Slashdot Mirror
French Fine Amazon For Free Shipping
strech writes "Ars Technica reports that France is fining Amazon for offering free shipping on some orders. A French high court ruled in December that the practice violated a law preventing discounting the price of a book more than 5% off of the publisher's recommended price. Amazon has decided to pay the fine, rather than drop free shipping. The fine currently stands at €1,000 per day but is automatically reconsidered after 30 days, after which it could be raised dramatically."
How the hell does giving free shipping mean that the price of the book is discounted? The book is $7.99 or whatever regardless of the price of shipping, free or not.
Speedy thing goes in; speedy thing comes out.
Isn't this exactly the kind of nonsense that Nicolas Sarkozy wants to put an end to? Fining a business for doing something that BENEFITS consumers just because of pressure from some lazy brick-and-mortars (who would rather hide behind their union and the laws they've forced through than innovate and compete) seems insane.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
I'm not sure how to take seriously someone who says in 2008 that you're screwed if you want a non-bestselling book. We live in a time of unprecedented availability of books (and music, and movies, etc.). Truly screwed was when you went to the cozy little independent bookshop and they didn't have your book. Then you backordered it for six weeks.
This is paradise for book-buying, regardless of whatever romanticized ideal of the independent bookseller you cling to.
If it ain't broke, you need more software.
When the retards who only see the cost of their purchase in dollars destroy their local economy, they will go crying to goverment for help. Those of us who knew better will have to bail them out. Better to prevent the fools from dragging us all down. This is the same logic used for gun control, drug laws, seatbelt laws, child protection laws, etc...
Blar.
Is that France has a pile of protectionist laws screwing up their economy and this is just one of them.
Amazon isn't selling at a loss. They're just selling at a price that some stores don't want to compete with. And French law, instead of giving the consumer the right to buy where they can get something the cheapest, instead forces the consumer to pay more for a product than they need to.
You'd think it was pretty silly if the US had a federal law that said that you could only sell a product for no less than 5% of MSRP, wouldn't you? And you'd think it was ESPECIALLY silly if that law only applied to particular products?
Well, except agriculture, but there we just write checks to producers.
paintball
Much as refusing to take vaccines...
In the same vein, this is not a fundamental justice issue. France determines the rules to trade in their country. If you don't like them, you don't have to trade there. Or, you can program in special exceptions (no free shipping) for French customers. We can argue about whether their rules are stupid or not (rejecting email based on legal MAIL FROM chars is stupid). But this isn't a case of oppression or murder.
Adding the price of shipping to the book and prohibiting discounts is a funny idea. Let's see: If you have to add the price of shipping to a book sold by an online seller you have to add other costs as well, e.g. the costs of your book shop. So if you are selling a book for the standard price and your bookshop is nicer than the one across the street you are giving an illegal discount. The same would be true if your bookshop has more employees or better qualified employees than the average bookshop. We should therefore call for legislation defining the "standard bookshop" - just to make sure there isn't any evil competition at all.
Amazon et. al are great when you know exactly what you are looking for. But(way back when anyway) small independent bookstores are(were?) usually run by book nuts who really got a chance to know you and could be counted on to discuss books you have read/like/might like. Amazon's suggestion software is good, but not a perfect replacement. Not to mention some people enjoy the atmosphere of just wandering through rows and rows of books looking for a treasure.
It's still probably not worth erecting such stubborn laws to protect, but there is something to be said about the atmosphere of a small book store.
Monstar L
But then I remember Wal-Mart
You've hit the nail on the head. But this problem is potentially much worse in many European countries. Why? Because they are considerably smaller markets than the USA. For instance, if you are a publisher of obscure books in the USA, you have a huge market - enough to support your company producing obscure books. But in much smaller countries, it is much harder, so these type of law are essentially there so the smaller publishers and booksellers don't get wiped out.
What works well in the USA won't necessarily work well in other countries where the business environment is very different, and as you point out, sometimes their are bigger issues than saving the customer a dollar (or euro).
Yeah, visit Amazon.com (or .fr) and just look around. Nothing but high-volume items to be seen! And certainly no way to find out-of-print used books, either. Truly, the only winner is Jeff Bezos.
