Italian regulator fines Amazon $1.28 billion for abusing its market dominance:
Italy's antitrust authority (AGCM) has fined Amazon €1.13 billion ($1.28 billion) for "abuse of dominant position," the second penalty it has imposed on Amazon over the last month. Amazon holds a position of "absolute dominance" in the Italian brokerage services market, "which has allowed it to promote its own logistics service, called Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA)," the authority wrote in a (Google translated) press release.
According to the AGCM, companies must use Amazon's FBA service if they want access to key benefits like the Prime label, which in turn allows them to participate in Black Friday sales and other key events. "Amazon has thus prevented third-party sellers from associating the Prime label with offers not managed with FBA," it said.
The authority said access to those functions are "crucial" for seller success. It also noted that third-party sellers using FBA are not subject to the same stringent performance requirements as non-FBA sellers. As such, they're less likely to be suspended from the platform if they fail to meet certain goals. Finally, it noted that sellers using Amazon's logistics services are discouraged from offering their products on other online platforms, at least to the same extent they do on Amazon.
[...] In a statement to Engadget, an Amazon spokesperson said the company "strongly disagreed" with the decision and will appeal. It also noted that non-FBA sellers can use its Seller Fulfilled Prime (SFP) service, which gives them access to Prime benefits without having to use Amazon's logistics services.
We strongly disagree with the decision of the Italian Competition Authority (ICA) and we will appeal. The proposed fine and remedies are unjustified and disproportionate. More than half of all annual sales on Amazon in Italy come from SMBs, and their success is at the heart of our business model. Small and medium-sized businesses have multiple channels to sell their products both online and offline: Amazon is just one of those options. We constantly invest to support the growth of the 18,000 Italian SMBs that sell on Amazon, and we provide multiple tools to our sellers, including those who manage shipments themselves.
Previously:
Italy Fines Amazon, Apple $230M (€203M) Over Reseller Collusion
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 10 2021, @05:14PM
(Same Poster)
Also, Amazon's ability to search for, sort via various sort options, list, scroll through, and filter product reviews sucks. I should be able to list 100 per page if I wanted or even more and I should be able to more easily navigate through the different pages of reviews. Same goes with the product question section. So yes, Amazon needs some work and they do all this on purpose to make it more frustrating for us. But, amazingly, we criticize them for all the wrong reasons. We try to go after them in ways that would force them to be worse because of lazy competitors that cry that they don't want to work so hard to compete instead of trying to go after them in ways that would actually make them better. It's also amazing how democrats complain about how Europe is supposedly so much better than we are yet it's our hard working capitalistic model that give us all these powerful goods and services that the democrats want to kill. They want to make Amazon more lazy and expensive and less competitive so that they don't provide consumers with such goods and services and that's harmful to the consumers.