CEP Magazine (February 2021)

On November 10, Margrethe Vestager, executive vice president of the European Commission, unveiled formal charges against Amazon for abusing its dominant position in major European Union markets.

An investigation launched in July 2019 found that “Amazon feeds non-public seller data, such as the number of products ordered and the sellers’ revenues, into its own retail algorithms to help it decide which new products to launch and the price of each new offer.”^[1] These data allow Amazon to use competitor data to grow its own operations, while capping the growth of others, the commission claims.

According to CNN Business, both the European Union and the United States are taking aim at big tech companies with antitrust suits for allegedly abusing market position to entrench consumer spending habits.

1 Hanna Ziady and Charles Riley, “EU hits Amazon with antitrust charges. A huge fine could follow,” CNN Business, November 10, 2020, https://cnn.it/3oapOJo.

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