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Amazon Patents Bad Gift Protection
theodp writes "Thanks to the inventors at Amazon.com, you needn't fear Aunt Martha any longer. On Tuesday, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos received a patent for a bad gift defense system that intercepts gifts you don't want and instead sends you something that you actually do want. For example, Amazon explains that its 'System and Method for Converting Gifts' would allow you to set up a rule like 'Convert all gifts from Aunt Mildred,' which would automatically convert any online gift orders from your well-meaning-but-tasteless Auntie into a gift certificate. Other examples of how the system might be used: You could convert bad gifts to something off your wish list; block specific products ('Not another XYZ comic strip calendar'); or ensure that any clothing gifts match your exact size ('Check clothes sizes first')."
Instead of trying to make an educated guess about what I would or would not want, just let me know beforehand that you might have an order coming to me that I don't want. Then let me decide if I want it in gift certificate form.
That would require Aunt Mildred to order your gifts online and not knit you a tacky sweater by hand.
- Alice, @acarback
How about a bad patent protection instead?
..my Mom knew how to use the internet!
So in other words, Bozo^H^H^Hezos patented the ancient practice of bait and switch. His mother would be so proud...
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
Can someone patent that?
If only she knew how to use Amazon, she wouldn't have to drive to the mall 20mph slower than the speed limit and back up into a few pedestrians on her way just to get me a pair of black socks with brown and purple diamond shapes on them.
Under commerce laws, a contract is signed between a consumer and a company to perform a service.
The NON-action of that service - the unwanted gift ORDERED and PAID FOR by the consumer Aunt Milly - is a direct and actionable defrauding of service and a contractual BREACH by Amazon.
I smell a massive consumer lawsuit that Amazon will lose.
Amazon enters into the contract to deliver the goods and services specified. They are the AGENT of Aunt Milly.
Anything other than a good-faith effort to fulfill that contract is an act of FRAUD.
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It's just like fortune cookies.
Append "in bed" and you get a laugh.
Append "with a computer" and you get a software patent.
However I believe (IMHO) it is not solving the fundamental problem.
A gift from person A to person B should be a symbol saying "I know you, and I believe that you should have this gift I am giving you". If person B is not receiving a desired gift from person A then there are at least 2 issues at stake:
So the fundamental problem is the lack of a proper relationship between Person A and Person B, and that this patent application goes to weaken all such relationships by automatically sweeping the real issues under the electronic carpet.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
So basically it's a system that allows you to be a jerk? You're automatically turning every gift into cash!
Unfortunately this won't be anywhere near as intelligent as I'll want it to be.
As a happy medium, if it emailed me stating, "Your aunt has bought you a gift, would you like to know what it is?" and upon saying Yes I had the option to change the gift, that would be great - providing my aunt never knew the truth.
It would be really good if it would know that I'd like another wii controller instead of more socks, but it won't.
They patented it, doesn't mean they plan on implementing it.
then if gift from: Bezos
To: *
Forward to: titanium93
Convert to: Cash in small bills
Profit!
Sigs are for losers
You just will no longer be creating the same contract. The contract will now read this item will be offered to the recipient, which he/she can accept or exchange for credit towards another purchase.
www.RacquetUp.org - Helping Detroit Youth
DO NOT WANT!
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
All of the bad gift givers for me rarely shop on Amazon or on the internet at all. This might work if every single person who bought me stuff did it through Amazon. If they did not, it would be an odd thing to ask people to do, "Uh, yeah, your presents suck. Can you order it through Amazon so that I can auto-return it before I even get it?"
The world is how you make it
I've had several of them openly commit fraud against me. As long as they put "its okay for us to commit fraud" into their policy/EULA/whatever.... theyre covered..
Under commerce laws, a contract is signed between a consumer and a company to perform a service.
The NON-action of that service - the unwanted gift ORDERED and PAID FOR by the consumer Aunt Milly - is a direct and actionable defrauding of service and a contractual BREACH by Amazon.
I smell a massive consumer lawsuit that Amazon will lose.
Amazon enters into the contract to deliver the goods and services specified. They are the AGENT of Aunt Milly.
Anything other than a good-faith effort to fulfill that contract is an act of FRAUD.
Didn't Aunt Milly agree to this, though, when she clicked "I Agree" to the TOS?
I see the defense for this being that Amazon is simply speeding up the return process.
Remember that gifts are sent via Amazon with a return policy for store credit, and shipping is free.
So if Aunt Mildred sent Johnny a book, Johnny can return it for a $15 credit to Grand Theft Auto: Fargo.
