Every weekday the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer holds a “Morning Meeting” livestream at 10:20 a.m. ET. Here’s a recap of Tuesday’s key moments. Stocks fell Tuesday despite an early pop in tech stocks, led by Oracle ‘s 11% gain. The database software maker posted a fiscal 2025 first-quarter beat on the top and bottom lines Monday after the bell. The company is aggressively building out data centers to meet artificial intelligence demands from its customers. The Investing Club portfolio has lots of exposure to the AI buildout through its investments in Eaton , Dover , Broadcom and Nvidia , among others. Meanwhile, shares of Apple were down 1% following the company’s iPhone 16 event Monday. While the announcements on its new AI capabilities weren’t needle movers for the stock, they should be a long-term driver of growth. Bank stocks were also down Tuesday, with shares of JPMorgan falling 6.5% after the company offered a cautious outlook at a banking conference. Club stock Wells Fargo was being painted with a broad brush, falling 2%. At the conference, Wells made no change in its forecasts. Jim reiterated his favorable view on Wells Fargo, citing its 3% annual dividend yield and “incredibly cheap” valuation. Also on watch are proposals from the Fed’s vice chair for supervision that would lower the extra capital cushion required of big banks. Costco caught a downgrade Tuesday from Redburn Atlantic. The analysts went to a neutral rating from buy — calling the stock’s valuation too expensive. The analysts increased Costco’s price target to $890 per share from $860. But that’s only right at the level Costco was trading Tuesday. Analysts said the current risk/reward profile on the stock is “skewing less favorably given the even higher than normal expectations.” Jim said, however, “Costco has been expensive and always will be expensive,” suggesting it’s worth it. Stocks covered in Tuesday’s rapid fire at the end of the video were Southwest , Oracle , Johnson Controls , Boot Barn , and Goldman Sachs . (Jim Cramer’s Charitable Trust is long ETN, DOV, AVGO, NVDA, WFC, COST. See here for a full list of the stocks.) As a subscriber to the CNBC Investing Club with Jim Cramer, you will receive a trade alert before Jim makes a trade. Jim waits 45 minutes after sending a trade alert before buying or selling a stock in his charitable trust’s portfolio. If Jim has talked about a stock on CNBC TV, he waits 72 hours after issuing the trade alert before executing the trade. THE ABOVE INVESTING CLUB INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO OUR TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND PRIVACY POLICY , TOGETHER WITH OUR DISCLAIMER . NO FIDUCIARY OBLIGATION OR DUTY EXISTS, OR IS CREATED, BY VIRTUE OF YOUR RECEIPT OF ANY INFORMATION PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH THE INVESTING CLUB. NO SPECIFIC OUTCOME OR PROFIT IS GUARANTEED.
Etsy Inc., once known as a quirky marketplace for handmade, artisanal and vintage items, seems to be moving further away from its origins amid a much tougher e-commerce landscape and the impact of AI.
Etsy ETSY, +4.83%
will be marketing to a whole new audience on Sunday, when its first Super Bowl commercial will run. The 30-second ad is quirky; it depicts a generic 19th-century American leader who’s flummoxed over how to reciprocate France’s gift of the Statue of Liberty. With the help of an anachronistic smartphone, he and his team search on Etsy using its new Gift Mode option, and find its “Cheese Lover” category after determining that the French love cheese. Voilà — they decide to send the French some cheese.
The commercial is part of Etsy’s push of a new user interface featuring Gift Mode, which lets shoppers search for gifts for a specific type of person or occasion — combining generative AI and human curation to give gift buyers some unusual options.
But are these moves desperate and costly efforts to try to reach potential new buyers, coming on the heels of Etsy’s plans to lay off 11% of its staff?Or could running a TV ad at the most expensive time of the year actually lead to more sales on the once-fast growing marketplace?
Etsy believes these moves will help the company grow again, and its research shows the average American spends $1,600 a year on gifts. “There is no single market leader and Etsy sees a real opportunity to become the destination for gifting,” Etsy’s Chief Executive Josh Silverman said in a recent blog post.
Etsy is clearly under pressure after seeing its gross merchandise sales more than double in 2020 during the pandemic, when it became a go-to place to buy handmade masks and all kinds of items for the home, from vintage pieces to antiques to castoffs. From personal experience as an Etsy seller, I saw sales at my own small vintage-clothing shop more than double in 2020 and then fall back in 2021, while still remaining higher than in 2019. In the last two years, sales have slowed, and some other sellers have witnessed similar patterns, based on their comments in seller forums.
The number of sellers and buyers on the platform has increased on the same level as gross merchandise sales. But e-commerce competition has also gotten more fierce.
“Our main concern with Etsy is growing competition in the space from new players like Temu,” said Bernstein Research analyst Nikhil Devnani, in an email. Temu and fellow Chinese online retailer Shein have raised a lot of investor jitters, as Etsy’s gross merchandise sales have slipped over the last year and are forecast to fall again in its upcoming fourth-quarter earnings report later this month.
Devnani said a Super Bowl ad could potentially help the marketplace gain visibility, something it has always lacked.
“One dynamic they’ve talked about a lot is that brand awareness/recollection is still low, and this keeps frequency low,” he said, noting that Etsy buyers shop on the site about three times per year, on average. “They want to be more top-of-mind … Super Bowl ads are notoriously expensive of course, but can be impactful/get noticed.”
The company’s big focus on Gift Mode, however, could be a risky strategy. How many times a year do consumers look for gifts? And in a note Devnani wrote in October, before the company’s Gift Mode launch, he said that one of the concerns investors have is that Etsy is too niche. “’How often does someone need something special?’ is the rhetoric we hear most often,” he said. Etsy, then, is counting on buyers returning for other items for themselves.
Etsy CEO Silverman believes buyers will come back again and again to purchase gifts. Naved Khan, a B. Riley Securities analyst, said in a recent note to clients that he believes Gift Mode plays to Etsy’s core strengths, offering “unique goods at reasonable prices” versus the mass-produced products sold on Shein, Temu, Amazon.com Inc. AMZN, +2.71%,
and other sites.
Consumer spending has changed, though. At an investor conference in December, Silverman said that consumers are spending on dining out and traveling, instead of buying things.
