A new report has found that Amazon and Walmart's shopping bots largely avoided or said they couldn't access data on products ‘Made in USA.’
According to the report, Amazon's 'Alexa for Shopping' agent was able to provide a list of products “Made in China.”
A small tweak in the prompt asking Alexa to find items "in the USA" did return a list of US products.
RELATED STORY | New consumer alert warns about scams targeting previously defrauded individuals
A similar prompt change asked Walmart’s 'Sparky' to rank products from “High confidence” to “Low confidence/likely not US made" and it responded with a list of products.
The report is from a policy center co-founded by a former FTC chair.
Both Amazon and Walmart got letters from the FTC last year urging the retailers to crack down on third-party sellers falsely claiming their products are US made.
Amazon said it disagrees with the report’s conclusions, saying it readily gives country-of-origin information when available.
Walmart was contacted for comment.
The FTC declined to comment.
