Germany: We're willing to use 'instruments of TORTURE' on Amazon Germany's antitrust regulator has accused Amazon of thrusting anticompetitive policies upon sellers using its Marketplace. The Bundeskartellamt has been investigating Amazon since February for potentially impeding competition by not allowing sellers to offer their goods at cheaper prices elsewhere, the Süddeutsche Zeitung …
to ruin your fun, but Mundt doesn't mention "instrucments of torture" anywhere in the press release. It sounds like somebody had some fun with Google Translate...
He talks from a "glasklare Verfügung erlassen", a crystal clear mandate or regulation.
Isn't this behaviour exactly what they accused Apple and the publishers of doing? Potz, kettle, black.
Amazon are also struggling against the unions over here due to "slave labour" being flown in from Spain or the Eastern Block countries with promises of high wages, only to be forced onto low wage contracts and forced to live in barrack like conditions or find their own way back home - well, the sub-contractors employed by Amazon to run the Amazon warehouses, not Amazon itself...
Does he wear little round spectacles, a leather trench coat and a fedora hat? If so, that would make sense, because he sounds like a comedy stereotype of a Gestapo officer.
"It's not always easy as a national authority to enforce rules on global companies," Mundt said. "Fortunately, we have instruments of torture, which we will use if necessary. Also, if you haf seen a picture of ze Madonna wiv da big boobies I vood like to know."
I've stopped using Amazon for most things.
I've lost count of the number of times that "this item can not be shipped to your current address" message comes up, not because the seller doesn't ship there, but because of Amazon's restrictive practices on shipping DVDs, CDs and books.
They're a big monopoly and, in my estimation, a lot of these aspects are bordering on monopolistic abuse.
> But the restrictions are not Amazon's doing. They are the direct result of the publishers....period.
I can understand if Amazon have arrangements to sell new items that they get from publishers.
But controlling what can be shipped second hand by *other sellers* is an entirely different story.
But even then, what you are claiming is monopolistic interference in a free market of second hand goods by publishers, and it should be investigated and shut down.
Correct me if I'm wrong here.
Amazon are forbidding sellers that want to use Amazon marketplace from selling their wares cheaper anywhere else. Is this not exactly the behaviour that got Apple in trouble when they used these type of deals to screw Amazon on ebook prices?
If I remember rightly they were opposed to it then so I wonder if something has changed or are they hypocrites of the worst sort?
Spanish Inquistion: Now, Amazon -- you are accused of heresy on three counts -- heresy by thought, heresy by word, heresy by deed, and heresy by action -- *four* counts. Do you confess?
Amazon: I don't understand what I'm accused of.
Spanish Inquisition: Ha! Then we'll make you understand! Biggles! Fetch...THE CUSHIONS!
The mordant humour is surprising but the message is clear - just before that joke Mundt notes that his office has already claimed some big scalps (including Adidas - they're not just bashing foreign companies) and that "we're more energetic than some other competition authorities". Which is surely true - in the UK Amazon would be invited for a chat at Downing St, after which Dave & Vince would emerge all tingly from the reach-around they got.
I agree, but I am not sure if the word "Folterinstrument" was such a good choice, but then if you look at what that word gave as an example from German to English and swap the cross to Amazon it gets rather amusing after all.
It seems incredible that a universal symbol such as the cross should be transformed into a hideous instrument of torture for political ends.
Es erscheint unglaublich, dass ein allgemeines Symbol wie das Kreuz aus politischen Gründen in ein ungeheuerliches Folterinstrument verwandelt wird.
"It seems incredible that a universal symbol such as the cross should be transformed into a hideous instrument of torture for political ends."
WTF are you talking about?
It was invented for precisely that. It was so effective the Romans didn't get a patent on it. It was so effective for doing that that it was invented centuries earlier.
It was such an effective weapon it should be brought back for hanging the ends of politicians on.
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