But while investors still view Etsy as a niche e-commerce site, some buyers and sellers see it overrun with repetitive, non-relevant ads. Complaints about a decline in search capabilities, reliance on email and chat for support, and constant tech changes are common on seller forums and Facebook groups. AI-generated art offered by newer sellers as a side hustle has also become a thought-provoking, debated issue. And there are complaints about mass-produced items making their way on the site.
Etsy said that in addition to its human and automated efforts, it also relies on community flags to help take down infringing products that are not allowed on its marketplace, and that community members should contact the company when if they see mass-produced items for sale on the site.
It also continues to work on search. On its last earnings call, Silverman said the company was moving beyond relevance to the next frontier of search, one “focused on better identifying the quality of each Etsy listing utilizing humans and [machine-learning] technology, so that from a highly relevant result set we bring the very best of Etsy to the top — personalized to what we understand of your tastes and preferences.”
The pressure could build on the company if its latest moves don’t generate growth. Etsy recently gave a seat on its board to a partner at activist investor Elliott Management, which bought a “sizable” stake in the company in the last few months. Marc Steinberg, who is responsible for public and private investments at Elliott, has also has been on the board at Pinterest PINS, -9.45%
since December 2022.
Elliott Management did not respond to questions. But in a statement last week, Steinberg said he was joining the board because he “believe[s] there is an opportunity for significant value creation.” Some sellers fear that the pressure from investors and Wall Street will lead to Etsy allowing mass-produced products onto the site. In its fall update, Etsy said the number of listings it removed for violating its handmade policy jumped 112% and that it was further accelerating such actions.
Etsy’s stock before the news of Elliott’s stake was down about 18% this year. Its shares are now off about 3.65% this year, after recently having their best day in seven years on the news that Steinberg joined the board.
Etsy is a unique marketplace that for many years had a much better reputation than some of its rivals, like eBay EBAY, +0.98%.
But since going public and answering to Wall Street, the need to provide growth and profits for investors has become much more of a driver. The Super Bowl ad and Gift Mode may bring a broader awareness to Etsy, but will it be the right kind of awareness? Sellers like me hope these new efforts will stave off the continuing fight with the likes of Temu and other vendors of mass-produced products, and help Etsy retain the remaining unique aspects of its marketplace.
Investors bought up shares of Etsy Inc. on Thursday after the online crafts marketplace added to its board of directors a partner of hedge fund Elliott Investment Management L.P., which recently acquired a “sizable” stake in the company.
Etsy ETSY, +9.31%
said Marc Steinberg, who is responsible for public- and private-equity investments at Elliott, has been appointed to the board, effective Feb. 5, and will also join the board’s audit committee.
“Etsy has a highly differentiated position in the e-commerce landscape and a uniquely attractive business model, supported by a distinctive and engaged community,” Steinberg said. “We became a sizable investor in Etsy and I am joining its board because I believe there is an opportunity for significant value creation.”
Etsy’s stock shot up 8% in afternoon trading, to pare earlier gains of as much as 14.2%. The stock was headed for its best one-day gain since it climbed 9.2% on July 11.
Elliott’s stake was acquired in recent months, as the fund’s disclosure of equity holdings through the third quarter did not list Etsy shares.
“Marc’s appointment reflects our ongoing commitment to enhance the perspectives and expertise on the Etsy Board,” said Etsy Chairman Fred Wilson. “We look forward to benefiting from his voice in the boardroom as a seasoned and experienced investor as we continue our journey of creating a leading global e-commerce platform.”
Etsy’s stock has run up 18.6% over the past three months, but has tumbled 48.5% over the past 12 months. That’s compared with the S&P 500 index’s SPX
18.7% rally over the past year.
At an investor conference in December, Chief Executive Josh Silverman said business has slowed since the post-pandemic boom, as people have “had enough of buying things” and are now spending primarily on eating out and travel. Inflation and the loss of government subsidies was also weighing on spending.
Still, Silverman said, Etsy is now about two and a half times bigger than it was before the pandemic, and the company has more active buyers than it did at the peak of the pandemic.
After a two-year slump below its pandemic high, online shopping made a comeback this holiday season. The CNBC All-America Economic Survey finds 57% of Americans naming online shopping as their top one or two destinations for Christmas gifts.
In 2006, online shopping accounted for just 18% of responses. It hit an all-time high in 2020, at the height of the pandemic, when 55% responded it was the top destination. It scaled back to 51% last year, holding on to some but not all of its pandemic gains. But this year, hit yet another all-time high.
The survey of 1,002 Americans throughout the country was conducted Dec. 8 through 12 and has a margin of error of +/-3.1%.
The reason for the surge is unclear but a look at those spending more online this year suggests it could center around a search for bargains to combat inflation. Among those groups spending more online are women 50 and older who as a group reported more frugal holiday spending plans than average and are more concerned about inflation and the overall condition of the economy. Still, the group shops less online than younger women aged 18-49. Also spending more online this year than last are those with incomes below $30,000 and those who plan to spend only $200 on gifts, far below the $1,300 average.
“We know from the rest of the data that inflation is a major factor in why people are spending less and more,” said Micah Roberts of Public Opinion Strategies, the Republican pollster for the survey. “Everything costs more, so you’re going to have to spend more to buy it.”
While groups differ over how much they spend online, where they spend is fairly uniform: Amazon. Once again — and continuously since the question was first asked six years ago — Amazon is the No. 1 destination for online shopping and no one else is really close. Back in 2017, just 35% of the public said Amazon was their top online destination. Today, that percentage has risen to a commanding 74%, unchanged from last year but below its 2019 high.
The only other competitor, Walmart, has made some modest gains, rising to 16% from 12% last year and from just 4% in 2017. Specialty goods stores, like Etsy and local store websites, also gained from 8% to 14%.
Americans say they plan to use debt to pay for gifts this year in about the same percentages as prior, with 31% saying they will carry a balance from holiday spending, up 1 point from last year. But 10% say they will use “buy-now-pay-later” plans.
