The United States has sued the world’s number one online retailer, Amazon over allegations that the e-commerce giants of sold dangerous products to its customers.
Part of the products cited in the suit are carbon monoxide detectors that failed to alarm, many children’s pajamas that could catch fire and around 400,000 hair dryers that could electrocute people if put inside water.
The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC ) has said that Amazon must take responsibility for the safety of customers that buy items on their site.
The products cited are not directly sold by Amazon. The products are sold by third parties on Amazon’s platform. The CPSC cited that many of those companies that offered the dangerous products for sale on Amazon are foreign, and the Commission has limited ability to arrange for a recall of their products if they are discovered to be hazardous.
Acting Chairman Robert Adler said: “Today’s vote to file an administrative complaint against Amazon was a huge step forward for this small agency.
“But it’s a huge step across a vast desert — we must grapple with how to deal with these massive third-party platforms more efficiently, and how best to protect the American consumers who rely on them.”
The company received $80 billion in commissions and other payments by third-party sellers in 2020 as third-party sellers account for over half of the physical goods sold on Amazon.
Amazon said the company always take immediate action when it receives report on safety problems with products that are sold on the site, either by Amazon or third-party sellers. It said it did not recall products because “CPSC did not provide Amazon with enough information for us to take action and despite our requests in the instances.”
In a recent statement, Amazon said: “We are unclear as to why the CPSC has rejected that offer or why they have filed a complaint seeking to force us to take actions almost entirely duplicative of those we’ve already taken.”
