Amazon blamed for risky items | The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

Under federal safety law, Amazon is liable for unsafe products sold on its platform by third-party sellers and shipped by the company, a U.S. government agency said last week.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission unanimously found that the e-commerce company was a “distributor” of defective products sold on its site and packaged and shipped through its fulfillment service.

That means the company is legally liable for recalling more than 400,000 products, including hair dryers and faulty carbon monoxide detectors, the agency said. It ordered Amazon to develop a system to notify customers who purchased the affected products and to remove the products from circulation by offering incentives for returning or destroying them.

Amazon has announced that it intends to appeal the decision to court.

According to research firm Emarketer, Amazon accounts for about 40% of e-commerce sales in the US.

The company sells many products directly to consumers and also works with nearly 2 million third-party sellers who generate the majority of sales on the platform.

The online retailer has been battling the “distributor” label since 2021, when it was sued by the Consumer Product Safety Commission for allegedly distributing unsafe items.

When Amazon was notified about defective products three years ago, the company “quickly” notified customers, telling them to stop using the goods and issuing refunds, Amazon spokesman Tim Doyle said.

However, the agency found that the company “did not take appropriate steps to encourage” customers to return or destroy the products, putting them at risk of injury. In the messages, the company claimed that the defective products had “potential” safety issues and provided customers with Amazon.com credits instead of refunds, the agency said.

Amazon argued before an administrative judge and a five-member panel that it should not be classified as a distributor under the Consumer Product Safety Act. The panel said the judge rejected the company’s argument, and Tuesday’s order affirmed that decision.