Amazon is just making that process faster, knowing in advance that Johnny doesn't want the book, and giving him the credit before even shipping.
It's a win for everyone except UPS.
-David
Not a bad idea. Some simple pre-made rules would be nice. For instance, a useful one might be: All fruitcakes --> gift certificate
like a bad gift to cash in an envelope conversion
but bad gifts do serve a purpose, it's a free supply of crap you give to people where you have to give a gift but don't want to buy one
Does Aunt Martha have the ability to order online to begin with? Does she even own a computer?
Bad gift protection? Oh you mean they patented the gift registry.
No, Aunt Milly would have to opt in to it.
The defrauding is in the contract between Aunt Milly and Amazon, not the contract between the intended recipient and Amazon.
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I see the defense for this being that Amazon is simply speeding up the return process.
Remember that gifts are sent via Amazon with a return policy for store credit, and shipping is free.
So if Aunt Mildred sent Johnny a book, Johnny can return it for a $15 credit to Grand Theft Auto: Fargo.
Amazon is just making that process faster, knowing in advance that Johnny doesn't want the book, and giving him the credit before even shipping.
It's a win for everyone except UPS.
Even UPS will win when Johnny uses that credit to get something he actually wants.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
It's going to have to ask you if your purchase is a gift and would presumably have you opt in at that point.
If I were UPS (also a Seattle company like Amazon), I'd be firing up the batteries of lawyers for the class-action lawsuits as we speak.
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I've always prided myself on meaningful and thoughtful gift giving. I was never perfect, but I tried very hard to think about every gift and how it matched that person. At the same time, I've always been someone who's been hard to shop for, because of my particular tastes, and because I disdain gift cards. I can understand people's desires to make gift giving easier, but let's get serious. A gift should be a well thought out and researched thing. Have we created such an incredibly greedy consumer society that a company like Amazon has to create services like "gift interception" to make up for the fact that we buy too much shit?
I mean c'mon. Consumers have this false guilt about giving money because "it's impersonal" so they feel it necessary to give a gift, or give a gift card. Forcing me to deal with your crappy gift, or forcing me to buy something from a store I don't want, is just annoying. So now, in order to deal with the fact that we have this incorrect sense that we must buy shit for each other or force each other to buy shit from a specific store, that we have to create brand spanking new processes just to deal with the fact that we as a people suck at something we shouldn't even be doing in the first place? This is why happy go lucky cheery people who think gifts are doubleplusgood and there couldn't possibly be a downside get pissed off when I point out the very real reasons why sometimes giving a gift is not as nice as you think.
It's a recession, and people are hurting for money. Instead of buying little timmy the latest power ranger or little sally the latest pillow pet, give them each $20 and open a saving account and teach them how to save. Or knit them a sweater. Or something equally unique or helpful. Last year for Christmas, my mother promised to make me about a dozen home cooked meals over the next year that I could take home with me. Best gift EVAR. Let's stop giving Amazon reasons to come up with ways to buy more shit.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
I'm going to give Amazon the benefit of the doubt here and say they only patented this to prevent any company from ever implementing such a terrible idea.
As aunt Mildred will of course want pictures of you with your new gift...
the batteries of lawyers
By any chance, do those batteries explode like the ones in laptops?
-David
Meanwhile, after a twelve year fight in the courts, Amazon is about to get its 1-click shopping patent granted in Canada:
http://news.swpat.org/2010/11/canada-1-click-patentable/
Background:
* http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Amazon_v._Commissioner_for_Patents_(2010,_Canada)
* http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Amazon's_one-click_shopping_patent
* http://en.swpat.org/wiki/Amazon
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
"presumably have you opt in"?
Defaulting the TOS to presuming this is not the same as Actively Requiring you to check if this is ok.
Hiding things in contract text is an act of defrauding - we're talking Aunt Milly here, she expects you to do what she told you, she's not a lawyer and she doesn't really get these computer thingies.
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the batteries of lawyers
By any chance, do those batteries explode like the ones in laptops?
No, those are the ones sent via FedEx.
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No, seriously, this is key. What's to stop someone from making a rule saying "change all books into adult fiction" or "change all video games into GTA?" I'm not really one to say we should be keeping that content away from people, but seriously, let the parents decide. This kind of things makes ESRB and movie ratings pointless, which is a Bad Idea.
I live in constant fear of the Coming of the Red Spiders.
It seems there is no fraud if the gift's intended recipient acknowledges "receipt", ownership and transfer of the bad gift back to Amazon in exchange for a gift certificate, right? Except in this case the "receipt" part is just kind of skipped over...
