A newly unredacted portion of the Federal Trade Commission's antitrust lawsuit against Amazon says the company used a secret algorithm that essentially helped the company raise prices on other online sites.

The new excerpts unveiled Thursday allege executives at the e-commerce giant intentionally deleted communication by using a feature on the popular app Signal that makes messages disappear. By doing this, the FTC said Amazon “destroyed more than two years” worth of communications from June 2019 to “at least early 2022” despite instructions it gave Amazon not to do so.

In a prepared statement Amazon spokesperson Tim Doyle called the FTC’s claim “baseless and irresponsible.”

  • Blackout@kbin.social
    1·
    1 year ago

    If you manufacturer a product and sell it on Amazon and your website, but give your site a lower price, Amazon will push lower your listing ranking and crush your sales. My business has gotten warning messages telling us to consider fixing our prices when we’ve done that in the past. They are violating anti-trust laws left and right and should be penalized and broken up. It’s ridiculous they can argue that since they don’t have more than 50% of the market they can’t be a monopoly. They sure can destroy your business like one.

    • 4dpuzzle@beehaw.orgEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      You ought to send those emails to the FTC, since Amazon has deleted their own communications despite instructions against it.

  • LallyLuckFarm@beehaw.org
    1·
    1 year ago

    “As a result of this criminal act, Amazon’s license to operate within the U.S. has been suspended until executives can provide the communications they were legally ordered to preserve,” said an FTC spokesperson while smiling wryly in my fever dream where laws matter.

    • LallyLuckFarm@beehaw.org
      1·
      1 year ago

      Amazon employees were using signal to coordinate anticonsumer policies and then destroyed the records, which the FTC had ordered them to preserve. At least, that’s how I read it.

      • douglasg14b@beehaw.org
        1·
        1 year ago

        So… Throw them in jail? Make them accountable? Revoke the companies ability to do business till the records are provided?

        Then again, that’s just fantasy because the laws don’t matter if you’re Rick/big enough anymore.

    • 稲荷大神の狐@yiffit.net
      0·
      1 year ago

      The FTC didn’t use Signal, Amazon did though for internal communications. When FTC started their investigation, Amazon quickly used the features of signal to delete all their internal communications because they were too spicy for the public and the FTC.