The indicted include Rohit Kadmisetty, Nishad Kunju, Kristen Leccese, Joseph Nilsen, Hadis Nuhanovic and Ephraim Rosenberg. They all face charges for commercial bribery, accessing protected computers without authorization, and wire fraud.

The group will make its first appearance in a Seattle court on October 15th.

The case isn’t particularly well-timed for Amazon. The company is no stranger to issues with rogue third-party sellers, and has been accused of using seller data to make competing products and gain an unfair advantage. While the two cases aren’t connected, this latest bust doesn’t help Amazon’s claims that it has a handle on third-party seller abuse.

Tens of thousands of Americans have received mysterious seed shipments in the past few months. Most have been postmarked as coming from China and have often been falsely labeled as another product. At least some of them were potentially harmful to US agriculture, including noxious weeds, plant diseases and even pests.

The US is working with China to track down the seed sources. This isn’t necessarily an attack — one main theory suggests the seeds are part of a “brushing” scam where vendors pay people (“brushers”) to order cheap products and write bogus reviews to spur sales. Amazon maintained that seed deliveries from its site were real orders delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but it’s investigating possible links between its site, the packages, and possible brushing.

Amazon’s crackdown might not amount to much if the seed mailers are using other services. Even so, this reflects the company’s increasingly active response to dodgy products and orders. It doesn’t want to be held responsible for problematic shipments, and it’s apparently willing to lose potential sales rather than risk future incidents.

An insider aware of Amazon’s order system told Bloomberg that fixing the issue that allowed the effort only required altering a “few lines of code.” It could create a “dead zone” around places like Whole Foods to prevent gaming attempts. Your orders could take longer to arrive, but it would also ensure a fairer distribution of work.

The company hasn’t confirmed the move, instead saying that waiting in the parking lot or using store WiFi was “not an effective way” to claim delivery orders.

It’s still not clear exactly who’s behind the tree-based plot. However, it does underscore issues with the gig economy. Workers’ livelihoods depend heavily on the code that assigns their gigs, and that can give some people a strong incentive to exploit the code.

Amazon’s newest AR shopping tool will let you see furniture and other home decor in your space before you buy it, TechCrunch reports. Coming to the Amazon shopping app for iOS and desktop browsers, “Room Decorator” will let you see multiple items at scale and simultaneously. You’ll be able to store photos of your home so you can use the feature remotely, and you’ll be able to save room layouts if you’re not ready to make a purchase.

Room Decorator works with thousands of furniture products, including some third-party items, TechCrunch says. If you’re using the Amazon shopping app, you’ll see a “View in Your Room” button beneath eligible products. Saved layouts will appear in a new “Your Rooms” section in your Amazon account, and Amazon will email you a link.

We’ve asked Amazon for comment.

There’s no guarantee the two sides reach a deal, provided the report is accurate. However, it would make sense given the state of US shopping malls. Even before the pandemic, malls and their department stores were grappling with reduced traffic as customers increasingly shopped online. Some malls have replaced stores with call centers and other non-retail businesses just to stay afloat. COVID-19 further limited those options. It’s hard to rent space to offices that are working from home, and retail is frequently limited to curbside pickup or just a tiny amount of in-store shopping.

Amazon’s presence would likely make smaller mall store owners bristle, but they might not have much choice. The internet giant could provide a regular source of rent and keep malls alive. There would certainly be plenty of irony — the very force destroying malls might represent the best chance at keeping them intact.

Major internet retailers still have an issue with racist products in their stores. Amazon, Google and Wish have removed white supremacist products on sale through their platforms after a BBC Click investigation revealed numerous examples. The online portals not only sold flags, hoods and other neo-Nazi and KKK material, but recommended similar products to shoppers.

The three companies all said they ban racist products, but didn’t explain in detail how they would prevent further racist goods from appearing. They also pulled material linked to the “boogaloo” movement, whose more extreme members have been linked to real-world threats and violence.

India’s plan to tightly regulate online shopping could give it a peek at how many internet giants work. Bloomberg says it obtained a draft e-commerce policy that would mandate access to sites’ source codes and algorithms. This would help prevent “digitally induced biases,” according to the draft. It would also help determine if companies have “explainable” AI. In other words, sites would have to make some of their trade secrets available without a court battle.

The proposed policy would also ask companies to turn over stored data within 72 hours of a request. Shops would have to identify a product’s country of origin and how much India played a role. There would be protections for users — companies would have to provide contact details for sellers, including for complaints.

All products recommended by Engadget are selected by our editorial team, independent of our parent company. If you buy something through one of the links on this page, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Amazon is dropping support for yet another Alexa device in a matter of weeks. AFTVnews has learned that Amazon will no longer support the Dash Wand shopping helper as of July 21st, 2020. It didn’t explain why (we’ve asked Amazon for comment), but it did encourage owners to participate in a device recycling program. There’s no mention of offering an alternative device as compensation, although the Wand’s $50 price and many promotions (such as receiving a free Wand with an Amazon Fresh subscription) makes a swap unlikely.

The Dash Wand was a handheld, battery-based Alexa device with a barcode reader. You’d use it to order more food just by scanning existing containers and asking for more. It also served as an always-available voice assistant in parts of the home where a fixed-in-place Alexa speaker might not hear you.

The Apple Card already has perks if you’re buying from Apple itself, but the company is apparently willing to further sweeten those incentives. Bloomberg sources say Apple is planning a Card feature that will let you buy “many” products (not just the iPhone) in monthly, interest-free payments. You could pay off iPads, iPad accessories, Macs and even the Pro Display XDR in 12 months, and smaller gear like AirPods, Apple TV and HomePod in six months. The option would reportedly be ready in “the coming weeks.”

Apple declined to comment, although chief executive Tim Cook hinted in April that installment plans were coming for devices besides the iPhone.