If I buy my son a Smurfs video game from Amazon and he has them deliver a GTA:Emerald City game they are going to be sued six ways to Sunday
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Not necessarily... Many stores today allow you to exchange a gift you received (bought on their store, of course) for something else. Amazon is just removing the unnecessary steps of sending it to you and having you sending it back. As a consumer I think it's a great idea and since it's my decision to do this let Aunt Milly come ask me why I exchanged her gift.
It's not even april 1st?
I know money isn't very imaginative but you're not in touch with what the other person likes then let them decide. They'll get something they want and your money isn't wasted. The idea of this patent is basically like giving someone money without actually giving them money from what I understand. Just cut out the middle man and give money.
item will be offered to the recipient, which he/she can accept or exchange for credit towards another purchase.
www.RacquetUp.org - Helping Detroit Youth
That's the the GP to my post was saying.
...
When you order the item to be shipped to the intended recipient, you will acknowledge via the ToS that you allow Amazon to
's/$foo/$better_foo/g\nw' | ed -s your_order
when you confirm the transaction.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
but I tried very hard to think about every gift and how it matched that person
I see this more as a solution to "2 other people did the same thinking and came up with the same gift" issue, which seems to plague me at least every other birthday/Christmas.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Require a credit card on the account. Problem solved. Credit cards are only issued to those who are 18 or older, so some adult is approving it.
At the same time, I've always been someone who's been hard to shop for, because of my particular tastes, and because I disdain gift cards. I can understand people's desires to make gift giving easier, but let's get serious. A gift should be a well thought out and researched thing.
I've solved this, and my advice is you need to pick up a vice. Maybe pr0n, fine booze, sex (er, gift certificates for it from your S.O.), exotic chocolates, etc.
In my case it's tea. The rotgut crud in the teabags at the grocery store is too icky to drink, but there is good stuff out there. Tell them to buy you about two ounces of good stuff. Two ounces of good stuff, at least for tea, will last at most a couple weeks (depending on how much you drink and how many people you share with), and set them back the cost of a typical gift. My kids get me stuff scarcely better than the grocery store rotgut because thats all the money they have, and thats OK, yet my richer relations get me the exotic stuff that costs about as much as silver by weight (or much more). It works out pretty well, between the pagan capitalist xmas holiday, my birthday, some other seasonal holidays, and a couple "just because" to tide me over, I always have tea to drink. Make sure to tell you friends and family that for gods sake buy a little of the good stuff not a lot of the rotgut and no "related" capital goods like mugs or whatever, or else I'd have about fifty tea/coffee mugs by now.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
For what?!
Finding a way around giving them more money?
I guess GM better fire up the class action lawsuit against all the pedestrians in NY that figured out they could walk instead of buying a car.
Couldn't this also have the opposite effect? It allows me to take a risk and give you a personalized, non-bland gift, secure in the knowledge that if I guess wrong you'll be able to convert it without any inconvenience, and you'll *still* get "the thought that counts".
Capital letters don't make you smarter.
Or authoritative.
funny, I only see one wolf there.
Can't we just shunt aunt Mildred's misguide gifts shunt directly to replenish the account of the ebay bot that sends me my weekly package4u ?
omygawd!/valley
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Now if they can patent some defense against Aunt Milly visiting in the spring and being hurt that her crappy-ass gift isn't on prominent display in the middle of the living room. Perhaps they could intercept her airline ticket and send her to El Salvidor, instead...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
There's one major difference: The delivery of the goods is the consummation of a transaction between the purchaser and the vendor; the return and exchange is legally a separate transaction between the vendor and the recipient.
It may appear to you as a single, redundant transaction, but it is not. Your Aunt engaged in a commercial transaction with Amazon, not you; and Amazon is legally bound to fulfill this transaction.
You cannot just "remove the unnecessary steps of sending it to you," because that is a completely separate transaction, which is a prerequisite for the second.
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost
Now we have the perfect gift giving services for Facebook "friends" to give "gifts" to each other. After all, you cannot chose the perfect gift for a "friend" that you have never met, and your attention span doesn't stretch to reading the recipient's wish list (or you don't actually have their email address to look it up) or buying a gift voucher. Now you can just pick an item at random and let Amazon "personalise" the item for you. End result? Unchanged, except that Amazon can screw their "friends" for royalties.
Patent litigation: A doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction... in which everyone seems willing to push the button
Can someone please explain to me when, exactly, it became legal to patent a general idea rather than a specific implementation of an idea?
That's the problem... you as the gift giver ARE NOT THINKING if that happens!
