German court ruled Amazon's 'share' feature as unlawful

A German court has declared that one of Amazon's sharing feature is unlawful.  The lower court ruled that the Amazon's sharing functionality encourages customers or users to share and promote links to products of the online store with their contacts, which is considered as spamming.

The sharing feature becomes available after an online purchase is submitted, and provides means for users to share to the public their buys via Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, and email. The German court said that such email missives, sent without the permission of the recipient constitutes unreasonable harassment and unsolicited advertising. The regional court in Hamm confirming the ruling of a lower court in Arnsberg said that the sharing by email without approval of the recipient was illegal, as reported by Reuters.

The Wallstreet reported that Amazon moved in the upper half of the 52-week range of $299.33 to $696.44. The company's stock have risen to 1.53% or $9.11 after the news, hitting $605.49 per share. 2.73 million shares traded hands and since June 18, 2015, Amazon Inc. has risen 35.73%.

The case was brought against one of Amazon's resellers by a solid competitor. Meanwhile, Amazon Inc. did not respond to a request for comment. This case was also triggered after Germany's highest court ruled that a similar sharing functionality existed in Facebook, which encourages accounts or users to market the social media network to their contacts. This brought the Facebook case to German courts, as reported by The Stack. In 2012, the Federation of German Consumer Organizations said the ruling would have implications for other services in Germany which uses similar forms of advertising.

Many internet users and customers of Amazon have no idea about this trade which commercial sites often provide. The involving email addresses of unknown parties in a commercial website's automated process is a major opportunity to put the unsuspecting user on another marketing web map. The German court is adamant in eliminating such practice of spamming.

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german court, share feature, spamming, online marketing, online shops, email spamming, Facebook, amazon spamming, Amazon

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