Suit says Amazon targeted eBay sellers

ETHAN BARON

For three years Amazon has been illegally infiltrating an internal email system at e-commerce rival eBay, seeking to hide its tracks as it tried to poach top sellers, a new lawsuit claims.

“Amazon’s clandestine efforts have borne fruit. Its representatives have discussed the success of their scheme with eBay seller prospects,” said the lawsuit by eBay, one Amazon’s chief competitors, though a fraction of its size.

Amazon did not immediately respond to a request for comment on eBay’s claims.

San Jose, Calif.-based eBay, valued at $31 billion to Amazon’s $864 billion, alleged that dozens of Amazon operatives set up fraudulent accounts in eBay’s internal email system for sellers, and then contacted eBay’s “high value” vendors in order to get them to peddle their wares on Amazon.

“One Seattle-based Amazon representative opened three accounts in the course of a few weeks, sending solicitation emails to eBay sellers within minutes of opening each separate account,” said the lawsuit, filed Wednesday in Santa Clara County Superior Court.

“Others waited less than five minutes between opening an account and sending solicitation messages.

“Understanding that they were breaking the rules, Amazon reps engaged in systematic efforts to circumvent eBay’s detection tools, finding creative ways to share their contact information with eBay sellers. These anti-detection measures often took the form of spelling out non-word portions of email addresses and using punctuation and other words to break up telephone numbers.”