Given how this is on page-1 of HN, jeff@amazon (the elite US-based seller support team who uses the email, not Bezos) is gonna tear this AMVOOM / TaroRee hijacker a new one.
While this is kinda designed-as-intended (Amazon wants you to brand register with them for protection), this is a pretty shitty dark pattern they put up and sadly it happens as an annoying edge case that existing sellers and customers have to deal with.
Source: me, a mid-sized Amazon 3P seller/vendor.
Edit: "-Cliff Stoll Saturday morning June 26, in Oakland, California. And yes, I am now trademarking Acme Klein Bottle." Looks like Amazon's getting what they want after all.
Sigh.
A trademark for a common item (like a T-shirt or a voltmeter) seems to cost about $350 through the USPTO, if you do it yourself and your goods are listed in their directory.
If your goods are oddball (like glass or woolen nonorientable manifolds) then you have to use a more expensive system which starts at $450 and escalates depending on how many different types of goods you're trademarking.
We had a tricky trademark submission recently and we were provided with a free attorney who was spectacular and very easy to work with. Your assessment matched my experience.
I'm sorry Cliff: the system sucks because there's a lot of edge case handling when they're dealing with millions of vendors selling literal hundreds of millions of SKUs.
Many of them autogenerated programmatically like "I love X" shirts, and X = some dictionary list; or bots built to crosslist Target/Walmart product over to Amazon etc. for arbitrage etc.
I hope someone from Amazon has reached out to you Cliff - my wife gifted my FIL one of your klein bottles and it's been an absolute delight going through the purchasing experience with you. Thank you for the joy you bring to us!
The system sucks because the income gained through dealing with millions of vendors selling literally hundreds of millions of SKUs is channelled into Amazon's profits, rather than people or systems to deal with the resulting problems.
It's actually worse I think: Amazon demands the people and systems to be better-on-metrics over time -- dealing with Seller Support is just a huge nightmare these days as a seller.
It takes some chutzpah to turn defense from your own willful negligence into a revenue center. Like telcos’ telemarketer blocking services or Equifux offering credit monitoring services (only free for the first year) to the millions whose sensitive financial info they allowed to be breached.
"It takes some chutzpah to turn defense from your own willful negligence into a revenue center." It's not chutzpah - it's the norm for most tech companies - or any other companies who's primary product is intellectual property. Think patent trolls, copyright trolls, etc. Amazon is a product troll that somehow has managed to maintain a veneer of legitimacy.
I see what they are doing no differently than what Steele started with Prenda law. Heck that's probably where Amazon got the idea :p
> jeff@amazon is gonna tear this AMVOOM / TaroRee hijacker a new one
Sigh. The usual FAANG bs. Do nothing as long as it makes you money and do the minimum only if it caused enough outrage. No values, no ethics, 100% shallow.
Sure, but there are hundreds of other sellers ready to do the same exploits tomorrow, or worse. The systemic problems are not being addressed. Amazon doesn't have the right incentives to solve these issues.
While this is kinda designed-as-intended (Amazon wants you to brand register with them for protection), this is a pretty shitty dark pattern they put up and sadly it happens as an annoying edge case that existing sellers and customers have to deal with.
Source: me, a mid-sized Amazon 3P seller/vendor.
Edit: "-Cliff Stoll Saturday morning June 26, in Oakland, California. And yes, I am now trademarking Acme Klein Bottle." Looks like Amazon's getting what they want after all.