If it ain't broke, you need more software.
If you want to do business in a country, you follow the laws by that country. How hard is that to understand?
If you do not want to do that, you do not do business in that country.
Wether this is an American company in France, A Belgian company in Spain or a Russian one in the USofA.
I am sure that I will be fined selling alcohol to people under the age of 21 in the USofA, no matter what my opinion is of that law, or the fact that the country of my headoffice allows this. I am sure both Heineken and InBev would agree.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
The law is not protectionist. Protectionism means that you do not allow foreign goods onto a local market. Since a French company, Alapage got in trouble for doing the same thing, you cannot classify this as protectionism.
And the agricultural policy is not French, it is a competence of the EU. The US does the same thing with its farm subsidies. Make no mistake, without regulation, the free market does not magically make agricultural production better, it impoverishes farmers and leads to huge fluctuations in prices and chronic shortages. The EU and the US (two of the world's most free-market oriented organizations) have subsidies for farmers because history has proven their necessity over and over.
By the way, the anti-dumping laws (this means selling products below price) in French laws are a result of the transposition of EU directives into national laws. Such directives exist to ensure the free market can prosper and they are the same across Europe. Given the nature of the European economy right now (hint: it's really good compared to everybody else), such initiatives must be doing something right.
weirdest thing I ever saw: scientology advertising on slashdot.
Well, it's impossible for any real-life bookstore to compete with the fantasy one you've created in your mind using vast amounts of nostalgia, so I suppose that's probably true.
Being a person who is grounded in reality, when I go into the local Barnes and Noble and see books as far as the eye can see, with a coffeeshop off to my left, a high school kid playing cello music to my right past the checkers, and in the back a kid's section with a local school teacher reading children's books (and then I learn that for every book bought that day, Barnes and Noble is donating books to the local elementary schools)... well, I'll take that over any fantasy nostalgia bookstore you've come up with. Because, you know, it actually exists.
Comment of the year
Obviously, not enough people are willing to pay extra to browse in such an "atmosphere". Otherwise, these small bookshops would be thriving. However, plenty of people are willing to subsidize these little bookshops using other people's money, by making sure that all the consumers have to pay high prices.
Dieu merci! Now the French are safely protected from the limited selection of Amazon.com.
You might notice that the law was passed before the likes of Amazon existed. As with all laws, people with a vested interest will often use them in ways not envisaged at the time the law was passed, which may be contrary to the law's original intent. It doesn't necessarily mean the original idea was a bad one, it just means that the law needs to be adjusted to prevent this kind of abuse.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
And if that was valued by society, those small, independent bookstores run by book nuts would still be around. But it isn't, which is why people are doing what they always did: buy books that they hear about from adverts or their friends. You don't need a book nut to do that, you just need a place to buy what you want for the best price you can find.
Now, there probably is something to be said for that atmosphere, but not in every town like you posit once existed. That's the kind of thing that goes in where there are lots of people that are interested in that sort of thing. Like near colleges in a large metropolitan area. And, indeed, there is no shortage of such shops in Cambridge (MA, I don't know about the real Cambridge, but I can't think of a reason it'd be different.)
Interestingly, the French law does appear to greatly impact one class of typically very cash-strapped people: College students. I shudder to imagine how ripped off those who are forbidden from seeking better prices than you'd get in the college bookstore are.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
Amazon is engaging in civil disobedience on behalf of their customers--the customers certainly like it, so it cannot be that all French are against free shipping. I don't think anyone on Slashdot has a problem with breaking what they view as an unjust law. In fact, most of us break several laws every day, most of which we view as unjust and therefore without moral force.
France: Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, No Free Shipping.
The Rise and Fall of Online Community
In the US 8% unemployment is pretty severe, but in some economies 8% unemployment isn't necessarily terrible. I don't actually know as I have little understanding of the french economy outside of my american brethren slamming the more worker-oriented laws. Given the US economy, yes these laws would be terrible, but please put them and the 8% unemployment rate into proper context BEFORE you say there is severe economic failure. Cause frankly, I don't believe you. France seems to be chugging along just as well as we are.