Amazon And Walmart AI Ignore 'Made In USA' Retail Fraud, Study Claims
Erie Meyer and Zachary Harris at Columbia Law’s Center for Law and the Economy tested the platforms’ automated shopping assistants, Amazon’s Alexa for Shopping and Walmart’s Sparky, to determine how they handle origin claims. Their findings (first spotted by Reuters) expose a stark divide between what these AI systems know and what they actually tell buyers. In listing after listing, products trumpet "Made in USA" in bold title text while quietly acknowledging imported origins in fine-print specification fields. The underlying AI models effortlessly process this backend data and detect the contradiction, proving that technical limitations are not the problem here.
It goes without saying that this kind of selective transparency totally screws with domestic businesses and misleads shoppers willing to pay a premium for American-manufactured goods. For decades, FTC guidelines have required strict adherence to origin claims, mandating that products advertised as American-made contain all or virtually all U.S.-sourced parts and labor. By allowing mislabeled goods to flood their search engines and deploying AI agents that mask these discrepancies, e-commerce giants are able to circumvent established consumer protection regulations.
Meyer and Harris' report also highlights a broader failure of accountability. Both Amazon and Walmart had previously made public commitments to document and disclose the inner workings, capabilities, and safety parameters of their consumer-facing AI models. The study concludes that both corporations have reneged on those promises, and is a larger issue that Congress needs to immediately act on. On a more local level, members of the public, workers and/or whistleblowers are also encouraged to report to their state attorney generals and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, respectively.
