Amazon Faces Antitrust Probe In Europe Over Use of Merchant Data (theverge.com) 29
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Wall Street Journal: Amazon faces a formal European Union antitrust investigation (Warning: source paywalled; alternative source) into its dealings with merchants that sell goods on its site, marking an expansion of a multi-pronged regulatory push that has ensnared other U.S. tech giants like Facebook and Google. The European Commission, the EU's top antitrust enforcer, said Wednesday that its investigation will examine whether Amazon is abusing its dual role as a marketplace where independent sellers can offer products and as a retailer of products in its own right. In particular, the probe will study whether Amazon is using nonpublic data from independent merchants to compete unfairly against them. Investigators will also examine what data Amazon uses to pick a seller as the default option for a given product when a user clicks the "buy" button -- and whether Amazon has an unfair advantage to be designated the default for products it sells. The probe could eventually lead to formal charges, fines and orders for the company to change business practices, but it could also be dropped.
Wary of intervention here (Score:2)
I think finding out if Amazon is using data to compete against other sellers is a good idea.
But if they forced Amazon to stop offering warehoused items that could be delivered much quicker as a default - that seems like a real disservice to customers.
The tricky part of course is, what does Amazon know to warehouse without the data about what is selling...
Seems like if they made sales figures for each product available to all (coalescing all sellers sales into one sale metric) maybe that would be open enough
Re: (Score:1)
This kind of thing is why it makes sense to break up vertical monopolies like Amazon. It's convenient and good that other companies can sell things through Amazon's web site, and it makes sense to let those companies use Amazon as a distributor if they wish. But as long as a single company is acting both as business partner by running the web site and warehouses and a competitor by selling the same or similar products through the same web site and warehouses, it's almost impossible to protect fair competi
Re: (Score:3)
The founding farthers build on ideas and concepts from French, English, Dutch philosophers.
Democracy can be traced back at least to the old Greeks.
The concept of a republic is just as old.
And Switzerland was a federation long before the USA was founded.
But hey, it it makes you feel better, just assume that 'murica! was founded in a void.
Another day, another holdup (Score:2)
They can't compete, so naturally, they attach themselves to a successful organism like any other leeches.