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upstart writes:

Amazon lied about using seller data, lawmakers say, urging DOJ investigation:

Amazon lied to Congress about its use of third-party seller data, the House Judiciary Committee said today. In a letter to the Department of Justice, the committee chairs asked prosecutors to investigate the company for criminal obstruction of Congress.

"Amazon lied through a senior executive's sworn testimony that Amazon did not use any of the troves of data it had collected on its third-party sellers to compete with them," the letter says (emphasis in the original).

[...] "Amazon has declined multiple opportunities to demonstrate with credible evidence that it made accurate and complete representations," the letter says. "Amazon's failure to correct or corroborate those representations suggests that Amazon and its executives have acted intentionally to improperly influence, obstruct, or impede the Committee's investigation and inquiries."

Congress held a series of hearings as part of a 16-month antitrust investigation that scrutinized the practices of Amazon, Google parent company Alphabet, Apple, and Facebook, now known as Meta. During those hearings, lawmakers questioned Amazon executives about whether third-party seller data was used to develop private-label products or to privilege its own products in search results.

"We do not use any seller data to compete with [third parties]," Nate Sutton, associate general counsel for competition, told Congress in sworn testimony in July 2019. "We do not use any of that specific seller data in creating our own private brand products."

Yet as today's letter points out, subsequent investigations by The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, and The Markup revealed that not only did Amazon employees working on private-label items have access to third-party data, but they routinely used it, even discussing it openly in meetings. "Amazon employees regularly violated the policy—and senior officials knew it."

Original Submission

1. "upstart" - https://soylentnews.org/~upstart/
2. "Amazon lied about using seller data, lawmakers say, urging DOJ investigation" - https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2022/03/us-lawmakers-seek-criminal-probe-of-amazon-for-lying-about-use-of-seller-data/
3. "letter" - https://judiciary.house.gov/uploadedfiles/hjc_referral_--_amazon.pdf
4. "third-party seller data was used to develop private-label products" - https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/11/eu-launches-second-amazon-probe-finds-company-distorts-competition/
5. "The Wall Street Journal" - https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-scooped-up-data-from-its-own-sellers-to-launch-competing-products-11587650015
6. "Reuters" - https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/amazon-india-rigging/
7. "The Markup" - https://themarkup.org/amazons-advantage/2021/10/14/amazon-puts-its-own-brands-first-above-better-rated-products
8. "they routinely used it" - https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/04/amazon-reportedly-used-merchant-data-despite-telling-congress-it-doesnt/
9. "Original Submission" - https://soylentnews.org/submit.pl?op=viewsub&subid=54266

printed from SoylentNews, Amazon Lied About Using Seller Data, Lawmakers Say, Urging DOJ Investigation on 2023-06-18 13:34:37