The Novel Coronavirus outbreak has taken the world by storm and as countries scramble to fight the virus, the tech giants are fighting a totally different battle. Ever since the outbreak became global, tech companies are fighting to take down fake news and misinformation about the novel Coronavirus. Last week, both Facebook and Amazon took steps to remove products that were claiming to cure or protect people from Coronavirus.
Earlier today, Facebook decided to ban ads related to face masks to prevent price gouging. Now, eBay has confirmed that the company will be banning listings related to Disinfecting Wipes, face masks and hand sanitizers to prevent price gouging. In a notice to sellers posted Friday, eBay said it would “quickly remove any listing that mentions COVID-19.”
We will continue to monitor the evolving situation and quickly remove any listing that mentions COVID-19, coronavirus, 2019nCoV (except books) in the title or description. These listings may violate applicable US laws or regulations, eBay policies, and exhibit unfair pricing behavior for our buyers.
– eBay
Ever since the outbreak began, health and food items have seen a steep rise in price as businesses are trying to cash on the ongoing health crisis. According to CNBC, eBay has already removed over 20,000 listings for violating the terms of the agreement. Amazon, on the other hand, has removed over 1 million products for promising the cure or for price gouging.
The Novel Coronavirus outbreak has also forced companies to cancel their events. Last month, GSMA announced its decision to cancel MWC 2020 after most of the big players dropped out. This was then followed by Facebook cancelling F8 summit, Microsoft cancelling Ignite Tour in several countries and the cancellation of GDC 2020. Facebook has also cancelled its Global Marketing Summit which was followed by Oppo and Xiaomi cancelling their respective events. Earlier this week, Microsoft cancelled the MVP Global Summit while Adobe and Google cancelled their respective events.
