Last month, Congress also asked the DOJ to investigate Amazon in relation to the practice.
A Wall Street Journal report from 2020 revealed that Amazon employees routinely used data gathered from third-party sellers to launch competing products for the company’s private-label business. According to The Wall Street Journal, the US Congress is already investigating the e-commerce giant for this practice, as is the Securities and Exchange Commission. The SEC is apparently investigating how Amazon disclosed its business practices, including how its employees used data for its private-label brands.
The SEC, as The Wall Street Journal points out, is in charge of regulating how publicly traded companies communicate with their investors. If it finds that they have failed to disclose important business information to investors in a timely manner, it has the authority to levy fines and take other enforcement actions against them.
- Amazon’s new Fresh shop in Seattle is a sustainable experiment.
- The Department of Justice has been urged to look into whether Amazon is obstructing Congress.
After the original report from The Journal came out, Amazon denied that it uses third-party seller data to launch competing products. It launched an internal investigation of its private-label division, but it refused to provide Congress a copy of its results. Last month, the House Judiciary Committee asked the Department of Justice to launch another investigation into Amazon over a possible criminal obstruction.Â
The committee said back then that the company refused to turn over business documents and communications “to conceal the truth about its use of third-party sellers’ data to advantage its private-label business and its preferencing of private-label products in search results.” As you’d expect, an Amazon spokesperson denied that’s the case and referenced the “huge volume of information [the company has] provided over several years of good-faith cooperation with this investigation.”
