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United States

Washington Prepares For War With Amazon (politico.com) 59

Posted by msmash from the shape-of-things-to-come dept.
The Biden administration is planning to take action soon on at least three of its half-dozen investigations of Amazon -- moves that could lead to a blitz of litigation to rein in the iconic tech-industry giant. From a report: The FTC has been investigating the internet titan on multiple fronts dating at least back to 2019, looking into its abuse of power within its online marketplace, as well as potential consumer-privacy violations connected to its Ring cameras and Alexa digital assistant. The agency is also reviewing Amazon's purchase of robot vacuum maker iRobot.

Any suit against Amazon would be a high-profile move by the agency under chair Lina Khan, a Big Tech skeptic who rose to prominence with a 2017 academic paper specifically identifying Amazon as a modern monopolist needing to be reined in. Although Amazon has already been hit by local antitrust suits in Washington, D.C. and California, the coming federal cases would be the most significant challenges to the global company yet. The exact timing of any cases or settlements is unknown. POLITICO spoke to more than 10 people with direct knowledge of the investigations by the FTC's competition and consumer protection teams to put together a comprehensive picture of how the agency is now pursuing Amazon, why it didn't take action on the company's most recent major acquisition of One Medical and what is likely to happen in the coming months.
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Washington Prepares For War With Amazon More

Washington Prepares For War With Amazon

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  • Watch Out (Score:4, Funny)

    by fermion ( 181285 ) on Monday March 20, 2023 @03:22PM (#63385905) Homepage Journal
    The US has tried the and failed. Adrienne Barbeau Is not to taken lightly. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0... [imdb.com]
  • I believe that if the US governments goes to the mattresses with Amazon, there would certainly be a sudden change of tone of the Washington Post. I am not sure whether Biden administration can afford that slightly more than a year before the next presidential election. Biden administration has already lost the control of Twitter, with pretty disastrous consequences. Having WA Post against them could be the straw to break the camel's back. That could inaugurate president Desantis. If that happens, I am not e

    • 1. There's no reason to think that the career journalists that prize objectivity above many other qualities would skew their coverage because their big money daddy's portfolio is taking a hit due to ongoing anticompetitive action on the part of the Department of Justice. In fact, it would only reinforce the anticompetitive practices if they suddenly changed their tone. The Washington Post is not Fox News.

      2. When, exactly, did the Biden administration have control of Twitter, which they could then lose?

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward
        "... career journalists that prize objectivity above many other qualities... their big money daddy's portfolio is taking a hit..."

        hahaha your trolling is so funny

        • I actually did think he was trolling. Maybe he's been asleep for the past 8 years? Or I guess, just reading WaPo and NYT, and it says right in their very pages that they are objective, and because they are objective truth-tellers, you should believe them when they say they are objective truth-tellers.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by torkus ( 1133985 )

        The next time you make jokes on /. try to keep them shorter so people might find them funny.

        Journalism is very obviously NOT objective to anyone who reads articles from more than their side of the political spectrum. That aside, there's every reason to think career journalists would skew their coverage in favor of what their preferred audience wants to hear - particularly ad revenue and thus their paycheck. Also their political beliefs and/or those of their bosses who largely decide what gets published

        • I get what you're saying, but "both sides" doesn't work when one side has been proven to be flat-out lying to you.

          I don't have time to read bad-faith actors' takes on things, because it's arguments made in bad faith.

    • There's no "war with Amazon".
      War with ... is the new headline trend designed to "drive engagement" and it seems to be working.
      American governments don't "go to war" with vast corporations because that would be biting the hand that feeds.
      The Biden administration having control of Twitter is a weird fantasy. How could they? Also, why would they bother?