There are a lot of people out there that think it's more important to give a gift at all than to give the right gift. If you can't think of a good gift for me, I'd rather not see you give me crap I will end up throwing away, because that guilts me into throwing it away. I also don't like to take the effort to go return it or cash in a gift card when you could have given me cash. Then your gift has the opposite effect of annoying me or making me feel bad.
The red cross accepts "gifts" in the form of cash donations. They don't accept 5000 copies of "call of duty." Why do people think that doesn't apply to individuals? It's because of this damn consumer culture which has captivated people in the US. To show you I care, I must buy you something!! Baloney. There are tons of ways to show that you care.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
Not necessarily. You are making a (fairly common) assumption that a company can use a ToS to modify the terms of a sale contract. I agree, this smells like a class action law suit.
You are scheduled for re-education. Are you anti-American? Do you want our country's economy to crumble? You must consume. And after that? More consumption. Followed by additional consumption. You *must* spend money on other people and they on you. It isn't about thinking about or knowing the other person, it is about helping out the economy.
The nice people at Amazon are being green by trying to keep more of the useless trash that gets bought and given as gifts from going into landfills. And you want people to actually *think* before they buy? Sheesh, where is your patriotism?
Honestly, I think this is genuinely clever. To my knowledge, this is a original idea and the inventor should be able to profit from it. Well played, Jeff. Looking forward to seeing it on Amazon.com.
How is it any different than returning a crappy gift for store credit?
Essentially, what Amazon is proposing is that they check with the receiver before they go to the trouble of lugging a package all the way to the customer's door. The customer is authorizing a third party (in this case, Amazon) to perform specific actions before making any delivery. If item=clothing, then confirm size, else if item=DVD, then substitute BR, else if item=paper book, substitute kindle book, else if item=gift from Aunt Mildred, then convert to gift certificate, else ship as ordered by purchaser.
Aunt Mildred doesn't have the right to force a specific item on you. Once she's sent the gift, relinquishes her interest in the item. Amazon could provide a "no substitutions" option which would nullify the sale and refund her money if she wants to be a stick in the mud but, really, once she's submitted the order, it's up to the recipient to decide whether they want it or not.
My grandparents gave up on trying to shop for me a long time ago because anything I really need, I've already bought for myself and any geek stuff I might want (but can't justify purchasing) would be beyond their ability to evaluate. So they give me checks and I promise to use the money to buy something I really want but wouldn't buy if I was spending my own money. Everyone's happy because they know I'm getting something I really want that I wouldn't otherwise have and I get something I wouldn't normally buy for myself.
Well that's, like, your opinion, man.
It's my opinion that the item belongs to the receiver once Auntie has submitted the order. At that point, I believe it could be argued that the item belongs to the recipient regardless of its physical location. The only hitch I see (with less than 5 minutes of thought) is that Auntie may have paid for delivery and gift wrapping. Refund those charges and that should take care of the issue. They could add wording to their gift purchase process that informs the purchaser that the recipient will have the option of substituting the item for another item or for store credit unless the purchaser opts out of the substitution program. Or make the substitution program opt-in.
Lots of ways to make it legal.
Not really. You're missing the fact that normal return nets UPS three deliveries (Amazon -> gift -> recipient; recipient gift (return) -> Amazon; Amazon -> replacement -> recipient), whereas this process only requires one (Amazon -> replacement -> recipient). UPS is still involved, of course, but not as much as before.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
Again, under consumer laws in my state - which is the same state Amazon is in - a contract is made between a consumer (Aunt Milly) and the vendor.
The vendor's desire to "save money and time" still does not mean they have not breached the contract.
Aunt Milly is not expected to know there is a dumb part of the TOS that says they can defraud her so that her nephew gets GTA:Emerald City instead of the Annotated Doctor Suess she ORDERED for him.
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Under-18s can have their own personal credit cards these days, albeit only with their parent(s)' approval. Having the card proves that an adult approved the card, but not the specific online account.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
Unless, of course, it's spelled out right in front of her when she clicks through to place the order, like, for example, a nice black box warning stating that her intended recipient "participates in their Get-What-You-Want program (click here for more details)".
Ideally, it would give her the option of either (1) accepting the replacement gift or (2) overriding the replacement.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
Not really. You're missing the fact that normal return nets UPS three deliveries (Amazon -> gift -> recipient; recipient gift (return) -> Amazon; Amazon -> replacement -> recipient), whereas this process only requires one (Amazon -> replacement -> recipient). UPS is still involved, of course, but not as much as before.
