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."
What possible reason could France have for this law, besides being successfully bought by big business?
I understand that the law was passed to prevent supermarkets from putting book sellers out of business by selling the most popular books at knock-down prices (the theory being that if all books are sold by the supermarkets rather than proper book stores you would only be able to buy the most profitable books).
http://blog.nexusuk.org
I'm trying hard to understand this. Looking at European governmental action, typically these governments act to protect the consumer. I do not immediately see how forcing a higher price on a commodity can be good for the consumer. But then I remember Wal-Mart; look at Wal-Mart by offering lower prices for so many years has hurt local economies, local goods providers who cannot compete with volume pricing... which is exactly what Amazon does as well. They can take a hit on shipping because they probably have cut rate contracts with delivery companies anyway that local French sellers cannot compete with! So, all I can think is that the French government has bothered to look beyond the obvious, oh we save them 8EU so we are obviously better for the consumer and realized that there is more to a healthy economy and healthy society than saving someone a buck or two...
...and it should be known by now
Because the court decided the price of the book was the total cost to the customer after the book cost itself AND ground shipping were taken into account. So if the book is $7.99 and ground shipping is $2, then the total cost to the customer is $9.99. By Amazon not charging the customer that $2 they have, in the eyes of the court, discounted the book by 20%.
IMO, it sounds like the court went out of their way to find a definition that would allow them to bully an American company in order to protect French book sellers.
http://www.archive.org/details/ThePowerOfNightmares
Thankfully, Amazon fills the gap. However, browsing a decent, well-stocked book store is a far more pleasant experience than browsing Amazon.
Because the French have no word in their language for entrepreneur, they are not capable of understanding the American concept of laissez-faire.
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
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
Yes, France does have some great whines.
The price of socialism is that getting a good deal is a crime. If you aren't paying full price someone isn't getting paid full price. The U.S. was like this once. Under FDR a farmer could get fined for growing wheat for the sole purpose of feeding to his family because, hypothetically, if every farmer did this it would impact the market for wheat. See Wickard v. Filburn. Imagine what this logic would mean if it was applied to technology.
Why have 1 person driving a backhoe when you could employ 20 with shovels?
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.
As a publisher I can tell you the breakdown is roughly something like the 25% for printing, 25% for the author/publisher, 50% for the distributor. When amazon gives a discount it is from its own share (the 50%).
Dumping means selling less than the cost to print (>75% off the cover price). In the US the laws are designed for the benefit of the consumer. Lowering prices are encouraged.
The first of your three is the only one that makes any sense, but it's not like our corporations are any less opportunistic.
Who cares whether they'll allow our words in their language? They're proud of their language, and they have strong ideas of what is and isn't a French word. So? Are we only friends with people who use English words?
We're going to base our opinion of an entire country on the actions of some teenage hooligans?
OK, I can't let these pass:
"French companies were involved in illegal oil deals with Saddam - in violation of UN treaties - and was one of the primary reasons the French"
- Well the US never sold anything to Saddam did they? Like arms for instance when Iran was considered a much greater threat?
"The French are adamantly opposed to allowing any "English" words to become used in French conversation and thus insist on creating 'proper' French words to avoid the inclusion of non-French words into daily use"
- This depends on who you mean by 'the French'. I didn't RTFA but it's likely to be another pronouncement by L'Academie Francaise whose job it is (surprise surprise) to protect and promote the French language. Not exactly Kristallnacht, is it?
"Thousands and thousands of non-French servicemen gave their lives to help France fight for it's independence after being quickly taken over by the Nazis - when the latest war started in Iraq, how did young French people show their "support" for all of those dead servicemen? By painting swastikas on their tombs and overturning their headstones."
- Yes and thousands and thousands of French servicemen gave their lives fighting the Nazis in WWII and the Germans in WWI. Many thousands, including women and children also perished in the underground resistance during WWII. Don't tar the whole country on the basis of a few disaffected pseudo-Nazi youths. Fer chrissakes, they paint swastikas on graves in Israel. It proves nothing. And please remember that the French were there in both wars from the start - they didn't saunter in reluctantly after a few years and claim all the credit, unlike a certain North American country I can think of.
I'll tell you why the Americans hate the French - it's because the French have history and culture, philosophy and art. They have a cuisine which is based on rather more than saturated fat and corn syrup. They don't roll over and beg whenever the US clicks its colonial fingers (how I wish the UK were the same). And the French themselves are attractive, intelligent, reliable, honourable people. That's why the Americans hate them.
Anyone who understands economics is anti-French, including the French economists I know. This is just one more example of the corrupt French laws that hurt the consumers, businesses, and economy of France. There is a reason the French economy is so far behind the rest of Western Europe.
The entirety of French economic policy falsely assumes wealth is a zero-sum game while completely overlooking the fact that the wealthy will flee if their tax burden is high compared to the rest of the developed world.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.