#amazon-dupe

#amazon-dupe

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and a group of eight states have announced a proposed settlement with big ad agencies that will prevent them from working together to avoid certain platforms like X based on their political viewpoints.

Amazon has informed Kindle owners that any e-readers from 2012 and earlier will no longer be supported as of May 20, 2026. Users can still read downloaded books but cannot purchase new ones, and a factory reset will render the device unusable.

The Justice Department charged Yih-Shyan Liaw, Ruei-Tsang Chang, and Ting-Wei Sun in an indictment unsealed in federal court in Manhattan on Thursday, alleging a complex scheme to send US-made servers through Taiwan to other countries in Southeast Asia.

They train on it and self-evaluate against it. Yet those AI-driven interfaces increasingly answer questions without sending users to the content source. Google's AI Overviews makes this obvious to many businesses in the form of dwindling search traffic. Many publishers are alarmed, having built their businesses on audience reach, page views, and advertising impressions. When AI systems summarize articles instead of referring readers, the economic model fractures.

At least three advertisers, two from Brazil and one from China, were found to engage in celeb-bait scams, which often involve misusing the image of well-known figures to trick people into clicking on bogus ads that lead to scam sites. These websites are designed to harvest sensitive data or dupe unsuspecting users into sending money or investing in fake platforms.

Amazon has "provided strong evidence" that Perplexity's Comet browser accesses user accounts "without authorization" from the retail giant. Amazon sued Perplexity in November, alleging that it "repeatedly requested" that the AI startup stop letting its agents buy products for customers, accusing Perplexity of "intruding" into its marketplace and user accounts with Comet's agentic shopping feature, in violation of computer fraud and abuse laws.

This week in Other Barks & Bites: the USPTO announces a roundtable and asks for comments on the OECD's E-Commerce Guidelines; the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit corrects the Patent Trial and Appeal Board's improper legal standard for conception in a patent interference proceeding; data from IFI CLAIMS shows that Google has overtaken IBM for the leading position among U.S. patent applicants claiming generative AI inventions;

The European Commission has launched a new antitrust probe into Google, expanding its long-running scrutiny of the tech giant's advertising practices. Regulators suspect the company may be manipulating the pricing of its search ad auctions, potentially inflating clearing prices "to the detriment of advertisers," according to a February 9 letter sent to affected businesses and seen by Bloomberg. The investigation marks the latest in a series of EU actions against Google,

At a time when digital channels increasingly define commercial success, online marketplaces have become essential tools for small and medium-sized enterprises to reach customers and drive revenue. For many SMEs, marketplaces offer a ready-made audience without the significant acquisition costs of standalone ecommerce sites, but the simple act of listing product ranges isn't enough to guarantee results. To succeed, businesses must approach their marketplace presence strategically, optimising every element of their listings for discovery, relevance and conversion.

We're still increasing pricing based on the most up-to-date tariff announcements from India and the U.S., because it's not going back down to zero. It's still elevated. The cost of our goods has also shot up, because gold has almost doubled since last year.