Cologne Regional Court: Amazon may not delete data on alleged customer complaints
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The Cologne Regional Court has prohibited Amazon from deleting certain data relating to complaints or reports on a retailer’s offers (LG Köln, Beschluss v. 19.5.2020, Az. 28 O 139/20, nicht rechtskräftig).
This measure became necessary after Amazon repeatedly blocked certain offers on the Amazon platform, citing customer complaints, but without disclosing who the complaints came from and what their content was.
Sabotage is the order of the day at Amazon
Successful Amazon sellers who operate in highly competitive sectors can tell you a thing or two about this: Amazon, motivated by the desire to be the most customer-friendly company of all, is not squeamish when it comes to cancelling and blocking offers that attract too many complaints.
The problem is that these complaints often do not come from dissatisfied customers, but from competitors who only place orders for the sake of it, only to rate them negatively again and again until Amazon blocks the corresponding offers.
We have already reported on these and eleven other sabotage measures on the Amazon platform here:
Providing evidence is difficult without Amazon
Proving these machinations is difficult. Without the help of Amazon, which naturally has exclusive access to the complete data, it is usually not possible.
In this case, the products of the retailer in question were repeatedly rated as defective because, contrary to the item description, they were not new but used. However, the retailer was able to rule out with certainty that the alleged customers had received used goods. It was therefore clear to her that the negative reviews did not come from dissatisfied customers, but from a competitor.
In order to ensure that Amazon did not delete the data in question prematurely, he applied to the Cologne Regional Court for a corresponding order with the help of LHR.
Cologne Regional Court prohibits deletion of data
The Regional Court then prohibited Amazon
from deleting the inventory data of users registered on the www.amazon.de platform who, as customers of the retailer, had complained about the condition of the products offered and delivered by the retailer via the online forms provided by Amazon, including the following data stored by Amazon:
a. Names of the users
b. User name of the users
c. Address of the users
d. E-mail of the user
e. Number of the order
f. exact time of the order, stating the date and time, second and time zone
g. exact time of the customer complaint, stating the date and time including minute, second and time zone, and
h. Content of the customer complaint, stating the full wording
The Regional Court thus followed the applicant’s view that there was an urgent need for immediate action on the basis of Section 14 TMG in view of the threat of data loss (LG Köln, Beschluss v. 19.5.2020, Az. 28 O 139/20, nicht rechtskräftig).
The decision is interesting, among other things, because until a recent decision by the Federal Court of Justice in 2019, it was assumed that Section 14 (3-5) TMG only applies in relation to operators of social networks and not also in relation to other service providers within the meaning of Section 2 No. 1 TMG (BGH, 24.09.2019 – VI ZB 39/18).
As was to be expected, Amazon does not see any reason to support an aggrieved Amazon retailer, but remains true to its line: as in all other proceedings, it is fighting tooth and nail against German court decisions. It therefore remains exciting.
We will continue to report.
(Disclosure: We represent the applicant.)
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