Maybe, but I'm wondering how often people actually bother to return something if it involves shipping it back (assuming it will even be accepted). I bet it's a pretty small percentage of cases. More likely that the offending gift gets tossed in a closet, or possibly put up on Craigslist or something.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
I agree with the parent. When I buy a gift to a friend, the monetary value isn't the point. I know a bird owner who sometimes talked about how she would love to have candles but it would be a hazard to the parrots... And she got quite happy from those two large LED candles I sent her last christmas. I have another friend who is crazy about exotic teas, coffees, etc... So I had fun sending her a nice coffee mug with caffeine molecyle and some caffeinated lipstick... (Yeah, I shop a lot at ThinkGeek. How did you know?)
I had birthday a few days ago. A friend of mine bought me inflatable sheep and it was awesome. Nobody else could have given me that gift but the inflatable sheeps have been our own inside joke for over four years. Similarly, I recently sent a female friend a gay porn magazine in which I had drawn manga eyes to all the models. Could I have sent that to anyone else I know? No, it would have been disturbing as hell. Could anyone else have sent that to her? Probably not. But we have known each others for some seven years, know each other's sense of humor very well, have our own share of inside jokes, etc... The gift probably seems odd if described on /. and it's supposed to: It would take countless shared laughs to get it.
The point is, giving the money to each other directly would have been stupid. The gifts don't need to be expensive, they just need to say "I know you well and thought that you'd like this". Money truly just says "Yeah. I should give you something so I thought that you're worth 30 bucks.". Ugh. And what? Two people give each other money? "I give you 30, you give me 30, happy christmas"? Or will one be left thinking "I gave him less than he gave me..." It really negates the whole point.
There are exceptions, of course. A friend of mine recently took a very large tattoo (took some 9 hours to create, divided to two sessions. Covers her whole back and means a lot to her. She's been saving for it for a while) and many of her friends (myself included) gave her money to help her pay for it. Also, I might be fine with giving money to a friend who is in a bad financial situation (depends on the situation, though. Generally speaking, I think that gifts should be the one time they can get something nice wihtout feeling guilty... So helping them financially and giving them birthday gifts should be kept separated from each other. But it is situational). Also, I don't see anything wrong with financial gifts given to younger relatives. IE: Aunt giving a large bill to her niece or the like. In those situations, it isn't really expected that the aunt knows her that well (unless they interact more than is the norm) and people who don't yet have any income other than christmas, birthday, etc. do kinda expect it.
A loss for UPS is a win for everyone else.
Rat bastards made me drive fifteen miles to the nearest UPS pickup point because they wouldn't leave AN ENVELOPE with an Amazon GC at my house without a signature and wouldn't deliver it to an address where someone was available to sign for it -- without charging extra.
And they won't leave things at my house without a signature anymore because one of the drivers pried open my locked screen door and hid a package behind it, which I didn't find for THREE MONTHS. I reported it as non-delivered and then reported him for prying open a locked door.
What can Brown do for me today? Go bankrupt.
UPS hasn't been headquartered in Seattle since 1930. You might want to update your facts.
But if it's called the Super Customer Program or something like that, Aunt Milly - even with an "asterisk" or "link" would have the EXPECTATION as a consumer that what she ordered would be delivered.
The question is not what:
a. the corporation; or
b. the lawyers; or
c. a programmer
expect, it is what a typical consumer of her group (old white ladies who don't really get how computers work) expects.
That's the legal question that consumer laws provide protection FOR.
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For that matter, Amazon maintains distrubution centers throughout the US, and more people use German shipping companies around here.
I participated in the UPS IPO. Legal "definitions" aren't relevant - MSFT is supposedly back east, but they're actually here.
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Not (really) obvious
Uhm... it's a series of chained if-then-else statements. It's essentially the same as a firewall: does this packet match this rule? no? Then go to next rule (default: deliver).
The only non-obvious part (IMNSHO) is the insight---which we haven't, AFAICT, tested and verified, so the jury is still out---that there is a _market_ for this as a user-facing feature. This insight is a marketing insight, not a software insight.
if we're going to allow them at all, then this seems like one we should allow.
Again, I disagree. To explain why, I need us to take a step back and look at the point of having a patent system---it's a legal tool similar to (physical) property rights which is used to make us as materially prosperous as can be.
Having property rights and subsequently having cops and courts to catch bad guys who would steal our stuff lets us _not_ spend steel making locks and _not_ spend our time guarding our stuff. The steel and time can be converted to consumer goods; those goods would be lost without property rights.
Some ideas are expensive to have but cheap to copy and turn into products (or product features). The financial return one can expect from investing in the process of trying to have ideas might be negative (or less than one, depending on whether you have an additive or multiplicative wallet). The patent system is an attempt to fix this: by giving out temporary monopolies, they increase the return on the particular investment of trying to have (certain kinds of) ideas.
