Major online marketplaces and the California Attorney General adopted a Joint Statement of Principles in an effort to combat the sale and resale of stolen goods. Among the ecommerce companies signing the document who agreed to work with retail chains were eBay, Amazon, Etsy, Facebook parent Meta, Mercari, and OfferUp.
The retail industry has dubbed the problem of theft and subsequent resale of stolen items “organized retail crime” (ORC). The office of Attorney General Rob Bonta issued a press release on Tuesday to announce the agreement with retail and ecommerce companies where it stated that, “in some cases, resell may occur through third-party online platforms.”
Among the retail chains signing the agreement were The Home Depot, Target, Rite Aid, Walgreens, CVS, and Alberton’s. Online marketplaces agreed to communicate with retailers to stay updated on trends in ORC as one of the conditions of the initiative.
eBay Chief Risk Officer Zhi Zhou said in the AG’s press release that it had zero tolerance for criminal activity on its platform and said it would “support criminal prosecutions against those who try to use our platform to sell stolen goods.”
While online sellers will likely applaud efforts to remove stolen items from the marketplaces on which they sell, since they drive down prices below wholesale costs, how the marketplaces detect stolen goods may be of great concern to sellers.
In their zeal to enforce rules, marketplaces turn to AI (artificial intelligence) and bots to detect violations and issue takedowns and suspensions, but the automation can be over-aggressive. For a long period of time, sellers were concerned over Amazon’s takedowns that sellers said misidentified their items as being “pesticides.” In a more recent example, sellers are reporting this week that Etsy instituted a broad takedown of items, misidentifying them as “drug paraphernalia.”
As part of the Attorney General’s initiative, marketplaces agreeing to the adopt the joint principles committed to doing the following:
- Marketplaces will maintain staff responsible for addressing reports from law enforcement, retailers, and the public of ORC on their platforms.
- Marketplaces will maintain a dedicated webpage, online portal, or point of contact to ensure timely replies to law enforcement requests, including warrants, subpoenas, and other legal process.
- Marketplaces will maintain internal written policies, systems, and staff to monitor listings in order to affirmatively prevent and detect ORC.
- Marketplaces will maintain external policies defining marketplace rules and the consequences of violations. These policies should clearly prohibit the sale of stolen goods and violators should be penalized up to and including removal from future use of the marketplaces.
- Marketplaces will maintain internal written policies that guide collaboration and information-sharing with retailers and other marketplaces, facilitated through a webpage, online portal, or dedicated point of contact, in order to collectively combat ORC.
- Marketplaces will communicate with Retailers to stay updated on trends in ORC. Such communication should focus on sharing general intelligence gathered by retailers, online marketplaces, and law enforcement on how to detect and prevent common methods of ORC. This information should be shared through the establishment of regular industry meetings, either facilitated by Regional Organized Retail Crime Associations, by prosecutors and law enforcement, or independently.
- Marketplaces will maintain internal polices (sic) relating to referring identified ORC to the appropriate law enforcement agency.
More information about the collaboration between online marketplaces and retail chains is available on the California Attorney General website.
Get ready to chuckle at the inevitable drama when these stupid AI bots make their outrageous errors as they always do.
Scary, ebay suspends accounts until you prove inventory receipts, so basically guilty until proven innocent