US Congress Arguments | Amazon Response |
---|---|
Amazon is using sensitive 3rd party data to inform which products to produce. Amazon has “internal policies” against this, but little-to-no enforcement. | Amazon has a policy forbidding employees from using private merchant data. However, Bezos replied that he “can’t guarantee you that policy has never been violated” |
Amazon holds an unfair position as both the marketplace and a seller on it. Once they produce a new product, they self-promote their private-label products ahead of their competitors in search algorithms. | Amazon denies the claim that their algorithms factor in whether a product is sold by Amazon or not (written testimony, #7). An article in the WSJ contradicts their reply. |
Merchants have no other option as Amazon is “the only game in town”. A market survey, presented during the hearing, showed Amazon with 47% of the market while second place only had 6.1%. | Sellers have many other options to reach consumers beyond Amazon. If they don’t want to use Amazon, they can opt-out. |