Staff Reports
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) recently held a meeting with Amazon, giving off a real “last rites” vibe. It seems that a case against the multi-trillion-dollar online retailer is on the horizon. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, as the FTC has been investigating Amazon for years. However, the details of the case have been kept under wraps.
One key player in this battle is FTC Chairwoman Lina Khan, who has a long-standing beef with Amazon. She once wrote a paper titled “Amazon’s Antitrust Paradox,” in which she argued that current antitrust laws are too focused on keeping prices down, rather than addressing monopolistic practices. According to Khan, Amazon is a prime example of this problem (pun intended).
One issue that regulators may take aim at is “price parity.” Until 2019, Amazon didn’t allow third-party sellers on its platform to offer lower prices elsewhere. While they’ve changed this policy, critics argue that customers still end up paying higher prices due to Amazon’s price parity arrangement. Critics also claim that Amazon unfairly prioritizes its own products over those of third-party sellers in search results, a practice known as “self-preferencing.”
Recently, the FTC’s Consumer Protection Bureau charged Amazon with using “dark patterns” to trick consumers into automatically renewing Prime subscriptions. This, along with Amazon’s market dominance, will likely play a role in the upcoming case. The FTC has been going after Big Tech lately, with cases against Meta, Google, and Microsoft.
One interesting question is whether Chairwoman Khan will recuse herself from the Amazon case. After all, she has openly expressed her views on the company’s practices in the past. This could potentially violate Amazon’s right to due process. If the case is successful, the FTC could impose various remedies, from prohibiting certain business practices to breaking up the company. This would be a major blow to Big Tech.
Overall, it seems like Amazon is about to face the wrath of the FTC. Only time will tell what the outcome of this case will be, but it’s clear that the commission is taking a hard stance against large tech companies.