    • I believe that if the US governments goes to the mattresses with Amazon, there would certainly be a sudden change of tone of the Washington Post. I am not sure whether Biden administration can afford that slightly more than a year before the next presidential election. Biden administration has already lost the control of Twitter, with pretty disastrous consequences. Having WA Post against them could be the straw to break the camel's back. That could inaugurate president Desantis. If that happens, I am not even sure that the leftist NYT would remain faithful to Biden.

      Biden and co. appear to be violating the rule that you don't bite the hand that feeds you. Perhaps his lack of self awareness leads him to believe he accomplished his 81 million votes all on his own from his basement in Delaware.

  • Will this be like (Score:3)

    by RitchCraft ( 6454710 ) on Monday March 20, 2023 @03:55PM (#63386005)
    Will this be like the war on drugs?

  • Amazon is Anticompetitive (Score:5, Interesting)

    by DarmokandJalad ( 10147593 ) on Monday March 20, 2023 @04:03PM (#63386025)
    My employer is a large seller on Amazon who fulfills with our own warehouses and carriers. Amazon blatantly discriminates against seller fulfilled listings by forcing sellers to use Amazon's promotions tool to be prioritized for search results. This forces us to offer exclusive best pricing on Amazon and nowhere else. Sellers using Amazon warehouses can remove negative feedback comments on delivery and damages, but sellers using their own warehouses cannot. When Amazon incorrectly scans a comparable price and removed the buy box, there is no path to appeal the error. Amazon has also allowed China based sellers to abuse patents by arbitrarily removing listings that have no resemblance to the patented product. Seller Support is completely outsourced to India and gives zero Fs for seller requests. This monopoly needs to be broken up.

    • Or you could invest in well-marketed online presence outside the Amazon ecosystem. Paying your competition and then complaining they don't treat you fairly is not a reasonable response.

    • Your employer is a sharecropper, not a farmer. Sharecroppers are always poor.

    • This

    • As a consumer, I frankly want to be able to easily exclude your company from any and all queries.

      I only have interest in buying things on Amazon that are fulfilled by Amazon themselves. If I wanted to buy things from your company (or anywhere else), then I would not even be on Amazon at all.

      Your company should be thankful that Amazon even allows you to list on it at all. Saying that you don't like the terms is a "choosey beggers" perspective. If you (and the FTC) are not careful, Amazon will just entirely r

      • You must be naive, amazon is no friend to the consumer. They don't have consumer friendly pricing, on most products they are more expensive at amazon. The business has to pay to access the consumer, the consumer has to pay to access the business. All the money goes to Jeff. They sucker you in with cheap shipping. They suckered the 3rd party sellers in with easy access. But what we are talking about is anti competitive practices, and amazon is clearly a monopoly, they have to much power and it needs to be re
      • Ridiculous comment. Your inability to filter for Amazon fulfilled products on their website despite a big fat button to do so says all I need to know about you. We live in a nation of laws and Amazon broke them. Their actions will have consequences.

    • Sellers using Amazon warehouses can remove negative feedback comments on delivery and damages, but sellers using their own warehouses cannot.

      True, but experts agree that faith in Democracy and the American Way offer well-known protections against shipping errors and damages, so you do not actually have any shipping or damage complaints, do you?

  • How about investigating... (Score:3)

    by CubicleZombie ( 2590497 ) on Monday March 20, 2023 @04:16PM (#63386063)

    How about investigating how Amazon is forcing a data center into my small town by paying off town officials [fauquiernow.com] and buying their way through the approval process [fauquiernow.com], despite overwhelming protest by residents. We get an eyesore data center as the centerpiece of our town and entire neighborhoods bulldozed for their 230kv power line.

  • Who opposed the first Iraq invasion: "A war is when two armies are fighting, so you see right there... Amazon has already won. All they have to do is pay some lobbyists, stall on Biden, and elect an (r).

  • That corruption will prevail and all of this nasty talk about investigations will be but a small bump in the road toward our ultimate goal of complete subservience to the corporate state.

    Us Americans can accomplish anything we set our minds to, all you gotta do is believe!

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