Amazon.com Inc. faces an antitrust complaint from European Union regulators that escalates an investigation into how it handles data from rival sellers on its massive online retail platform.
Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s antitrust chief, said Tuesday she issued a so-called statement of objections and opened a second probe into whether the world’s biggest online retailer gives preferential treatment to its own retail offers and marketplace sellers that use its logistics and delivery services.
“We must ensure that dual role platforms with market power, such as Amazon, do not distort competition” and that “data on the activity of third party sellers should not be used to the benefit of Amazon,” Vestager said in a statement. “Its rules should not artificially favor Amazon’s own retail offers or advantage the offers of retailers using Amazon’s logistics and delivery services.”
The move, which escalates a case into Amazon’s role as both direct retailer and a host to other online stores, makes the company the highest profile Big Tech target for one of the world’s toughest antitrust regulators. EU regulators are wrestling with how to act against online giants that critics say run a rigged game when they set the rules for platforms that also host their competitors.
The EU warned last year it was probing suspicions that Amazon could spot best-selling products and start stocking the same thing itself — essentially cherry-picking the most profitable or high-volume goods.
Amazon’s agreements with marketplace sellers allow the company to collect “competitively sensitive information” on what’s selling and how much of a product merchants might have in stock, the EU said in a July 2019 statement. – Bloomberg
Also read: E-commerce can help startups scale up and revive our struggling economy