Check out the companies making headlines in midday trading. Etsy — The online merchandise platform saw shares rebound 3% after a steep sell-off last week. Etsy announced last Wednesday that it is cutting 11% of its workforce , or approximately 225 employees, as the company looks to restructure its business and streamline costs against a “very challenging” macro and competitive environment. Netflix — The stock added 3% after Morgan Stanley raised its price target on Netflix to $550 from $475 per share. The bank cited renewed confidence in the streaming giant’s return to content spending and “execution on growth initiatives including paid sharing and advertising.” Oil stocks — Oil companies broadly rose as crude prices jumped more than 2% on concerns of supply disruptions. Valero Energy added 3%, while Marathon Petroleum and Diamondback Energy gained more than 2%. U.S. Steel — The steelmaker jumped 26.5% after Japan’s Nippon Steel beat out rivals to buy the company for $14.9 billion in cash. The $55-per-share deal price is 142% above U.S. Steel’s price on Aug 11, the last trading day before Cleveland-Cliffs offered $35 per share for the company. SolarEdge — Shares tumbled more than 5% after Goldman Sachs downgraded the company to sell from neutral. The firm cited further downside risk to earnings and margin uncertainty. SunPower — The solar company plunged more than 33% after filing a delayed 10-Q form for the third quarter on Monday. The company disclosed liquidity concerns and “substantial doubt about the company’s ability to continue.” Goldman Sachs had already downgraded the firm to sell from neutral in a Sunday note. Adobe — Adobe shares rose about 1% as the company called off its plan to buy cloud-based design tool Figma for $20 billion due to regulatory pushback. Adobe said in a regulatory filing that it will pay Figma a $1 billion breakup fee. VF Corporation — Shares lost nearly 8% after the apparel company disclosed a cyber incident from Dec. 13 in an 8-K filing. The company said the incident would likely result in a material impact on its business. Coupang — The South Korea-based e-commerce platform fell 3.7% after it announced plans to acquire online luxury platform Farfetch. The deal will give Farfetch access to $500 million in capital and turn the company private. Shares of Farfetch fell nearly 35% before trading was halted. Liberty Media Formula One — The racing series dropped more than 1% after a Morgan Stanley downgrade to equal weight from overweight, calling the stock a ” victim of its own success .” Structure Therapeutics — The U.S. listed shares of Structure Therapeutics plunged 34% even as the clinical stage biopharmaceutical company said its obesity drug can reduce weight and blood sugar. Snap — Shares added 1.6% after Guggenheim upgraded them to buy from neutral. The firm also raised its price target to $23 from $9, suggesting 35% upside potential from Fridays’ close. Analyst Michael Morris is forecasting revenue growth to outperform in 2024 as digital ad trends strengthen. Nio — Shares jumped more than 6% after the company entered a $2.2 billion share subscription agreement with Abu Dhabi-based CYVN Holdings, expanding its ownership in Nio to 20.1%. — CNBC’s Lisa Kailai Han, Samantha Subin, Yun Li and Michelle Fox contributed reporting
A worker sorts out parcels in the outbound dock at the Amazon fulfillment center in Eastvale, California, on Aug. 31, 2021.
Watchara Phomicinda | MediaNews Group | The Riverside Press-Enterprise via Getty Images
It was late in the day on Oct. 27, 2021, when Fred Ruckel received the dreaded automated email from Amazon.
Amazon’s software had detected that Ruckel’s popular cat toy, called the Ripple Rug, was being sold somewhere else for a cheaper price. His product would no longer be shown in Amazon’s all-important buy box, an area of the listing where shoppers click “Add to Cart.” Ruckel is the sole seller of the Ripple Rug on Amazon, so the move all but ensured his product would disappear from the website, costing him thousands of dollars per day.
“Below is a list of product(s) in your catalog that are not currently eligible to be the Featured Offer because they are not priced competitively compared to prices for those products from retailers outside Amazon,” according to the email, which was viewed by CNBC.
Unbeknownst to him, Chewy was running a discount promotion, and dropped the price of his product by a few dollars to $39.99 – less than the $43 offer on Amazon. The algorithm had flagged it as a lower offer, even though the item on Chewy cost $48.54 after shipping and taxes. Ruckel had to make a choice: Lower the price on Amazon or ask Chewy to raise the price of his product. He opted for the latter.
Fred Ruckel’s company Snuggly Cat makes Ripple Rug, an interactive play mat for cats.
Fred Ruckel
Nearly three years later, Ruckel’s experience hits at the core of a sweeping antitrust lawsuit filed last week by the Federal Trade Commission against Amazon. The agency accused Amazon of wielding its monopoly power to squeeze merchants and thwart rivals. For consumers, that’s led to artificially inflated prices and a degraded shopping experience, the agency alleges.
In the 172-page suit, the FTC said Amazon relies on an “anti-discounting strategy” and a “massive web-crawling apparatus that constantly tracks online prices” to stifle competition. The agency said Amazon punishes third-party sellers who offer cheaper products elsewhere by threatening to disqualify them from appearing in the buy box if it detects a lower price. Losing the buy box is an “existential threat” to sellers’ businesses, the complaint alleges.
The end result of these tactics, the FTC argues, is elevated prices across the web. The company steadily hikes the fees it charges sellers and prevents them from discounting on other sites, so sellers often inflate their prices off of Amazon, creating an “artificial price floor everywhere,” according to the complaint.
The FTC is seeking to hold Amazon liable for allegedly violating anti-monopoly law, though it has not yet outlined the specific remedies it believes would best resolve its concerns. In antitrust cases, remedies are often determined only after a court finds the defendant liable.
In a blog post, Amazon general counsel David Zapolsky said third-party sellers set their own prices on the marketplace. The company also invests in tools to help sellers offer “competitive prices,” he said.
“Even with those tools, some of the businesses selling on Amazon might still choose to set prices that aren’t competitive,” Zapolsky said. “Just like any store owner who wouldn’t want to promote a bad deal to their customers, we don’t highlight or promote offers that are not competitively priced.”
Zapolsky argued the FTC’s lawsuit could force it to stop highlighting low prices, “a perverse result that would be directly opposed to the goals of antitrust law.”
On Amazon’s own forum for merchants, called Seller Central, several users cheered on the FTC and said they hoped it would result in changes to the company’s business practices. Amazon’s tense relationship with merchants has been well-chronicled over the years, with sellers expressing a range of grievances over issues like rising fees, an arcane suspensions process, and heightened competition on the marketplace from all sides, including the e-commerce giant.
“I think it’s great, Amazon deserves it,” one person commented, adding, “More should be coming on the way.” Amazon in recent years made the forum anonymous, but users must have a seller account in order to post.
Another post included a screenshot of a message Amazon sent to sellers the day after the FTC filed its complaint, which said, “As your partners, we know that this news may generate questions for you and our business together. This lawsuit does not change anything about our relationship with you or how we operate today.”
