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has angered some online retailers that say they didn’t consent to have their products scraped and listed on the e-commerce giant’s sprawling marketplace.
In February, the company announced “Shop Direct,” a feature that lets consumers browse items from other brands’ sites on Amazon. Some of those items include a button labeled “Buy for Me,” an artificial intelligence agent that can purchase products from other websites on a shopper’s behalf.
Amazon pitched the services, which are in testing phase for some U.S. users, as a way for shoppers to “find any product they want and need,” including items that aren’t available on its site. Over the past decade, Amazon has increasingly turned to third-party merchants for products, and now says more than 60% of sales on its retail platform are from independent sellers.
In recent weeks, some businesses began to object to their products being sold on Amazon without their permission, according to posts on Reddit and Instagram. Retailers, in some instances, said the program resulted in Amazon listing products that they never sold or that were out of stock.
