sellers
Latest
Etsy introduces purchase protection measures for both buyers and sellers
Starting August 1st, Etsy will refund buyers on purchases if they "don't match the item description, arrive damaged, or never arrive."
US lawmakers ask Jeff Bezos to testify about Amazon's alleged data abuse
Following a recent Wall Street Journal report on Amazon's use of third-party seller data, the House Judiciary Committee has called on Jeff Bezos to testify before Congress. In a letter signed by a bipartisan group made up of four Democrats and three Republicans, the committee says it believes Amazon may have committed a crime by misleading the government about its practices. The Wall Street Journal report the letter references was published earlier this month.
Senator asks for criminal investigation into Amazon's alleged data abuse
Senator Josh Hawley is requesting a criminal antitrust investigation into claims that Amazon uses sellers' data to make competing products.
Etsy reworks guidelines: sellers can now hire outside staff and manufacturers
Etsy, the online marketplace for DIYers, just announced several changes to its seller policies, giving store owners significantly more control over how they run their businesses. Going forward, sellers will be able to hire as many employees as necessary, as well as use outside companies to deliver their products and outsource manufacturing to third parties (provided they receive Etsy's approval). Most notably, these changes allow for a wider definition of "handmade" -- now, the idea for an item simply must originate with the seller. This means 3D-printed items can carry the prized handmade distinction, for instance. And this change isn't just about semantics; previously, Etsy customers could assume items that didn't look handmade were breaking the site's rules and consequently steer clear.
More eBook trouble for Amazon
Amazon has run into more trouble with its pricing -- after Macmillan and HarperCollins, a third company has pressured the online book retailer to raise prices on their Kindle eBooks. This time it's the Hachette Book Group, and their CEO in an internal memo says that the company will switch to an "agency model" for eBook sales. What's an agency model? Why, it's the 70%/30% split between platform and content provider currently used in the App Store, and the same model that's planned to be used in iBooks on the iPad. And it's important to note that this is exactly what Jobs said would happen -- that publishers would move away from Amazon when they had another system to go with. What we don't yet know is where prices will end up on the iPad -- Jobs said that prices would be "the same," and it's looking more and more like the $9.99 bestseller price is going to be abandoned for $14.99 or even higher. But that's only because Amazon is fighting shadows with the iPad right now. If they can actually woo some content back to their side when the iPad actually releases, we may see prices get a little more competitive. Until then, the iPad hasn't even come out and it's already shaking up the ebook industry completely.
Apple reveals iTunes top sellers from 2009
It's December, and that means list season. Early this morning, Apple released the top sellers from the iTunes stores across several categories. The top music, television shows, movies, audiobooks, podcasts and apps sold in 2009 are displayed on a special page in the store [iTunes link], called "iTunes Rewind 2009." Here are some highlights. The top three songs sold were "Boom Boom Pow" by Black Eyed Peas, "Right Round" by Flo Rida and "Poker Face" by Lady GaGa. I've never heard the first two, but "Poker Face" is a huge hit with my 6-year-old. It's nice to see kids music do so well. As for podcasts, I'm very happy to see my beloved Adam Carolla podcast [iTunes link] among the most popular. The top-selling games (note that apps and games were separated) included The Sims 3, The Oregon Trail, Need for Speed: Undercover and Madden NFL 10 (Boom!). Top-selling apps included ReelDirector, which we reviewed here, Star Walk, MLB.com's app and a number of GPS apps. For some insight on this year's winners as well as the editor's picks, check out the latest episode of the iTunes Weekly Rewind podcast [iTunes link]. [Via the Loop]
Gold spammers at it again
Last week reader Jay sent me a screen shot of something I hadn't seen in a while – a gold seller using /tell to spread their wares. For a long time Blizzard has maintained this is illegal activity, and has taken substantial steps to negate the spammers ability to do this. In game spam protection done behind the scenes has been working well. However it looks like the gold spammers have found a way around this.Initially I was pretty surprised to see the screen shot. After all, this hadn't been happening much. However a couple of days after getting this, I found some gold spam in my chat log as well. I was floored. Now they're back to their old tricks, and even some new ones.
Atomic Bird celebrates 5th birthday with a sale
Atomic Bird software, makes of MondoMouse and Macaroni (an app designed to automate maintenance, according to our fine commenters-- thanks!) has reached its five year birthday, and to celebrate, owner Tom Harrington is giving away some software. Through the 19th, every fifth order on Atomic Bird's website is going to be completely free. If you've been thinking about picking one of those up (or give one of them a try and decide you'd like it) order before the 19th and you've got a 20% chance of getting it for free.And even if you don't buy anything, Tom's got a good writeup on his blog about how he got started selling software over the internet. I've always enjoyed hearing stories like this-- whenever you make good software, the Mac community seems completely ready to support what you do. While users of other systems (no names) seem to grab at the free stuff, no matter how buggy or slow it is, Mac users always seem ready to pay a premium price for a premium product. Then again, maybe I'm putting the horse before the cart on that one.At any rate, congrats Atomic Bird on five years of successfully selling that software, and here's to many more.[via Gus Mueller]
Fed up with ingame gold whispers
Like Sniffledoo, I'm done with it. This ingame gold whispering is getting worse and worse, and it's time something drastic was done about it.If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you can consider yourself lucky, but I'm guessing it's become pretty widespread by now (at first, I'd just chalked it up to being on a high population server). Spammers are almost constantly sending whispers ingame to buy and sell gold and powerlevel characters. Blizzard has of course said that they are banning players who get reported as spammers, but, also like Sniffledoo, I think it's time they went another step-- it's time to go after the sites that are doing it.As always, IANAL, but clearly we know where these spam messages are coming from-- they are being sponsored by the sites advertised (I can, unfortunately, list a few of them off the top of my head, but I won't link to any of them, because they just don't deserve it). Does Blizzard have a legal claim against these sites for ruining the player experience and consistently breaking the TOS? If they have documented this activity, couldn't they take it to court and at least sue these sites for ruining the game experience?It's gotten to the point where I would almost be willing to agree to a TOS that says "I agree to be sued for spamming" if it means Blizzard has a better legal footing against these idiots. Reporting these players is the best thing to do right now (even though these are alts that are just created and deleted, maybe even in a matter of minutes), and there are even addons now that will block and report this stuff for us, but why can't Blizzard do more? Why haven't they gone after the sites sponsoring this junk?Update: A couple of people have already mentioned the gold links on this site-- in case you missed it, we are constantly working to get rid of them. WoW Insider does not condone or endorse any activities that are against the TOS, including powerleveling and gold buying and selling.
