Back in December, the French appeal court Tribunal de Grande Instance ruled that Amazon.fr was violating the country’s 1981 Lang law with its free shipping offer. This law forbids booksellers from offering discounts of more than 5 percent off the list price. Amazon was ruled as having broken this law if free shipping is factored into the cost of the book.

They were told they would face a daily fine if they didn’t start charging within ten days. This can continue for 30 days (€30,000) and then it will be reviewed by the court. They can increase, decrease, or extend the fine. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said in an email to the site’s customers: “France would be the only country in the world where the free delivery practiced by Amazon would be declared illegal.” Amazon was also ordered to pay €100,000 to a French bookstore union.

The law was originally passed when supermarkets were outselling independent book sellers. It was supposed to mean that customers had access to all kinds of books, not just massively discounted best-sellers.

Amazon say that “are determined to follow every avenue available to us to overturn this law.” They are unikely to succeed as the law has come before the European Court of Justice twice before. On both occasions it has been affirmed. The law is not considered anticompetitive because all book retailers are held to the same standard.

You can read the extended article at the International Herald Tribune website.

I came across this story on the Daily Mail website. It is a UK-based newspaper and this story is about UK-based Royal Mail. It is not particularly related to WebCards but I thought it was an interesting story none-the-less.

Apparently Royal Mail finds “about 500,000 undeliverable parcels are sent to Royal Mail’s return letter centre every year.”They are kept for up to six months, after which a proportion - about 15 per cent - are sent to auction, with the proceeds making a contribution to the centre’s annual £10million running costs.”

The system was exposed by a retired school teacher who sold a set of bagpipes for £1500. He sent them to Belgium using Royal Mail’s premium Airsure service. He claimed the package was labelled correctly but it never reached its destination. He was only able to claim £500 compensation.

It turns out the pipes were sold by Surrey auctioneers Wellers for just £60 and ended up on eBay. The police are currently in posession of the pipes until they can determine who owns them.

It just goes to show that you never know what is happening with your mail. I don’t know why Royal Mail would ever start selling lost packages. Surely they never own them in the first place?