1

3
AMERICAN ARBITRATION ASSOCIATION
4

5
AMAZON.COM, INC., a Delaware
6 corporation, No. ____________________

7 Claimant,

8 v.

9 THOMAS GLENN, aka THOMAS

CASTILLO, aka THOMAS GLENN
10 CASTILLO, an individual,

11 Respondent.

12
AMAZON.COM, INC.’S
13 DEMAND FOR ARBITRATION
14
Amazon.com, Inc. (“Amazon”), for its demand for arbitration, states as follows:
15
I. SUMMARY
16
1. Each day, millions of consumers use Amazon’s websites to assist with their
17
purchasing decisions. In order to make those decisions more informed, Amazon provides
18
Amazon Best Sellers, best-seller lists of all the products in the Amazon marketplace,
19
including general merchandise, physical books and the e-books sold in the Kindle Store.
20
The Kindle Store is home to hundreds of thousands of authors and millions of e-books.
21
2. One segment of books available in the Kindle Store are books self-
22
published on Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) service and sold by Amazon
23
Digital Services LLC and other Amazon affiliates on various Amazon websites. Authors
24
and publishers who use this service to deliver their books to their readers agree to the
25
KDP terms and conditions.

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 1 3. A very small minority of KDP authors or publishers attempt to gain an
2 unfair competitive advantage by manipulating Amazon Best Sellers to reflect false sales
3 for their self-published books sold on Amazon. Some of these KDP authors rely on online
4 “marketing” services to obtain false sales to cause e-books to rise the ranks of Amazon
5 Best Sellers. While small in number, the individuals offering to manipulate Amazon Best
6 Sellers threaten to undermine the trust that customers and the vast majority of KDP
7 authors place in Amazon, thereby tarnishing Amazon’s brand and the Kindle brand.
8 Amazon strictly prohibits any attempt to manipulate sales in the Amazon marketplace and
9 actively polices third-party websites offering services that contravene Amazon policies.
10 Despite substantial efforts to stamp out the practice, a small number of bad actors continue
11 to offer services to improperly manipulate Amazon Best Sellers.
12 4. Over the last year, Amazon has worked with cooperating KDP authors to
13 identify websites offering best-seller list manipulation and the individuals responsible for
14 the websites. Through these efforts, Amazon has identified numerous websites and the
15 Amazon users associated with these marketing schemes and demanded that they cease use
16 of the Amazon services and taken enforcement action against Amazon users embroiled in
17 these schemes by suspending or blocking their accounts. This demand for arbitration is a
18 continuation of that strategy and is intended to eliminate the incentives for KDP authors to
19 engage in these deceptive marketing practices.
20 5. Respondent Thomas Glenn (also known as Thomas Castillo and Thomas
21 Glenn Castillo) (“Respondent”) is a marketer of services to KDP authors that are designed
22 to improperly inflate Kindle sales, offered through the website freebookservice.com
23 (“Freebookservice”). Respondent’s marketing service attempts to manipulate Amazon’s
24 services to the detriment of customers. Freebookservice seeks to artificially inflate the
25 sales ranks of books, making them seem more popular and thereby confusing customers.

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 1 Respondent profits from this service by charging authors, both unscrupulous and those
2 taken in by the false hope his service is legitimate, a range of fees tied to the impact of his
3 nefarious work.
4 6. Through the actions of Respondent, numerous Amazon user accounts have
5 been created by which to manifest the service he offers. Respondent has engaged in an
6 extensive and concerted effort to tortiously induce KDP authors and publishers to breach
7 the KDP Terms and Conditions, to mislead Amazon’s customers, and to manipulate
8 Amazon Best Sellers. Respondent has knowingly violated Amazon’s Conditions of Use,
9 and has used deception and artifice in an attempt to circumvent Amazon’s investigative
10 and enforcement efforts. Respondent has induced KDP authors and publishers to
11 artificially inflate the ranking of books by offering the books for limited-time free
12 promotions and then repeatedly downloading the books from systematically generated
13 Amazon customer accounts.
14 7. Amazon brings this arbitration demand to terminate Respondent’s activity
15 on the KDP service and to force disgorgement of Respondent’s ill-gotten gains.
16 8. In this proceeding, Amazon brings claims for violations of §43 of the
17 Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. §1125(a) (Unfair Competition/False Advertising); violations of
18 the Washington Consumer Protection Act (RCW Ch. 19.86); breach of contract; and
19 violation of Washington common law.
20 II. THE PARTIES
21 9. Amazon is a Delaware corporation with its principal place of business in
22 Seattle, Washington. Amazon owns and operates the Amazon.com website, and
23 equivalent international websites. Amazon has more than 250 million active customers.
24

