Amazon has added shoddy and non-standards-compliant USB Type-C cables and adapters to its list of restricted products. This means that third-party marketplace sellers can no longer sell USB Type-C products that aren't compliant with relevant USB standards.

The crackdown is almost certainly in response to the glut of cheap USB Type-C cables that have flooded Amazon over the past year—and to at least one example of a dodgy cable frying a Google engineer's Chromebook Pixel. In that case, the third-party seller stated that it was a standards-compliant USB 3.1 Type-C cable with SuperSpeed. As it turned out, the cable was completely missing the extra wires needed for SuperSpeed and two of the other wires had been transposed. The miswired cable killed his laptop instantly.

Back in December, Amazon banned the sale of self-balancing scooters following a spate of reports of cheap hoverboards bursting into flames.

For now the restriction on USB-C products only seems to be in the US, but presumably the UK will follow suit soon. Other restricted products across both the US and UK include GPS jammers and cell phone unlocking devices. Curiously, laser pointers are restricted in the US but are available in the UK; on the other hand, crossbows are allowed in the US but not in the UK.