Senators ask Jeff Bezos to crack down on unsafe products on Amazon

Three Senate Democrats despatched a letter to Amazon urging the corporate to do one thing concerning the 1000’s of unsafe or banned products listed on the e-commerce website.

In a letter despatched to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos on Thursday, Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) and Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) requested him to take motion to cease the sale of unsafe products on Amazon. The senators additionally referred to as on Bezos to put in place extra correct warnings on products that require them.

The letter was in response to a latest Wall Street Journal investigation, which discovered greater than 4,000 gadgets on the market on Amazon’s website which were declared unsafe by federal companies, have deceptive labels or are outright banned by federal regulators. Following the report, Amazon eliminated or modified the outline on greater than half of the problematic listings, in accordance to the Journal.

But the senators mentioned extra may very well be carried out to clear up unsafe products on Amazon.

“Unquestionably, Amazon is falling short of is commitment to keeping safe those consumers who use its massive platform,” the senators wrote within the letter. “We call on you to immediately remove from the platform all the problematic products examined in the recent WSJ report; explain how you are going about this process; conduct a sweeping internal investigation of your enforcement and consumer safety policies; and institute changes that will continue to keep unsafe products off your platform.”

The senators included various questions for Bezos searching for extra data on Amazon’s security efforts and coverage enforcement, with a deadline for Bezos to reply by Sept. 29. Blumenthal instructed the Journal that he intends to search congressional hearings as soon as Bezos responds to the letter and mentioned federal companies ought to probe whether or not Amazon violated federal client safety legal guidelines. 

An Amazon spokesperson mentioned the corporate plans to reply to the letter of inquiry and pointed to an announcement that it posted in response to the Journal investigation. In the weblog publish, Amazon mentioned it requires products on its website to adjust to “relevant laws and regulations” and pointed to its use of automated instruments to detect noncompliant products.

The letter represents the most recent instance of Amazon going through strain from Washington. Earlier this month, Blumenthal and Menendez despatched a letter to Bezos asking for solutions concerning the firm’s “Amazon’s Choice” badge, citing a BuzzFeed report that confirmed it usually endorses faulty or poor high quality gadgets.