Angry! Walmart sellers collectively defend their rights, a large number of accounts are suspected of being tampered with

Recently, Walmart's e-commerce platform has experienced an abuse of editorial rights that shocked the industry. Hundreds of sellers' store links were maliciously tampered with, resulting in store freezes and funds being withheld, which has attracted widespread attention and rights protection actions.

Sellers provide screenshots in the group

It was revealed that the core of this incident lies in the loophole of editing rights on the Walmart platform. Some criminals took advantage of the follow-selling mechanism and the loophole of editing rights on the Walmart platform, and obtained the editing rights of the follow-selling links through technical means, and then tampered with the link title or description of the seller, tampered with the seller's brand or implanted their own brand. These criminals registered the relevant trademarks in the UK in advance, and then used this as a basis to collect evidence to sue the sellers whose products were tampered with, causing a large number of sellers to suffer heavy losses.

It is understood that the editorial rights rules of Walmart's e-commerce platform mean that during the operation process, the platform divides sellers into different levels and also divides product content into different levels. Walmart claims that it uses advanced algorithms to determine the ranking of content on the platform.

However, the mechanism seems fair, but it actually contains hidden dangers. Since Walmart allows multiple users to provide content for the same product attribute, the display order of the content is determined by a series of ranking rules, including Walmart's authorized users, brand owners, 1P and DSV, content service providers, sellers who provide high-quality content, and market sellers (third-party sellers). The complex ranking mechanism is not only difficult for sellers to grasp, but is also likely to cause confusion and misleading product information.

The most important point is that Walmart's editorial rights rules often cause problems in actual operation. Links modified by algorithms do not necessarily increase sales. Instead, they may lead to serious customer complaints due to improper modification. For example, the original product A may be mistakenly changed to B, or features that the seller does not provide may be added, the original features may be deleted, and even the title, product details and pictures may be changed at will. These changes are often not the seller's original intention, but they may put the seller at risk of being sued.

Sellers provide screenshots in the group

The seller group provides the current defendant documents

As one of the victims of this incident, a large retail company was the first to disclose the damage to the company as a representative of the enterprises that spoke out. According to the company, 10 stores have been frozen, with a total of 100,000 US dollars in frozen funds. Another 30 stores have been tampered with, but have not yet been frozen. According to preliminary industry statistics, about 170 stores have been involved in the case, and the estimated frozen funds have reached 2 million US dollars.

In response to this incident, Walmart China's e-commerce team said they could not provide proof of tampering with the logs or information about the person who tampered with them, and that the victimized sellers needed to find their own channels to protect their rights. Walmart headquarters responded by email, saying they would patiently wait for the results of the investigation.

Provided in the seller group, Walmart email reply

At present, sellers have begun to report the case and are waiting for the police to file a joint investigation. As one of the victimized companies, a large retail company said it would continue to defend its rights with Walmart and the police, and called on all victimized sellers to unite and jointly defend their rights with the police and Walmart, asking them to unite with the victimized sellers to find the culprit and severely punish him.

This incident is not just a simple cyber attack or infringement, but also a severe test of the security of Walmart's platform. As a world-renowned retail giant, the security and stability of Walmart's e-commerce platform is directly related to the vital interests of many sellers.

Walmart must face up to this incident, strengthen the platform's security protection and vulnerability repair work, and ensure that similar incidents do not happen again. At the same time, they should also actively communicate with the victimized sellers, provide necessary help and support, and jointly maintain a safe, fair and equitable e-commerce environment.

For the majority of sellers, this incident also reminds us to strengthen our awareness and ability of prevention. When choosing an e-commerce platform, we must fully consider the security and stability of the platform; in the course of operation, we must strictly abide by the rules and regulations of the platform to avoid giving opportunities to criminals. At the same time, we must also actively safeguard our own rights and interests, and promptly report to the platform or relevant departments when encountering infringements.

The Walmart editorial rights vulnerability incident has sounded the alarm for the entire e-commerce industry. We must work together to strengthen the platform's security protection and vulnerability repair work to maintain a safe, fair and equitable e-commerce environment.

Sellers provide screenshots in the group

As of press time, some sellers in the group have successfully obtained relevant case filing notices. We will continue to pay close attention to this matter and follow up on subsequent related development reports in a timely manner.