Recently, Amazon gave a not very pleasant message to Google. The company said it would not sell any of the new products from Nest, its division of smart devices for the home. As a result, Nest made another decision: withdraw its entire product range from the Amazon store.
Although there are still Nest products on Amazon, Business Insider reports that when the stock runs out, Nest products will stop showing up. According to the media, the decision not to sell the new Nest products had nothing to do with the quality of the products, which have very good reviews on Amazon. Representatives from Amazon said that the decision had been made by people with power in the company.
Although none of the Amazon representatives mentioned the name of Jeff Besos, the Nest team left with the impression that the person responsible for the decision had been the CEO of the company.
Amazon's decision to stop selling Nest products has great implications for the company's future. It clearly points out that it considers Google, with its Nest division, its biggest rival in the sector of smart home products.
Recall that Amazon is focused on the development and marketing of Alexa, its intelligent voice assistant. In addition to being a voice assistant, Alexa is also Amazon's platform for smart devices for the home, such as lights, padlocks or speakers. In February, Amazon announced that it would buy Ring, a company that makes smart stamps or other smart security devices.
Currently, the Google Assistant is competing with Alexa. On the other hand, smart speakers from Google compete with the Amazon Echo.
According to Business Insider, Nest decided to withdraw its Amazon product catalog because it wanted to offer everything it made or nothing. It is not clear if Nest products can be sold on Amazon in the future through Amazon Marketplace, a program that allows third parties to sell their products on Amazon.
It is not the first time that Amazon has acted against Google for competition issues. Amazon does not sell Google's hardware like its smart speakers or its smartphone, the Pixel. Google does not stay with arms crossed, however. You have blocked YouTube on the Amazon Fire TV and the Echo Show for allegedly violating its terms of service. (However, Amazon recently announced that it would start selling the Chromecast again.)
Although what Amazon has done to Nest seems a bit ugly, it probably is not illegal.
Chris Sagers, a law professor at Cleveland State University, said Amazon probably would not get into legal trouble because it does not have a monopoly on the smart home devices sector. Therefore, their actions are not harmful to the competition.
"It's probably not illegal," Sagers said. "It's ugly ... but the American law says that even monopolists have ample freedom to choose who they deal with."
[Business Insider]