One user called it “BS verbiage,” adding, “Businesses that sell in their store are indeed customers. And which of us has gotten good customer service?”
Another user described their experience in the last 12 months of selling on Amazon as “being up all night at an effing casino but I’m stuck, the drugs are starting to wear off, but I’m trying to break even on the mortgage payment I’m using to play. That’s how it is selling on Amazon right now to me.”
The seller went on to describe the experience as a “race to the bottom.”
“It’s long overdue,” another commenter wrote. “When they close me down, I’m applying for a job with the FTC.”
Still, others commented that the FTC’s complaint is misguided. “Selling on Amazon is a life-changing opportunity and the amount of sellers that throw stones at the platform is astounding,” one user wrote.
Even sellers who may be sympathetic to the idea of regulating Amazon have concerns, specifically that the FTC’s highlighted issues aren’t necessarily ones that would make the seller and consumer experience better.
Scott Needham, who sells on Amazon and runs a product-finder tool for other Amazon sellers, said he was “surprised by some of the points that the FTC selected.”
“I have over the years been very critical of Amazon,” Needham told CNBC. “I’ve lost a lot of sleep because of some of the things that they have done. And the issues that they brought up, while they are interesting, they haven’t created me a lot of pain.”
Needham said he was particularly puzzled by the inclusion of the claims that Amazon is coercive in the way it encourages sellers to use its fulfillment service, known as Fulfillment by Amazon, or FBA.
Needham said many sellers “love FBA” because of its compelling value in terms of the price and promise to deliver two-day shipping. For many, using FBA doesn’t feel like a requirement, but they believe using it will make their businesses “easier and more effective.”
“I think that the power that Amazon wields over sellers is considerable and absolutely worth looking into,” Needham said. “But I’m not sure if this would actually change that.”
Scott Moller, an Amazon seller and co-founder of an agency that helps merchants run their storefronts, said the e-commerce giant has removed some of the challenges that used to be part of running an online business. With FBA, he said, he can ship an item into one of Amazon’s warehouses for $7.49 per package, while shipping it himself through a traditional carrier would cost him about $12.
“I don’t have to have my own warehouse,” said Moller, who sells grilling accessories on Amazon under the brand Grill Sergeant. “I can use their staff, their storage, and I can instantly also take the data of advertising, so I can target ads.”
He also disputed the FTC’s claim that Amazon has become littered with ads in search results, causing shoppers to wade through potentially less-relevant products of lesser quality.
“We can tailor our ads to hit exactly the consumers we want,” Moller said. “It’s a perfect marriage of a transaction, and that’s one of the beauties of what their marketplace offers.”
Needham said he feels he would have been more supportive of the case if it were filed a few years ago, pre-pandemic.
At that time, he said, “I would have felt, yes Amazon is a monopoly… But actually after Covid, into 2023, ecommerce has had a lot of big changes.” He added, “The competition is just not what it was in 2019.”
Competitors like Shopify and Walmart are increasingly viable alternatives for many categories of sellers, Needham said, not to mention rapidly growing Chinese e=commerce companies like Temu.
As a result, Needham said he’s seen some significant changes from Amazon. Among those is a greater ability for Amazon sellers to communicate with buyers, offering select customers certain promotions. Shopify, for example, gives sellers much more control over how they communicate with customers, Needham said, adding that although Amazon still controls the communication process, at least there is one.
“I wish it was a clear-cut case,” Needham said. “I have a vested interest in the marketplace doing really well, as a seller and as a service provider. And… this case, it doesn’t make the marketplace better for sellers.”
Many sellers have zeroed in on Amazon’s pricing policies and rising fees as rightful areas of concern in the FTC’s lawsuit.
Molson Hart, whose company Viahart sells toys on Amazon, has been a longtime critic of Amazon’s pricing policies. Hart complained of how Amazon’s seller fees impact pricing in a 2019 Medium post and later that year testified about his experience before a House committee.
Hart said Amazon sales comprise about 90% of his business, meaning any hit those sales take on Amazon has a considerable impact.
He recalled “24 anxious hours” in September 2022 when a third-party seller of his popular construction toy Brain Flakes listed the toy for a lower price on Target than it was offered on Amazon.
Molson Hart, CEO of Viahart, an educational toy company that sells on Amazon.
Courtesy: Molson Hart
“When our product was suppressed on Amazon, we lost $4,000 worth of sales. And you face some negative effects after that,” Hart said. “It’s harder to find your product in search. When your product disappears from Amazon, it sort of damages it in search, as far as I can tell.”
Even Needham, who was not fully convinced about the direction of the FTC’s case, said he sees some issues with the buy box. He said that sellers often find it frustrating if another platform listing their product, such as Walmart, offers a promotion that decreases the price more than that of the Amazon listing, and if that happens, Amazon will often “suppress the listing” rather than “chasing down the price.”
Opponents of the lawsuit, such as Moller, argue that Amazon aggressively polices prices because it only wants to show the best deals on its site.
“If Amazon discovers Walmart is selling my tool for $10 less, they’re going to say you need to match it,” Moller told CNBC. “The consumer is going to start on Amazon, then look elsewhere. Amazon wants to be a trusted marketplace, so to me, it’s a pro that they do this.”
Still, Needham said he’s noticed instances where Amazon will highlight its own listing in the buy box rather than those of competing sellers, even when Amazon’s price is slightly higher and other sellers have the Prime badge.
“That is a very clear case of this is not what’s best for the consumer,” Needham said. “The consumer doesn’t know that they could be saving more money by buying from somewhere else on the Amazon platform.”
Needham said the pricing issue has forced him to scale back one of his businesses on Amazon that resells branded goods. In some cases, he said, he’d have to price the same products Amazon sells at about 10% lower than the e-commerce giant in order to effectively compete, which also creates an “opportunity cost.”
Hart isn’t very interested in seeing Amazon broken up, but he said that if the lawsuit “ultimately results in Amazon ending their pricing policy, I think that that would be a good thing.”
Ruckel, the pet toy maker, said he stopped selling on Amazon in January, fed up by not only what he called “anticompetitive price fixing,” but also the “tremendous fees” the company charges. He said he was driven over the edge by a recently-announced policy requiring sellers to pay a “remeasure fee” if a customer returns a package in a bigger box than what it was shipped in, or the box isn’t the same size as the item dimensions listed on the product page.
