The FTC and 17 states are suing amazon for an alleged monopoly that used their dominance to encroach on the freedom of fair competition.

Allegedly, Amazon takes close to half a dollar from their sellers. In the complaint, there’s a quote from a seller saying: “we have nowhere else to go and Amazon knows it.” 

By using the control+f command, which allows me to search the pdf for keywords, something called “Project Nessie” is referred to 15 times. I will make no assumption as to what it is, as most of the words are redacted from the document. However, some of the visible words say “Amazon’s Project Nessie has already extracted over [redacted] from American Households.” 

(Screenshot from the complaint filed by the FTC)

They then make the claim that as opposed to providing “relevant, organic search results.” Amazon now “litters its storefronts with pay-to-play advertisements.” They then elaborate by saying that, in order to reach the masses, sellers must pay to advertise their products. This leads to, allegedly, less relevant results and more expensive products which they say worsens the experience of their customers. 

They then say that “In a competitive world, Amazon’s decision to raise prices and degrade services” would essentially increase the ability for rival companies to grow due to the decreasing strength of Amazon’s business model of quality and quantity. However, allegedly, Amazon has “engaged in an unlawful monopolistic strategy to close off that possibility.” 

According to the FTC and the 17 states, Amazon hires people to locate websites that sell the same product at a discounted rate as to punish them. They then describe how Amazon “imposed explicit contractual requirements barring all sellers from offering their goods for lower prices anywhere else.”

Europe and America investigated the practice, and it was dropped from both by 2019. 

This link leads to the entire complaint, where I got most of my information.