25

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 1 10. Respondent Thomas Glenn is an individual who resides in Miami, Florida.
2 Respondent is responsible for the actions of the various marketing services offered at
3 Freebookservice.
4 11. Respondent caused to be created fake Amazon accounts to download the e-
5 books of KDP authors. On one or more occasions, Respondent has agreed to Amazon’s
6 Conditions of Use (Exhibit 1), and thereby and has agreed that any dispute with Amazon
7 will be resolved by binding arbitration conducted by the American Arbitration Association
8 (AAA) under AAA rules. The KDP authors Respondent has induced to use
9 Freebookservice have agreed to the KDP Terms and Conditions (Exhibit 2) and have
10 thereby affirmatively agreed to the Amazon Community Guidelines (Exhibit 3).
11 III. AMAZON BEST SELLERS
12 12. Amazon provides its customers with aggregate sales information on all of
13 the products and services available on its websites. Sales are ranked on Amazon Best
14 Sellers in thousands of categories and subcategories to enable customers to easily view
15 popular and endorsed products. Consumers rely on these rankings to make informed
16 purchasing decisions. Customers trust that Amazon Best Sellers reflect honest, helpful,
17 and authentic sales through the Kindle Store.
18 13. Amazon prohibits manipulating Amazon Best Sellers by use of improper
19 mass e-mailings and the creation of false Amazon accounts, as provided in its Conditions
20 of Use. Barred conduct includes posting content that contains “commercial solicitation,
21 chain letters, mass mailings, or any form of ‘spam’ or unsolicited commercial electronic
22 messages.” The Conditions of Use also prohibit the misleading of Amazon customers
23 through misleading content, stating that users “may not use a false e-mail address,
24 impersonate any person or entity, or otherwise mislead as to the origin of a card or other
25 content.” Exhibit 1. The Conditions of Use also state that “No Amazon Service, nor any

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 1 part of any Amazon Service, may be … exploited for any commercial purpose without
2 express written consent of Amazon.” Id.
3 14. KDP authors and publishers agree to the KDP Terms and Conditions,
4 Exhibit 2, which incorporate Amazon’s Community Guidelines, Exhibit 3.
5 15. The Community Guidelines bar illegal activity on the Amazon websites,
6 barring “[c]ontent offering fraudulent goods, services, schemes, or promotions.” Exhibit
7 3. The Community Guidelines also state possible consequences for engaging in barred
8 conduct:
9
Any attempt to manipulate Community content or features, including by
10 contributing false, misleading, or inauthentic content, is strictly
prohibited. If you violate our Guidelines, we may restrict your ability to
11 use Community features, remove content, delist related products, or
suspend or terminate your account. If we determine that an Amazon
12 account has been used to engage in any form of misconduct, remittances
and payments may be withheld or permanently forfeited.
13

14 Exhibit 3.

15 16. Amazon takes the integrity of Amazon Best Sellers very seriously.

16 Amazon has developed sophisticated technologies and protocols to detect and remove
17 products from the Kindle Store whose Amazon Best Seller rank is the result of a
18
fraudulent promotion or sale to false email address.
19
IV. RESPONDENT’S ILLEGAL ACTS
20
17. On or around March 14, 2016, Respondent registered the Thomas Glenn
21
Amazon account. In creating the Thomas Glenn Amazon account, Respondent agreed to
22
Amazon Conditions of Use.
23
18. On information and belief, Respondent has caused to be created fake
24
Amazon Kindle Store users.
25