Pulling the plug on Amazon wasn’t an easy decision, Ruckel said, estimating he’s lost $300,000 in sales in the time since he walked away from the platform. But he continues to sell on other platforms including Chewy, Etsy and his own website.
Despite the financial hit he expects to take this year, Ruckel said he feels he made the right decision.
“It’s not good for your mental health to sell on Amazon,” he said. “You’re walking on eggshells every minute of the day.”
This story is part of CNBC Make It’s Six-Figure Side Hustle series, where people with lucrative side hustles break down the routines and habits they’ve used to make money on top of their full-time jobs. Got a story to tell? Let us know! Email us at AskMakeIt@cnbc.com.
It took Rodney Melton just over a year to build a six-figure side hustle.
In March 2021, Melton started molding, engraving and selling headstones for pet memorials on Etsy. He’d long worked with concrete and stone as a hobby, while working 60 hours per week as a maintenance lead at Mars Pet Care.
He already owned a $15,000 engraver. Plus, he could work in his self-built workshop behind his home in Alma, Arkansas, a town of less than 6,000 people on the edge of the Ozark Mountains.
At first, it took Melton two or three days to set the headstones in molds, then another five hours to engrave them before his wife added epoxy filling. As his side hustle grew, revenue started pouring in — so he used a combination of proceeds and savings to invest another $51,500 in other tools, like a sandblaster, granite saw and chisel, and laser engraver.
Each new piece of equipment minimized Melton’s production time, allowing him to sell more headstones. In May 2022, his Etsy shop brought in nearly $20,000, and Melton left his full-time job. Now he works fewer hours and spends them with his family, after hiring his daughter and daughter-in-law last summer.
Last year, the four-person operation brought in more than $207,000 on Etsy, according to documents reviewed by CNBC Make It. About two-thirds of that is profit, Melton estimates, and he’s on track to make roughly the same amount this year.
Here, he discusses how he built his business, why he likes working with family members and what you might need to replicate his success.
CNBC Make It: Do you think your side hustle is replicable? What do you need to get started?
Melton: Anyone can do this. I’d say you need $10,000 or less to get started. That’s for cement molds and sandblast equipment.
It’s just a matter of having the passion for it. My mom passed at the end of 2020, and my dad and I were taking it really hard. I started making things, like concrete crosses, 3D roses and plaques. Just little memorial pieces that turned out really nice.
Then, my friend Carlos lost his dog Molly. I think those things had a lot to do with the direction I went. My heart has been in it for the people [who lose their pets]. But by result, if you serve more people, you make more money.
Have you had to set any boundaries working with your family?
Not really. If you have an alpha personality and are really assertive, it might clash with some of your family members. But if you let everybody have a part it in, things can run smoothly.
In the beginning, my wife and I would meet my daughter Kristen for lunch, one day a week. We would just sit there and talk about things and brainstorm. She came up with an idea for a concrete mold shaped like a dog bone. We’ve sold thousands of dollars’ worth [of them] since.
Melton’s daughter, Kristen, cutting granite.
Rodney Melton
Now, Kristen has taken over a lot. She keeps me in line on what needs to be done. I’ll go out [to the workshop] and there’ll be a sticky note that says, “Dad, you need to pour seven beige stones today.”
How has creating pet memorials full-time impacted your work-life balance?
My wife, daughter and daughter-in-law, we all work about five hours per day now. I work 75 feet out my back door — it’s freed up so much time and given me the opportunity to just be with my family a whole lot more.
I like to sleep in and work into the evening a little bit. I’m my own boss, which has its downfalls. But it still isn’t a full-time job. I can mow the yard, clean the house.
It’s helped all of us. My daughter wasn’t happy with where she worked at the time. My daughter-in-law, who helps us design the stencils, was a stay-at-home mom and wanted something to do. She makes a few hundred bucks a week, and instead of paying for daycare, stays at home with her kids.
I can make a good living shipping everything the way we do now. If I were in my 30s, I would probably gear up and do big headstones for cemeteries. But those are much bigger items.
I’m in talks with a local monument company to start updating shared headstones in cemeteries. Maybe we’ll go in that direction next year.
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Workers fulfill orders at an Amazon fulfillment center on Prime Day in Melville, New York, US, on Tuesday, July 11, 2023.
Johnny Milano | Bloomberg | Getty Images
For the millions of sellers who make up the booming Amazon marketplace, few things are as perpetually concerning as the threat of getting suspended for alleged wrongdoing and watching business evaporate overnight.
Helping third-party sellers recover their accounts has turned into a large and lucrative enterprise, because the only way the merchants can get back up and running is to admit guilt and correct the issue or show sufficient evidence that they did nothing wrong. The process is often costly, lengthy and fraught with challenges.
Enter the illicit broker.
For a fee of $200 to $400, sellers can pay for services such as “Amazon Magic,” as one broker on encrypted messaging service Telegram calls it. The offerings also include access to company insiders who can remove negative reviews on a product and provide information on competitors. Users are told to send a private message to learn the price of certain services.
The Telegram group has over 13,000 members, and it’s far from the only one. Other brokers peddle similar services on Telegram as well as on WeChat, WhatsApp and Facebook Groups. The confidential data is promoted as intelligence gold for any seller working to get their product or account reinstated.
The groups are part of a robust market of so-called black hat service providers that have cropped up alongside the rise of third-party marketplaces on Amazon, Etsy and Walmart. Amazon’s marketplace now accounts for over 60% of goods sold on the platform, and includes numerous businesses that generate millions of dollars in annual revenue on the site.
As it’s grown, the sprawling global marketplace has also seen a surge in the number of counterfeiters and spammers trying to game the system, which has pushed Amazon to ramp up enforcement. Much of the activity originates off Amazon’s marketplace and on social media and encrypted messaging apps, complicating the policing efforts.
A public Facebook page identified by CNBC offers an internal screenshot service with “valuable insight into your seller account, allowing you to see how Amazon employees view your account and its performance.”
Facebook parent Meta didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The issue of rogue employees taking bribes is not a new one for Amazon. The company has in the past dealt with low-level, low-wage seller support staffers in China, India and Costa Rica who have accepted payments in exchange for leaking information.
Brokers, who act as middlemen between sellers and employees, often reach out to insiders on LinkedIn, said a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be named due to confidentiality. Amazon has an internal group tasked with threat analysis and response, including a team dedicated to investigating employees suspected of leaking data, the source said. The threat analysis unit monitors social media platforms for abusive groups where bad actors may congregate before engaging in illicit activity on Amazon’s marketplace.
