By Denny Jacob
The Consumer Product Safety Commission said it has unanimously issued a final order outlining steps Amazon.com must take to notify buyers and the public about hazardous products for which the regulator determined it was a distributor.
The retailer is required to issue notice on the day CPSC publishes a recall, among other directives. For the public, Amazon must post the recall releases to its website. For buyers, they must be notified directly through email and by providing information under a section for orders they have made.
Amazon plans to appeal the decision, a spokesperson said. The company notified customers three years ago, when the CPSC first notified it about safety issues, the spokesperson said.
"The remedies ordered by the CPSC are largely duplicative of the steps we took several years ago to protect customers, which are the same steps we take whenever we learn about unsafe products," the spokesperson said.
The order is effective as of Jan. 26.
The CPSC in July determined in a unanimous vote that Amazon was a "distributor" of certain products that are defective or fail to meet federal consumer product safety standards, and therefore bears legal responsibility for their recall.
More than 400,000 products are subject to this order, including faulty carbon monoxide detectors, hairdryers without electrocution protection and children's sleepwear that violate federal flammability standards.
--Katherine Hamilton contributed to this article.
Write to Denny Jacob at denny.jacob@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
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