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 1 19. KDP authors and publishers agree to the KDP Terms and Conditions,
2 which incorporate the Amazon Community Guidelines.
3 20. Respondent owns or controls the third-party marketing site
4 Freebookservice, which offers to KDP publishers the ability to artificially inflate their
5 ranking within Amazon Best Sellers; false Amazon user accounts are utilized to effect the
6 fraudulent scheme. The Freebookservice website offers its buyers a guarantee related to
7 Amazon Best Sellers, stating the service can “quickly pull your book from the bottom of
8 the ranks and boost it to the top of the seller charts.” The site also touts: “We have been
9 using our network to create an empire of ebook bestsellers... (Over 100 Books of our own
10 now!) and we’re ready to offer the same service we’ve been using to produce best seller
11 after best seller. Our networks are comprised of almost 700,000 active ebook readers. We
12 Guarantee over 10,000 free downloads to your next promotion-- Starting as soon as
13 tomorrow.”
14 21. Through his ownership or control of Freebookservice, Respondent reached
15 KDP authors and publishers, who had known agreements with Amazon that prohibit “any
16 attempt to manipulate Community content.” Exhibit 3. Respondent intended interfere
17 with the KDP authors’ or publishers’ agreements with Amazon, and by selling promotion
18 through Freebookservice, actually interfered with KDP authors’ or publishers’ agreements
19 with Amazon. The interference was improper and harmed Amazon.
20 22. Amazon has never given Respondent or Freebookservice consent to exploit
21 Amazon Best Sellers in this manner.
22 23. At all times, Respondent knew that Amazon’s policies prohibited his
23 activities, and knew and intended that Respondent’s actions would deceive customers.
24 The result of these intentional efforts is the deception of Amazon’s customers and unfair
25 competition with KDP authors in the Amazon marketplace.

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 1 FIRST CLAIM FOR RELIEF
Federal Unfair Competition (Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1125(a))
2
24. Amazon incorporates by reference the allegations of each and every one of
3
the preceding paragraphs as though fully set forth herein.
4
25. Through Respondent’s conduct false and misleading statements of fact
5
appeared in the commercial advertisement of e-books sold on the Amazon.com website.
6
26. Those statements deceived or had the capacity to deceive a substantial
7
segment of potential consumers.
8
27. The deception was material, in that it was likely to influence consumers’
9
purchasing decisions.
10
28. Respondent’s acts constitute implied or willful false statements in
11
connection with products and/or services distributed in interstate commerce, in violation
12
of section 43(a) of the Lanham Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1125(a).
13
29. Respondent’s acts have caused irreparable injury to Amazon. The injury to
14
Amazon is and continues to be ongoing and irreparable. An award of monetary damages
15
alone cannot fully compensate Amazon for its injuries and Amazon lacks an adequate
16
remedy at law.
17
30. Amazon is entitled to an injunction against Respondent, as well as all other
18
remedies available under the Lanham Act, including, but not limited to, compensatory
19
damages, treble damages, disgorgement of profits, and costs and attorneys’ fees.
20

21 SECOND CLAIM FOR RELIEF

Consumer Protection Act (R.C.W. Ch. 19.86)
22
31. Amazon incorporates by reference the allegations of each and every one of
23
the preceding paragraphs as though fully set forth herein.
24

25

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 1 32. Respondent has engaged in unfair and deceptive acts and practices
2 occurring in trade or commerce in violation of the Washington Consumer Protection Act,
3 R.C.W. Ch. 19.86.
4 33. Respondent’s actions were injurious to the public interest. The acts were
5 committed in the course of Respondent’s business, and caused the public dissemination of
6 false consumer reviews designed to trick consumers. Respondent’s acts had the capacity
7 to, and did indeed, harm consumers.
8 34. Respondent’s unfair and deceptive business practices have unjustly
9 harmed Amazon and are causing Amazon to suffer damages.
10 35. Amazon is entitled to treble damages and attorneys’ fees, pursuant to
11 R.C.W. 19.86.090.
12 36. As a result of such unfair and deceptive acts and practices, Amazon has
13 also suffered irreparable injury and, unless Respondent is enjoined from such unfair
14 competition, will continue to suffer irreparable injury, whereby Amazon has no adequate
15 remedy at law.
THIRD CLAIM FOR RELIEF
16 Breach of Contract
17 37. Amazon incorporates by reference the allegations of each and every one of
18 the preceding paragraphs as though fully set forth herein.
19 38. Respondent established or caused to be established one or more Amazon
20 accounts and has agreed to Amazon’s Conditions of Use.
21 39. Respondent’s actions constitute material breaches of Respondent’s
22 contractual obligations to Amazon, as a result of which Amazon has been damaged in an
23 amount to be proven at trial.
24 40. Respondent’s acts have caused irreparable injury to Amazon. The injury to
25 Amazon is and continues to be ongoing and irreparable. An award of monetary damages