Amazon told CNBC that it has systems in place to detect suspicious behavior such as improper access to confidential data and investigates these activities, sharing information with law enforcement agencies. It reports abusive groups to social media platforms and encrypted messaging services, where bad actors are increasingly concentrating their activities in order to avoid detection, the company said.
“There is no place for fraud at Amazon and we will continue to pursue all measures to protect our store and hold bad actors accountable,” Christy Distefano, an Amazon spokesperson, said in an email.
Amazon declined to say whether it has disciplined or fired employees for leaking data in exchange for payments, beyond noting that it has zero tolerance for staffers who violate its policies.
In 2018, Amazon investigated claims that employees, primarily based in China, received payments of $80 to more than $2,000 to share confidential sales information or delete bad reviews, The Wall Street Journal reported. More recently, the Department of Justice charged six individuals in 2020 with participating in a scheme to bribe employees and contractors for internal data.
In July, the fifth defendant in the case, who is a well-known seller consultant, was sentenced to probation and house arrest after pleading guilty in March. Account annotations, internal notes from an Amazon staffer on a seller’s account, were among the confidential data being exchanged between the defendants and employees.
Amazon said it uncovered the suspicious behavior related to the bribery case in 2018 and reported it to the FBI. The company said it had “robust systems” in place to detect suspicious behavior such as fraud and abuse. Amazon has also urged social media companies to assist it with rooting out fraudulent activity such as fake reviews.
While Amazon is aware of the problem and is investing in people and technology to weed it out, groups continue to proliferate into the hundreds, the person with knowledge of the issue told CNBC. Accessing groups on encrypted chat apps such as Telegram, WeChat or WhatsApp may require a link or invitation.
Remi Vaughn, a spokesperson for Telegram, told CNBC in an email that “moderators proactively monitor public parts of the platform and accept user reports in order to remove content that breaches our terms of service.”
The Amazon Magic group on Telegram is public, with users advertising black hat services almost daily. Screenshots of Amazon’s internal Paragon system, which is used by seller support employees to handle cases, are distributed freely in the group. CNBC authenticated the legitimacy of the screenshots with sources knowledgeable of the system.
“Much more you can find about your account by ordering screenshots with inside information from us, as seller support sees it,” a message in the Telegram chat states.
Many of the messages in the group are in Russian, and a user who runs the group claims on Facebook to be based in Ukraine. The person didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Group administrators list a full menu of services available in an online spreadsheet. Annotations, which often include more detailed information than the suspension notifications, are priced at $180 apiece, and attacks on a competitor’s listing vary in pricing. Securing an upvote on a review, a tactic used to manipulate trustworthiness or popularity of a product, costs 50 cents. The brokers guarantee buyers they can deliver the goods within one to two business days.
Amazon sellers have for years complained of being unfairly kicked off the site without explanation. The process of getting their account back can take months, costing critical sales in the meantime. The issue was a key focus of a 16-month investigation by the House Antitrust Subcommittee into competitive practices at Amazon and other Big Tech companies.
“When Amazon turns off the faucet, everything goes to hell,” said Cynthia Stine, president of eGrowth Partners, a consultancy that helps merchants get reinstated. “I’ve had CEOs of large companies cry on the phone with me, and they’ve had to lay off their people. They’ve declared bankruptcy.”
Account annotations are like an “insurance policy” for sellers who’ve been suspended, Stine said. She said she comes across potential clients who have purchased annotations and are seeking to regain selling privileges roughly once or twice a month. As black hat brokers and consultants have multiplied over the years, it’s eaten into her business, Stine said.
“For a time, people wouldn’t even come to us, they would just go work with whoever they bought the data from,” she added.
Amazon has previously said it has processes in place to help sellers avoid deactivation and get reinstated when appropriate. The company disputed claims that the chaotic and costly suspension process justifies illicit tactics such as buying confidential data.
“There is no place for fraud at Amazon and no excuse for resorting to illegal activities,” an Amazon spokesperson told CNBC last month.
Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) speaks during Attorney General nominee Merrick Garland’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Washington, DC, February 22, 2021.
Al Drago | Pool | Reuters
WASHINGTON — Sens. Cory Booker and Raphael Warnock have urged the CEOs of 10 major banks to waive overdraft and nonsufficient fund fees that could cost some Americans more than $100 a day in the wake of the failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.
“Disruptions across the banking industry this month rattled consumers and threw into jeopardy the paychecks of millions of American workers,” wrote Booker, who is a member of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship, and Warnock.
The fees, which can reach up to $111 a day for low account balances or up to $175 on low account fees, “compound the difficult financial situation customers find themselves in, particularly when their lack of funds is due to an unprecedented, unexpected delay,” the senators added.
JPMorgan declined to comment. The other banks that received the letters did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation closed SVB on March 10 after the bank announced a nearly $2 billion loss in asset sales. The agency said SVB’s official checks would continue to clear and assets would be accessible the following day.
Regulators shuttered New York-based Signature Bank days later in an effort to stall a potential banking crisis. Many of its assets have since been sold to Flagstar Bank, a subsidiary of New York Community Bankcorp.
Booker and Warnock said banking customers whose paydays fell between March 10 and March 13 were unable to receive or deposit checks from payroll providers banking with SVB and Signature Bank. They also noted that online merchant Etsy notified customers of payment delays because it used SVB payment processing.
The senators also cited an unrelated, nationwide technical glitch on the 10th that caused missing payments and incorrect balances for Wells Fargo customers.
“These delays will disproportionately harm the impacted customers who are part of the sixty-four percent of Americans living paycheck-to-paycheck, who are often ‘minutes to hours away from having the money necessary to cover’ expenses that lead to overdraft nonsufficient fund fees,” Booker and Warnock wrote.
They praised steps taken by the Treasury and the FDIC to stem a possible economic catastrophe by ensuring access to depositor funds over the $250,000 FDIC-guarantee threshold and creating a new, one-year loan to financial institutions to safeguard deposits in times of stress.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Tuesday said the Treasury is prepared to guarantee all deposits for financial institutions beyond SVB and Signature Bank if the crisis worsens.
“In line with quick, decisive government response to assist the businesses and individuals who were helped immediately in order to contain the broader fallout of these bank failures, we urge you to act with similar urgency to backstop American families from unexpected and undeserved charges,” the senators wrote.
