Amazon routinely sequences its products by competitors' goods, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said in a monopoly case, which is the conclusions of the investigation of 2021 during the inhalation.
Amazon's search results are biased in favor of the company, even if it knows that competing products are of high quality, FTC added, helping the retailer to dig out of what the agency called “a huge monopoly rental from everyone.
FTC search accusations help to be the basis for a wider lawsuit accusing Amazon in a suffocating competition, punishing sellers whose goods can be bought elsewhere, and requiring sellers to use Amazon's enforcement service to provide faster “main” shipping.
“Amazon has used a set of punishable and forced tactics to illegally preserve his monopolies,” FTC chairman Lina Khan said in a written statement.
The agency, together with the Chief Prosecutor of 17 States, filed an action in the Seattle Federal District Court. The complaint came almost two years after the study investigation found that the products of the brands owned by Amazon or Amazon's exclusive products were in search results, including cases where competitors had higher customer ratings and more reviews. During the investigation, it was found that knowing only whether the product comes from the Amazon brand can predict whether it received the best search step of 70 percent, making this factor more important than the Star Ring or Review Count.
When the Amazon brand took a cutting -edge search location, it was usually labeled “Our brands” and Amazon said to the label at the time that he considered such “highlighted” results to be “marketing practice” rather than search results or advertising. He also denied that he favored his own brands in the results.
Amazon did not answer the questions about the post -search requirements of FTC, instead pointing to the statement by Amazon's senior vice -president, global public politics and general adviser, David Zapolsky, that the action is “wrong in facts and law and we are waiting for this case.
“Practices from FTC challenging have helped to stimulate competition and innovation throughout the retail trade and have a greater choice for Amazon customers, lower prices and faster delivery speeds, and a greater opportunity to many companies selling in the Amazon store,” he wrote.
FTC said that Amazon “stacks the deck” in search results against competitors, buried under the advice of organic content, such as “Expert Recommendation Gadgets” displaying Amazon Private Products “to others. Such recommendations exist outside the search, To supplement the purchased products.
It is possible that the suit contains additional statements about the rank of Amazon's search, as the public version of the complaint contains several edited sections. FTC spokeswoman Victoria Graham said the complaint parts were edited because they contain public information.
Amazon salesman Robert Gomez, who criticized the company's unfair advantages for the company's 2021 year, said that in the following years, Amazon has only become more difficult to make a profit for his kaffe coffee products such as grinders and breweries. Sponsored results are increasingly dominated by the cutting-edge search results, making bulb ad buys crucial, and he said that Amazon has locked it all important to “buy a box” through which he distributes sales from the pages of the product details, for him, what Walmart sells for $ 17.88.
Gomez said that while he is encouraged by the FTC suit, as it pays additional attention to what he considers to be the uneven market of Amazon, he said “I don't hold my breath” for the result, which helps sellers like him. Even if the agency is able to withdraw illegally competitive practices, it would leave it untouchable practices to the outskirts of independent sellers, such as selling Amazon sponsored search results or selling certain brands, which means that these brands do not need to operate in the Amazon market and thus give a smaller surgery.
“These anti -competitive practices continue to take place,” Gomez said, “and now they influence them more than ever.”
Update, 28 September 2023
This story has been updated to note that Amazon did not answer specific questions about the post -search requirements.
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