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by crote 2 days ago
> Just being realistic here; many of these are of Chinese make so how exactly would you stop it other than blocking them from being sold.

You already answered it: block it from being sold.

1) Make Amazon responsible for the products they are selling. 2) Introduce a law banning malware tv sticks 3) Sue Amazon for a percentage of their yearly revenue when caught violating it 4) Amazon will finally start caring and do some kind of review on the crap they sell.

3 comments

And if the first time you get it online it just updates itself to malware?

That's the biggest problem with any device that updates.

Yea, this will work for the moment and the seller will be covered in the sense that "well, it wasn't infected when we sold it".

The law is not software. It would be very easy to argue that a streaming stick that automatically downloads malware is no different from one that came with malware.
And that's where the retailer is no longer in the loop, which is what this thread was about.
I think a law that makes a marketplace responsible for items being sold if the qty of items is above a threshold would be a great idea.

You don't want to penalize someone selling their Xbox or lawnmower on Ebay but you want to stop what is going on here. A place like Etsy where people are selling their crafts is an interesting edge case but I think they should probably be a little regulated.

If it's malware, maybe existing laws apply already. I think the bigger problem is enforcement. In China, it's easy to close up shop if anything goes wrong and then just start over. Any liability dies with the brand name.