An employee walks past a quilt displaying Etsy Inc. signage at the company’s headquarters in the Brooklyn.
Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Etsy is warning sellers that the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank on Friday is causing delays in processing payments, according to an email from the company shared with NBC News.
The online do-it-yourself goods mega shop said it used SVB to facilitate disbursement to some sellers, and that it was working with other payment partners to issue deposits.
“We wanted to let you know that there is a delay with your deposit that was scheduled for today,” the email from Etsy said.
“We know that you count on us to help run your business and we understand how important it is for you to receive your funds when you need them,” the email continued. “Please know that our teams are working hard to resolve this issue and send you your funds as quickly as possible.”
Etsy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Etsy claims 7.5 million sellers worldwide. Regulators placed SVB into receivership around noon Friday to end a bank run on the tech lender that had begun Wednesday after it said it was seeking to raise more than $2 billion.
One affected Etsy seller told NBC News the deposits delay would have a “catastrophic” effect on his business.
Owen McKinney, who runs Kentucky Country Home laser engraving business, said in an email that he relies on the deposits to pay for items like shipping costs and materials. He said he had already reached out to one of his suppliers to delay an order for materials that he needed for next week.
“At this time, Etsy has not provided a time frame for the funds to be deposited,” McKinney said. “While I do have a website, Etsy remains a huge part of my business.”
The drama with SVB started earlier this week when the bank disclosed that it sold about $21 billion of securities and proposed to offer over $1 billion in shares, all to fundraise for “general corporate purposes.”
That move raised eyebrows among investors who pondered why SVB would need to raise so much money abruptly. It also worried depositors, many of whom suddenly wondered whether their money was safe and began pulling funds out.
On Friday, the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation said that it was taking over and closing SVB to protect deposits, naming the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation as its receiver. The FDIC has formed a separate entity where all insured SVB deposits — up to $250,000 per depositor — will be available by Monday morning.
The shutdown came after a tumultuous morning for SVB, during which trading of its shares was halted after they fell by double digits before markets opened. That downslide came on the heels of a more than 60% decline Thursday.
The closure marks the biggest bank failure since the 2008 financial crisis and the second-largest in U.S. history after Washington Mutual collapsed during that industry-wide meltdown, according to FDIC data.
E-commerce stocks skyrocketed during the height of the Covid pandemic, as at-home consumers made purchases online rather than in-store. But when the economy reopened, consumers prioritized spending on travel and experiences over goods.
That shift, along with the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hikes, sent e-commerce stocks tumbling from their highs last year.
Cramer cautioned that while he believes the group’s struggles are temporary, it’s still too early to buy many of the names in the e-commerce space — including Amazon.
He said that one of his biggest concerns with the company is that it needs to cut more costs. Amazon said earlier this month that it plans to lay off over 18,000 employees.
While that might seem like a sizable cut, “this is a company with well over a million employees — to them, this is a drop in the bucket,” Cramer said.
But Amazon’s stock will eventually bottom, he said. “I think the business can eventually make a big comeback and there will come a point where the stock’s a screaming buy.”
Disclaimer: Cramer’s Charitable Trust owns shares of Amazon.
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Anyone getting paid for their goods and services through apps like Venmo, PayPal or CashApp, or platforms like Etsy and Airbnb, just got a reprieve from the IRS.
Following concerns expressed by the tax community, the electronic transactions industry and some lawmakers, the IRS said Friday it would delay by one year the implementation of a rule change that would have resulted in a virtual paper chase of tax formsgoing out by January 31, 2023, to anyone using such apps for their business transactions.
The rule change requires third-party payment platforms to issue a 1099-K to the IRS and the app user for business transaction payments if they add up to more than $600 over the course of the year. A business transaction that is taxable is defined as apayment for a good or service, including tips.
It used to be those platforms only had to issue you a 1099-K if you engaged in more than 200 business transactions for which you received total payments of more than $20,000 in a year.
“The IRS and Treasury heard a number of concerns regarding the timeline of implementation of these changes under the American Rescue Plan,” said Acting IRS Commissioner Doug O’Donnell. “To help smooth the transition and ensure clarity for taxpayers, tax professionals and industry, the IRS will delay implementation of the 1099-K changes. The additional time will help reduce confusion during the upcoming 2023 tax filing season and provide more time for taxpayers to prepare and understand the new reporting requirements.”
Indeed, the increase in 1099-Ks issuedearly next year for people’s 2022 tax returns was expected to be, in a word, “ginormous,” according to Wendy Walker, who chairs the information reporting subgroup on the Internal Revenue Service Advisory Council.
Walker works as a solution principal for Sovos, which helps more than 30,000 business clients with tax compliance, including the issuance of all types of 1099s, of which there are at least 16 different varieties.
Some businesses that only had to issue a couple thousand 1099-Ks under the prior rules were looking at a couple hundred thousand, she noted. “Our clients … have reported enormous increases in their potential filing obligations as result of the threshold change,”Walker said.
Meanwhile, those receiving 1099-Ks for the first time will have to figure out what portion of the amount reported on the form is actually taxable versus what portion represents payments that may be deductible business expenses, such as a fee paid to the payment platform or a credit issued to the business, Walker said.
“People are just not going to understand how to take that gross amount and then work off the deductions to get to their taxable amount.”
The move was welcomed by those representing third-party payment platforms.
“Given the potential confusion the reporting requirement would cause, we applaud the delay, ” said Scott Talbott, spokesman for the Electronic Transactions Association. “The $600 reporting requirement is not worth the problems it would cause. ETA will keep working to increase the threshold to a realistic amount.”
How does ETA define realistic? A threshold that falls between $10,000 and $20,000, Talbott said. “ETA supports a reporting threshold that ties into regular businesses and not consumers occasionally selling a handbag or a bike online.”
The new rule doesn’t impose any additional taxes on anyone. Nor does it change your obligation as a taxpayer to always report to the IRS all of your taxable income from your business activities.
But the 1099-K reporting will make it harder for someone to evade the taxes they owe by underreporting their business income.
The rule also does not apply to personal transactions you conduct on an electronic payment platform. For example, if a friend sends you money through Venmo to help pay for a dinner out or your mother sends you some spending money.
Lastly, the 1099-K reporting rule does not apply to any transactions made through Zelle. That’s because Zelle is a payments clearinghouse that connects the payer’s bank account directly to the receiver’s bank account. “Zelle facilitates messaging between financial institutions, but does not hold accounts or handle settlement of funds,” the company said in a statement earlier this year.
