Some of these claims were backed up by at least one former Amazon employee who spoke to the antitrust subcommittee, according to Washington Rep. Reports revealed that was a lie: that they DO access data on third party sellers. General Counsel told me under oath that Amazon does NOT, “use any specific seller data when creating its own private brand product.” One source told the WSJ that “managers sometimes would ask an Amazon business analyst to create reports featuring the information” they wouldn’t otherwise be able to access.Īmazon's Assoc. The investigation found that while Amazon has policies that bar employees from looking at data from individual sellers, the rules are easy to circumvent and not always enforced. Merchants have long alleged that Amazon uses its vast data troves to undercut some of the most successful sellers by offering its own competing products.Ī Wall Street Journal report in April offered an in-depth look at this practice. Yet Bezos offered little to counter the claims that Amazon has unfairly used the data it collects from third-party sellers to inform the products it sells under its own brands, like Amazon Basics. The issue is at the heart of antitrust investigations into the company on two continents. During a marathon hearing that at times veered wildly off topic, one of the biggest admissions came from the Amazon CEO who admitted that he “can’t guarantee” the online retailer hasn’t misused data from third-party sellers on its platform. Jeff Bezos still doesn’t have a good answer to what might be the strongest antitrust claim facing Amazon.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |