the joke, mod 1 in 3 insightful/interesting/underrated to restore karma balance.
Is that the best you can do? Of course it's subjective. But it's also agreed upon be the overwhelming majority of people who give it a second's thought. They file for obvious patents. (Their fault). They are granted. (Patent office's fault.) They've demonstrated that they will use these garbage patents anticompetitively.
They are bastards who will manipulate the system for their own gain at the expense of others. All companies do this to some degree but Amazon stands out as a particularly bad example and will not get my business. And I will continue to tell others to avoid using Amazon.
At least hacking into a mailserver is getting harder.
To make e-mails admissable, they need two things that are not really available to ordinary office e-mail (and shouldn't be):
First, they need a cryptographic checksum. (I don't like the term digital signature, as long as the digital signature has no trace of the personality of the signer.)
Second, they need an independent registration service, such as a CPA provides in the US.
Without that, they are too subject to manipulation.
Like I say, does the Livedoor mess here in Japan make the news there?
Your 3rd party could save a copy, but the best evidence that would give is that the three agree. If they don't agree, then there could be evidence of wrongdoing, but on whose part?
Cryptographic checksum and timestamp are necessary before e-mail should be allowed as evidence.
You are SO right on!!
Another advantage of going in to a green grocer is purely for the emotional and spiritual uplift
I used to deliver newspapers to a green grocer in our town (and pick up some fruit and vege there at the same time), and it was just sheer delight going in there! The very aroma was intoxicating. And the care they took to rotate their fruit and vege stock, cull the ripest, put them on sale-- that's real value added, like the care that goes into proper maintenance of a software package or system.
But this past weekend was the weekend to dig in the garden -- to put in our own vegetables. This year, we're doing Okra, Tomatoes, Collard, Corn, Basil, Dill, Beans, Radishes and...possibly Amaranth.
The more local vege we support and the more of our own vege we grow -- the less oil used in shipping in food from overseas...and therefore the fewer people have to die fighting over oil.
Growing a vegetable garden is my radical act for peace.