What sort of no-goodness are Amazon.com and eBay up to? Look no further than the news from overseas.
The two companies seem to have a nifty little trick: If they can't get away with a slightly questionable strategy here in the U.S., they test it out somewhere else.
Case in point: Amazon.com pulled the one-click buy feature on its British web site for books published by Hachette Livre, the second-largest English language trade publisher after Random House. Amazon reportedly yanked the feature in response to sort of revenue dispute with Hachette Livre. (Amazon.com declined to comment.) The publisher also claims that Amazon pulled its books from promotions.
Meanwhile, our friends over at eBay have been trying to implement a PayPal-only policy in Australia -- the move would make it mandatory for all users to only use PayPal on eBay, and would disable any other online payment system on the Australian site. The policy isn't passing the sniff test with Australian regulators, though. The Australian Consumer and Competiton Commission (ACCC) hinted it may give eBay the smackdown.
"Given eBay's position as Australia's leading online marketplace, the notified conduct will substantially reduce competition to supply online payment services," said ACCC chair Graeme Samuel.
EBay said the ACCC's decision "undermines online consumer protection," but at the same time, the company fully admits it wouldn't try anything like that in the U.S. -- possibly because of regulatory concerns, but more likely because it wants to avoid lawsuits from competitors and customers.
"In the US, we are not mulling, planning, or otherwise seriously considering a move to PayPal-only. There are US market-specific reasons why PayPal-only is something we simply cannot do in the US," said spokesman Usher Lieberman in a blog post.
What are those market specific obstacles? Most likely the company is concerned about the long-arm of the anti-trust law and lawsuit-happy competitors.
"On antitrust issues, the difference between other countries and [the U.S.] is that here, if you engage in anticompetitive conduct, you not only have to worry about government regulators, there's also a robust risk of private suits from competitors or customers. In most other countries, that's not as well developed," says Mark Ostrau, a partner and co-chair of the antitrust and unfair competition group at Fenwick & West. "And if a [foreign] government steps in, it almost gives [companies] a chance to test the waters, to see how a government reacts, and then pullback, without the overhang of large damage claims through private action."
Photo: Flickr/danielbroche
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