But the IRS may still get reporting on at least some of your business transactions on Zelle, Walker said.
If there is a business-to-business payment over the Zelle network, the business that makes the payment must provide the receiving business and the IRS with either a 1099-NEC for non-employee compensation or a 1099-MISC for other expenses, she explained.
Like the 1099-K, those other forms also provide information to the IRS that will make it harder for businesses to understate their income in a tax year.
Researchers at the University of Vermont analyzed 1,000 TikTok videos under the most popular hashtags related to body image and eating
Jakub Porzycki | NurPhoto | Getty Images
Under the bipartisan spending bill that passed both chambers of Congress on Friday, TikTok will be banned from government devices, underscoring the growing concern about the popular video-sharing app owned by China’s ByteDance.
The bill, which still has to be signed into law by President Joe Biden, also calls on e-commerce platforms to do more vetting to help deter counterfeit goods from being sold online, and forces companies pursuing large mergers to pay more to file with federal antitrust agencies.
Center-left tech industry group Chamber of Progress cheered the exclusion of several antitrust bills that would have targeted its backers, which include Apple, Amazon, Google and Meta.
Another industry group, NetChoice, also applauded Congress for “refusing to include radical and unchecked progressive proposals to overhaul American antitrust law in this omnibus.”
But the bills lawmakers passed in the spending package will still make their mark on the tech industry in other ways.
The banning of TikTok on government devices could benefit rival platforms like Snap and Meta’s Facebook and Instagram that also fight for young consumers’ attention. The bill includes an exception for law enforcement, national security and research purposes.
Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, as well as FBI Director Christopher Wray, have voiced fear that TikTok’s ownership structure could make U.S. user data vulnerable, since companies based in China may be required by law to hand over user information. TikTok has repeatedly said its U.S. user data is not based in China, though those assurances have done little to alleviate concern.
The company has been working toward a deal with the administration to assuage national security fears through the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S.
“We’re disappointed that Congress has moved to ban TikTok on government devices — a political gesture that will do nothing to advance national security interests — rather than encouraging the Administration to conclude its national security review,” a TikTok spokesperson said in a statement following the release of the package text. “The agreement under review by CFIUS will meaningfully address any security concerns that have been raised at both the federal and state level. These plans have been developed under the oversight of our country’s top national security agencies — plans that we are well underway in implementing — to further secure our platform in the United States, and we will continue to brief lawmakers on them.”
The spending package also includes the INFORM Consumers Act, which seeks to deter counterfeit, stolen or harmful products from being sold online. The bill requires online marketplaces like Amazon to promptly collect information like bank and contact details from “any high-volume third party seller” and to verify that data.
“Passing the bipartisan INFORM Act would be a major victory for consumers, who deserve to know who they’re buying from when they visit an online marketplace,” Kovacevich said in a statement. “This legislation has been through years of hearings and markups and has earned the support of both parties as well as brick-and-mortar stores and online marketplaces.”
Etsy’s head of Americas advocacy and public policy, Jeffrey Zubricki, said in a statement the bill “will achieve our shared goal of protecting consumers from bad actors while avoiding overly broad disclosure requirements that would harm our sellers’ privacy and hinder their ability to run their creative businesses.”
While more ambitious antitrust measures targeting digital platforms didn’t make it into the end-of-year legislation, there is one bill to help raise money for the antitrust agencies that scrutinize mergers. The Merger Filing Fee Modernization Act will raise the cost companies pursuing large mergers must pay to file with the antitrust agencies, as they’re required to do under the law. The bill also lowers the cost for smaller deals and allows the fees to be adjusted each year based on the consumer price index.
The measure is meant to help fund the Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice Antitrust Division, which have seen a large uptick in merger filings over the past few years without adequate budget increases.
While it fell short of antitrust advocates’ hopes, the inclusion of the merger filing fee bill still gained praise.
“This is a major milestone for the anti-monopoly movement,” said Sarah Miller, executive director of the American Economic Liberties Project, backed in part by the Omidyar Network. Miller said the bill will “significantly strengthen antitrust law for the first time since 1976.”
“Big Tech, Big Ag and Big Pharma spent extraordinary sums in an unprecedented effort to keep Congress from delivering on antitrust reform and undermine the ability of state and federal enforcers to uphold the law — and they lost,” Miller added.
Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., who sponsored the bill, said in a statement earlier this week its inclusion “is an important step to restructure merger fees after decades of the status quo so we can provide our antitrust enforcers with the resources they need to do their jobs.”
“This is clearly the beginning of this fight and not the end,” she said. “I will continue to work across the aisle to protect consumers and strengthen competition.”
Another antitrust bill included in the package was a version of the State Antitrust Enforcement Venue Act. The bill gives state attorneys general the same power as federal enforcers in antitrust cases to choose the district in which they bring their cases and prevent them from being consolidated in a different district.
Under the legislation, companies defending against claims of antitrust violations won’t be able to pick what they perceive to be a more favorable venue to fight the case.
That’s what happened in an antitrust case against Google brought by a group of state attorneys general accusing the company of illegally monopolizing the digital advertising market. The company transferred the case from Texas to New York, to be heard alongside private antitrust complaints against the company in the pretrial proceedings.
The bipartisan RANSOMWARE Act also made it into the spending bill, requiring the FTC to report to Congress on the number and types of foreign ransomware or other cyberattack complaints it receives.
The FTC also must report to Congress trends in numbers it sees in these complaints, including those that come from individuals, companies or governments of foreign adversaries like China, North Korea, Iran and Russia. And it must share information on its litigation actions related to these cases and their results.
The FTC can also share recommendations for new laws to strengthen resilience against these attacks as well as for best practices that businesses can follow to protect themselves.
A version of the Children and Media Research Advancement (CAMRA) Act is included in the package, directing the Department of Health and Human Services to conduct or support research on the effects of media and technology on infants, kids and adolescents.
Those effects could include the impact on cognitive, mental and physical health by technologies like social media, artificial intelligence, video games or virtual reality, according to the legislation. The director of the National Institutes of Health must deliver a report to Congress on its work within two years of the law’s enactment.
Evercore ISI analyst Mark Mahaney sat down with CNBC Pro to share the tech names he is looking at going into 2022. He also breaks down what stocks he views in the travel space that could do well, even in a possible recession.
