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Amazon, the go-to site to buy almost anything under the sun, is now legally responsible for letting customers know if the products they’re buying are under a safety recall.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) said Tuesday that as the “distributor” of “defective” products that don’t meet federal consumer product safety standards, the e-commerce giant “therefore bears legal responsibility for their recall.”
Over 400,000 products on Amazon are subject to the CPSC order, specifically faulty carbon monoxide detectors, hairdryers that don’t have electrocution protection, and kids’ sleepwear that violates federal flammability standards, according to the order. The recalled products are sold by third-party sellers using the Fulfilled by Amazon program, which handles the storing, packing, shipping, and customer service for third-sellers’ orders. The CPSC found the products posed “substantial product hazard” under the Consumer Product Safety Act.
Meanwhile, Amazon did not notify customers and the public about the hazard, and “did not take adequate steps to encourage its customers to return or destroy them, thereby leaving consumers at substantial risk of injury,” the CPSC said.
Amazon has been ordered to propose plans for notifying consumers and the public about hazardous products sold on the site, and for removing the products from the market by destroying them or incentivizing customers to return them.
An Amazon spokesperson said in a statement shared with Quartz that the retailer is “disappointed” by the decision, and plans to appeal.
“When we were initially notified by the CPSC three years ago about potential safety issues with a small number of third-party products at the center of this lawsuit, we swiftly notified customers, instructed them to stop using the products, and refunded them,” the Amazon spokesperson said. “In the event of a product recall in our store, we remove impacted products promptly after receiving actionable information from recalling agencies, and we continue to seek ways to innovate on behalf of our customers. Our recalls alerts service also ensures our customers are notified of important product safety information fast, and the recalls process is effective and efficient.”
The CPSC had authorized a complaint against Amazon in July 2021 alleging the e-commerce site had distributed products that posed a hazard. An administrative law judge had ruled that Amazon, as a “distributor” of the products, must issue recalls and take other steps to protect consumers and the public from the dangerous products. However, Amazon appealed the ruling, arguing that it didn’t distribute the products and therefore was not responsible for them.