When a field contains both ideas that are cheap to have and ideas that are expensive to have, giving patents to all ideas in that field means one player gets to exclude other players from using the cheap ideas---or at least the cheap ideas that player got to have first. With enough big players, you get cross-licensing and the ability of the big players to shut out all the small players.
Ask any economist and they'll say (I think) that having small and medium-sized players in any sector of the economy is vital.
Software is a field with both cheap and expensive ideas. Software-wise, this patent is an idea that's cheap to have. Knowing that it's an idea people want to use is not a kind of ideas I'm familiar with, so I can't comment on whether it's a cheap or expensive idea to have.
Some of my local pizza shops put their menu on-line. This sounds like a good idea; if I'm going to order a pizza, I want to know (and decide!) what's on it, and I don't store menus (I'm a bad enough pack rat without them). But no pizza shop I know of has a patent on putting a menu on-line. The first pizza shop to do is has of course discovered a novel use of HTML, which is bound to be profitable: you'll out-compete those who don't do it. Should pizza shops be able to take out a patent on publishing their menus on the web?
I think this idea is similar. I think an economy without patents contains enough incentives to come up with this idea. It takes time imitating (reimplementing) your competitors' ideas. The first-to-market gap might be enough time to earn back what was spent discovering this idea---which I'm sure is a team of market analysts, two senior developers and a UI design comittee, sitting around for years going "how could we make our web site better? Hm..." /sarcasm
TL;DR: this patent is bullshit. Listen to Michele Boldrin for an explanation of why, at http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2009/05/boldrin_on_inte.html. You can read his book there as well (for free!) and I can recommend EconTalk if your podcatcher is hungry for feed(s).
It's just like fortune cookies. Append "with a computer" and you get a software patent.
In that case, I would like to patent adjusting finance, making budgets and improving one's standing with a computer. Jonas 1 - Net banking 0.
(I got that from http://walikeetz.blogspot.com/2006/01/dirty-dirty-fortune-cookie.html)
The recipient isn't the customer, the purchaser is the customer. Unless it's going to notify her first, it's probably theft. There is no expectation to have read fine print when it comes to purchasing physical goods. Additionally, most states have consumer protection laws that would already cover this sort of substitution; it would have to be a like item.
If they set it up so it's a "preemptive return" of things that came from your wishlist to a predefined address they could likely work past the spirit if not the letter of the law.
I can envision an email that says "Aunt Milly is sending you a gift from your wishlist. Would you like to know what it is? Yes? It's that Gumby boxed set. Still want it? Ah, you bought it for yourself at Walmart. We'll make a note of that, you disloyal bastard. Ok, we'll just send you a gift card and a preaddressed envelope that you can use for that thank-you note you'll send to Auntie."
It's a money-saver for them; every return they have to deal with is a drain on the bottom line.
It's a win for the nephew; who needs two Gumby box sets?
Aunt Milly will never know.
So according to your sound legal reasoning, it would be illegal for Amazon to put a little check-box next to each order saying "Allow person to return/exchange his gift for whatever else he/she wants", and/or a checkbox saying "Notify person receiving gift that the gift is on its way", or something else entirely.
Now I'm not a lawyer, nor do I work for Amazon, so I don't know what would be the best language for describing something like this to Aunt Milfy. But don't you think that, with enough legal oversight, and a little bit of common sense and enough user testing to make sure users understand, that this is an easily solvable problem for Amazon.
Can we force all the recommendations Amazon gives us through this system too?
I mean like "automatically convert BluRay to DVD" (or the reverse), or "make sure DVDs are region 1", or "automatically convert PS3 games to XBox games" (or the reverse)? I'm getting quite sick of getting recommendations for media I can't use, games for systems I don't own, software for Windows, et cetera.
Write a website every holiday with a gift wish list. Include 'buy now' links. Accept Paypal, etc. Take a 10% cash cut as well as the gift. For the price of a web server you've got anyway (it's Slashdot).
not
off your wishlist
you fucking r-tards with your "off of"s fuck off
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Without being a lawyer or an expert in this matter, I am just going to go out there and say you are wrong.
In this case, they are both the AGENT of Aunt Milly AND you. They are, in effect, receiving the gift purchased by Aunt Milly on your behalf (without wasting the time and resources required to actually deliver it to you) and then exchanging it for something which YOU have specified. All they are doing is automating the receive-exchange process.
Aunt Milly will never know.
