Amazon Says It is Investigating Claims That Its Employees Are Taking Bribes To Sell Internal Data To Merchants To Help Them Increase Their Sales on the Website (wsj.com)

Amazon.com is investigating internal leaks as it fights to root out fake reviews and other seller scams from its website, the company told WSJ. From the report: Employees of Amazon, primarily with the aid of intermediaries, are offering internal data and other confidential information that can give an edge to independent merchants selling their products on the site, according to sellers who have been offered and purchased the data, brokers who provide it and people familiar with internal investigations. The practice, which violates company policy, is particularly pronounced in China, according to some of these people, because the number of sellers there is skyrocketing. As well, Amazon employees in China have relatively small salaries, which may embolden them to take risks. In exchange for payments ranging from roughly $80 to more than $2,000, brokers for Amazon employees in Shenzhen are offering internal sales metrics and reviewers' email addresses, as well as a service to delete negative reviews and restore banned Amazon accounts, the people said.

Amazon is investigating a number of cases involving employees, including some in the U.S., suspected of accepting these bribes, according to people familiar with the matter. An internal probe began in May after Eric Broussard, Amazon's vice president who oversees international marketplaces, was tipped off to the practice in China, according to people familiar with the matter. Amazon has since shuffled the roles of key executives in China to try to root out the bribery, one of these people said.

Comments

Corruption in China?!?

[elrous0]

That doesn't sound right.

Re: Corruption in China?!?

[hey!]

Latest thing I read about was Chinese counterfeit bike helmets flooding ebay. They look like the real thing on the outside, right down to the stickers on the outside, but the crack apart like an eggshell in the standard drop test.

This is a country where makers of infant formula adulterate their products with cheap and toxic ingredients like melamine. Even though it was a huge scandal back in 2008, counterfeit formula remains a huge problem because the country's crony capitalist system is unwilling to enforce serious regulation. The problem doesn't exist in Hong Kong, which has to limit the cross border purchases of formula from Shenzen otherwise there wouldn't be enough formula for Hong Kong families.

The reason China is so dysfunctional when it comes to protecting consumers or the rights of non-Chinese companies is that its government sees its job as promoting Chinese business interests, and its senior politicians have close family ties to those interests. China regularly makes public examples of low level officials, or officials who are on the political outs, but the whole concept of the government as working hand-in-glove with business interests is corrupt.

Again contrast this to Hong Kong. Hong Kong is one of the least corrupt societies in the world, with government corruption indices that put it on par with Belgium or Iceland and significantly less corrupt than the US. China as a whole ranks down near Albania.

Not a matter of data privacy

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

The only thing Amazon is pissed of at here is that they're not the ones turning a profit selling the metrics. It's just a matter of employees stealing and reselling company property. That's all. The story is no different from (and no more interesting than) McDonald's employees cooking and selling fries for themselves.

Typical

[DNS-and-BIND]

This is precisely the sort of thing that workers do in China. It's funny, as I read the summary I thought "Chinese culture is spreading to America?" only to find out it was indeed in China. Yeah, the workers are paid shit and view it as their obligation to make money however they can. Men in particular are viewed as pack mules whose job it is to make money for an entire family. The family ruthlessly badgers the man to make more, make more, make more. When he makes more, they spend more. It never ends.

When he can't make enough in salary, they badger him to - not exactly steal? But use whatever position he has to utilize the employer's resources to make money for his family. Selling data is right up this alley. You can't even call it theft because nobody lost anything. It's win-win: the merchants sell more, the worker makes money he turns over to his family, the family can afford to purchase status symbols that make them look good in the eyes of people they know. This is actually a "good" case because nobody got hurt. Typically in a situation like this some middle manager substitutes shoddy materials in a product and pockets the difference, which can and does result in harm to real people.

Amazon pay

[Curunir_wolf]

As well, Amazon employees in China have relatively small salaries, which may embolden them to take risks.

Not sure why I have to point this out, but the US employees are in the same boat. Plus, Amazon treats them like crap.

So no sympathy for Amazon in this - it's of their own doing. When you know your employer is raking in big bucks and only dropping you crumbs, you tend to want to find ways to cash in yourself. Amazon does it themselves - these guys just want in on the deal.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

[sehlat]

Latin is no longer widely used, but the ancient Romans weren't stupid.

" nobody got hurt"?

[Anonymous Coward]

> This is actually a "good" case because nobody got hurt.

From the summary:

> a service to delete negative reviews and restore banned Amazon accounts

So people now buy dangerous, shoddy goods, believing them to be high quality. And nobody got hurt?