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 1 alone cannot fully compensate Amazon for its injuries and Amazon lacks an adequate
2 remedy at law. Amazon is entitled to an injunction against Respondent.
3 FOURTH CLAIM FOR RELIEF
Unjust Enrichment/Restitution
4
41. Amazon incorporates by reference the allegations of each and every one of
5
the preceding paragraphs as though fully set forth herein.
6
42. Respondent unjustly received benefits at Amazon’s expense through
7
Respondent’s wrongful conduct, including their interference with Amazon’s business
8
relationships and other unfair business practices. Respondent continues to unjustly retain
9
these benefits at Amazon’s expense. It would be unjust for Respondent to retain any
10
value Respondent obtained as a result of Respondent’s wrongful conduct.
11
43. Amazon is entitled to the establishment of a constructive trust consisting of
12
the benefit conferred upon Respondent by the revenues derived from Respondent’s
13
wrongful conduct at Amazon’s expense, and all profits derived from that wrongful
14
conduct. Amazon is further entitled to full restitution of all amounts in which Respondent
15
has been unjustly enriched at Amazon’s expense.
16
FIFTH CLAIM FOR RELIEF
17 Tortious Interference with a Contract
18 44. Amazon incorporates by reference the allegations of each and every one of
19 the preceding paragraphs as though fully set forth herein.
20 45. Respondent offered and sold his services to KDP authors or publishers via
21 his ownership or control of Freebookservice, and these KDP authors or publishers had
22 known agreements with Amazon binding them to the KDP Terms of Conditions and
23 Community Guidelines.
24 46. Respondent intended to interfere with the KDP authors’ or publishers’
25 agreements with Amazon, and by selling promotion through Freebookservice, actually

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 1 interfered with KDP authors’ or publishers’ agreements with Amazon. The interference
2 was improper.
3 47. Respondent’s acts have caused irreparable injury to Amazon. The injury to
4 Amazon is and continues to be ongoing and irreparable. An award of monetary damages
5 alone cannot fully compensate Amazon for its injuries and Amazon lacks an adequate
6 remedy at law. Amazon is entitled to an injunction against Respondent.
7 REQUESTED HEARING LOCATION
8 48. Amazon respectfully requests a hearing in Seattle, Washington, or at
9 another mutually agreed location.
10 PRAYER FOR RELIEF
11 WHEREFORE, Amazon respectfully requests judgment as follows:
12 1. That the Arbitrator issue permanent and injunctive relief against the
13 Respondent and that Respondent, Respondent’ officers, agents, employees,
14 representatives, successors and assigns, and all others in active concert or
15 participation with Respondent be enjoined from:
16 (a) selling products on any of Amazon’s websites;
17 (b) opening any Amazon accounts;
18 (c) accessing Amazon’s services in any manner whatsoever; and
19 (d) assisting, aiding or abetting any other person or business entity in
20 engaging or performing any of the activities referred to in subparagraphs (a)
21 through (c) above.
22 2. That the Arbitrator enter an Order declaring that Respondent hold in trust,
23 as constructive trustees for the benefit of Amazon, Respondent’s illegal profits gained
24 from manipulating reviews;
25

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 1 3. That the Arbitrator enter an Order instructing Respondent to pay Amazon’s
2 general, special, actual and statutory damages, including treble damages pursuant to
3 R.C.W. Ch. 19.86, in an amount to be determined at arbitration, but not to exceed
4 $75,000;
5 4. That the Arbitrator Order Respondent to pay Amazon both the cost of this
6 action and attorneys’ fees incurred in prosecuting this action; and
7 5. That the Arbitrator grant Amazon such additional and further relief as is
8 just and proper.
9
DATED this 6th day of September, 2017.
10
K&L GATES LLP
11

12 By /s/ David A. Bateman

David A. Bateman, WSBA # 14262
13 Raina V. Wagner, WSBA # 45701
925 Fourth Ave., Suite 2900
14 Seattle, WA 98104
Tel: (206) 370-6682
15 Fax: (206) 370-6013
Email: david.bateman@klgates.com
16 Email: raina.wagner@klgates.com
17 Attorneys for Claimant
Amazon.com, Inc.
18

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21

22

23

24

25

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