And therein lies the problem. Aunt Milly is the Customer and the Customer expects a contract to be completed as SHE understands it. Hence, consumer law treats her as having had her understanding of the contract as having more weight than that of the non-contractee intended recipient.
If I order a gold coin and you send me a coin that has the word "GOLD" printed on it, you have just defrauded me as a consumer.
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No, it's like when you buy a house from the same agent for both buyer and seller.
Even though the agent is acting under contract to both the buyer AND the seller, the force of law weighs upon the agent representing truly and faithfully the INTERESTS of the seller, not the buyer.
In purchases of consumer goods, it's the other way around - the purchaser (contractee) who initiates the transaction is deemed the true person that has rights that must be protected by the corporation dealing with them, and their uninformed expectation is what consumer law protects.
Not the recipient, even if another contractual obligation exists between them.
Which is why you have to fill out all those forms when you invest in risky assets - they have to PROVE that you are not just an investor, but an INFORMED and KNOWLEDGEABLE investor before they can let you agree to such deals.
No such test existed for Aunt Milly. Thus Amazon is HER agent and must preserve HER rights.
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Technically, you (the recipient) are authorizing Amazon (or whatever company) to act as your agent and accept purchases on your behalf. You would also authorize them to exchange that for you for an item of equivalent value (possibly the same item of different size, or whatever difference).
This in no way affects the contract between Aunt Milly and yourself as you have authorized Amazon to accept the gift for you.
Just imagine someone hacking into that system: Whatever the gift is, Amazon will send you a Reindeer sweater.
Great!
Avoiding dealing with returns is worth a lot of money.
Saves the end user a lot of hassle and shipping issues.
This is a good idea.
No brain, no pain.
What is "cool" about the idea of having a database of even more of your personal information in the hands of a vendor? Now they can start "matching" your "bad gift" ideas with advertising specially selected just for you -- BigBrandX has this sweater in your size in stock right now -- just a click away.
Gift lists are nothing new. Letting people know you're not interested in something is not new. This is not innovative, it is not creative, and most of all -- it shouldn't be wanted.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
See my other reply to you. Don't give your kids a credit card if you don't trust them.
Do keep up -- UPS do exploding printers now.
But Aunt Milly had the reasonable expectation - since she is not a high-priced lawyer or tech geek - that what she ordered would be delivered as she expected it to be.
Excuses or other side issues don't change that fatal flaw. Consumer law is about the protection of uninformed consumers from bad dealings that impact what they perceive the contract to be, not what a highly technical analysis would have.
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"Capital letters don't make you smarter.
Or authoritative."
YOU SURE DON'T SEEM VERY CREDIBLE TO ME
Dear Aunt Martha,
I know you are upset about this piece mentioning you specifically by name but .......
I think this would be ok to do as it would be considered returning/exchanging the item for another. As long as the recipient received a notice saying "Aunt Milly bought you a pocket pussy, would you like to exchange it for another item? Suggestions: dildo, blow up sheep, miniature jesus" I think it would count as them receiving the product.
The contract with Aunt Milly is to deliver a good she ordered.
Not fulfilling that contract requires her up-front informed and clear consent.
Otherwise I could order pizzas and you could ask the pizza guy to just give you the cash - which would result in a lawsuit on my part for non-fulfillment of the contract where I paid by credit card for the pizza to be delivered.
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UPS is a Delaware corporation headquartered in Atlanta. Except for history pre-1930 UPS has no more connection to Seattle now than they do to anywhere else they deliver packages.
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/External.File?item=UGFyZW50SUQ9NDU4NTF8Q2hpbGRJRD0tMXxUeXBlPTM=&t=1
but bad gifts do serve a purpose, it's a free supply of crap you give to people where you have to give a gift but don't want to buy one
Especially something like a label-maker.
Thank you, Edward Snowden.
"Arguments from authority are worthless." —Carl Sagan
Of course, some folks never make that step, no matter their age...
It's okay, don't worry. We'll quietly forget this article existed the next time you're complaining about software patents.
Under commerce laws, a contract is signed between a consumer and a company to perform a service.
The NON-action of that service - the unwanted gift ORDERED and PAID FOR by the consumer Aunt Milly - is a direct and actionable defrauding of service and a contractual BREACH by Amazon.
I smell a massive consumer lawsuit that Amazon will lose.
Amazon enters into the contract to deliver the goods and services specified. They are the AGENT of Aunt Milly.
Anything other than a good-faith effort to fulfill that contract is an act of FRAUD.
