Online marketplaces eBay and Amazon are currently involved in a lawsuit together. eBay has sued the US retail giant for utilizing illegal methods to recruit sellers.
Amazon representatives are accused of abusing eBay's internal system to accumulate and contact sellers, a method of recruitment that violates the known marketplace's policies. eBay also sent a letter asking for Amazon to halt all such activities.
Amazon, however, is keeping mum amidst the lawsuit, neither denying nor confirming that it has been engaged in such activities. Yet, it had previously claimed that it already launched an investigation to clarify these allegations.
Based on the lawsuit filed by eBay in Santa Clara County, California, Amazon representatives are said to have created eBay accounts for the primary purpose of contacting and soliciting sellers. They often sent messages just minutes after their eBay profiles have been created.
According to eBay, this illegal activity started way back in 2015, at least. Dozens of Amazon representatives are said to be involved, each one sending hundreds of such emails. eBay claimed that it was only alerted to the unfair activity by a seller.
The lawsuit branded the activities as the unscrupulous conduct of the Seattle-based company. The suit also highlighted the knowledge of Amazon representatives that their actions were violating eBay's use policies. Apart from branding the activities as unscrupulous, eBay also claimed that Amazon's actions are part of a "larger pattern of aggressive" conduct. eBay wants to receive monetary damages, to be granted or awarded at a jury trial.
This is not the only controversy that Amazon is currently facing. Amazon's Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos is being pressured by the senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren to clarify if the company is illegally interfering with Whole Foods employees to organize or unionize.
A leaked 45-minute union-busting training video triggered the need for Amazon's clarifications. The video is said to be distributed by the retail giant to Whole Foods managers, first to be revealed by Gizmodo. The senators now want Amazon to provide the full video and the transcript.
The revelation of this video was done before Amazon announced a wage floor adjustment of $15 an hour. This is why in the present letter prepared by Senators Sanders and Warren to Amazon, they claimed that workers' rights do not stop at the minimum wage. Raising employees' wages also does not give Amazon the right to engage in an anti-union behavior, which can be illegal.