Now, this could simply be looked at as a way of speeding up the "sell back a bad gift, buy something else." It simply removes the gift recieving and returning steps. Thus, after Milly's contract has been "fulfilled," the recipient may do as he/she wishes, including trading it for something else. The main issue here is whether or not the end justifies the means. This issue could go either way in court, but realistically, Amazon has the money and legal resources to escape any liabilty in court.
It's not a fraud, it's a "feature"!
Idea of the decade.
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
Nope - just short-circuiting a return
Almost all shops accept returns of unopened items for store credit, even with "gift receipts" that do not state the price.
What Amazon intends to do is to streamline this return/exchange process by allowing the recipient to skip the physical delivery and return.
A simple checkbox stating something like "allow recipient to exchange gift before delivery takes place" should take care of the legalities.
This is like an ISP patenting a technology that allows people message recipients to buy spam filtering from them. For example, Microsoft selling a spam filtering service, that will filter spam to you FROM HOTMAIL users. If the sender doesn't use hotmail, then the service will never see the message of course.
Obvious workaround: Don't order gifts through Amazon. It's easier to find bad gifts in local stores anyways or on no-name websites or Yahoo shops that your recipient has never heard of, and that you've never heard of. Unless you are sorting by 'lowest rated items first' or searching for something specific, it takes a fair bit of work to find bad things on Amazon. Amazon's definitely not the ideal place to go looking for bad gifts; although I suppose any place will work when trying to buy your recipient wrong sized clothing, as long as not all their stuff is one-size-fits-all.
What? You thought the wrong sized clothes were always an accident? You thought the 'bad gifts' were always errors, rather than a fun jab? Hahaha.... L:)
Another way... to get around bad gift filtering, have them delivered to yourself, and give it to them the old fashioned way. Or receive it, wrap it, and re-mail it; probably cheaper than Amazon giftwrap anyways. Or have it delivered to one of their friends in the area [if they are far away], and the friend can help the gift make it to its final destination.
See, this doesn't stop bad gifts.... it just requires us bad gift givers to be more creative.
If you really want to stop bad gifts, you need to get a third party involved. Give your relatives the address of the 3rd party as mailing address. Have a contract for 3rd party to open all your mail, substitute bad gifts, and reseal
As an aside... I wonder the legality of a retailer doing this.
The giver is ordering and paying for a product from a company; payment of money in exchange for goods agreed upon. The 'recipient' is a third party to this agreement, and not party to the sale -- they are just living at the address the items were ordered to be shipped to.
Amazon is apparently taking the money and quietly substituting the goods for something different from what was purchased.
In what way would it not be fraud, if Amazon did this? Do they tell you your gift was delivered to the address? Are they so callous as to inform the giver that their item was substituted or converted?
That's a problem... if the giver finds out, esp. from Amazon, they might be inclined to avoid Amazon.
To avoid backlash.... Amazon is probably sneaking something into the fine print that allows them to substitute goods quietly. Sounds dangerous if they do so, devious/deceptive, well-intentioned perhaps, but maybe evil in actual fact... What if the payer doesn't think the substitute is worth as much? Then Amazon's substitution could be seen as cheating them
Imagine if they substituted a gift without the buyer OR recipient's consent, with something to provide Amazon higher margins?
Hell... what if they substituted a non-gift item you bought for yourself, to deliver to an address someone just happened to add to their 'bad gift filter'? What if Amazon did this non-gift substitution without being asked by anyone to do so [because it benefits them] ?
Seems like all this "item substitution" is dangerous territory for a variety of reasons
So that explains why they held the annual meeting after the IPO in Seattle ...
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They can hold their annual meeting anywhere they desire. Their bylaws say as much. That has nothing to do with where they are based.
I grew up in Kansas. I moved to the Seattle area. Identifying myself as a Kansan after living here for 13 years would be ridiculous.
If UPS still had major operations here outside of the same sort of operations they have anywhere else I think you'd have a case to call them a Seattle company, but they don't.
Boeing moved to Chicago, but a pretty good case can be made to call them a Seattle company in that they still have a very large operations here.
However, if 80 years from now Boeing has no production facilities here and only have a similar support infrastructure that they have at various airports around the country. Has moved their corporate headquarters 3 times since leave Seattle. Then I'd say you're just as absurd calling it a Seattle company as you are for calling UPS one.
If you're insistent on calling UPS a Seattle company, then I guess we'll just have to disagree.
You can call them anything you want. A lot of Seattle area people participated in the UPS IPO.
Perception is nine-tenths of reality.
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This is a great idea, and most likely it will pull in substantial revenue from patent enforcement. I hope this product hits the market soon, and only wish it could have been around for many of my Christmases past. It's annoying to have to choose between re-gifting and pissing off Grandma ... or, worse, doing both.