UPDATED 22:55 EST / OCTOBER 18 2021

POLICY

Lawmakers allege Amazon’s Jeff Bezos might have misled Congress

A U.S. House Judiciary Committee wrote a letter to Amazon executives Sunday, saying the company has until November to prove it didn’t lie in front of Congress in 2020.

In July that year, Amazon’s now-Executive Chairman and then Chief Executive Jeff Bezos was asked if the company ever mined data and then on the back of that data launched its own competing products. Bezos actually replied, “What I can tell you is we have a policy against using seller-specific data to aid our private label business, but I can’t guarantee that policy has never been violated.”

According to a Reuters investigation that was published last week, Amazon India did indeed mine data to see which products were the most popular with buyers. It then not only created very similar products but also rigged search results so people would be led to those products rather than those of competitors, according to Reuters.

Bezos had told Congress in 2020 that Amazon “prohibits the use of anonymized data, if related to a single seller, when making decisions to launch private brand products.” A year earlier, another similar antitrust investigation led to the company being very clear about this, stating, “We do not use any seller data… to compete with them.”

The new reports seem to contradict these statements, with Reuters saying Amazon in India “ran a systematic campaign of creating knockoffs” and then going one step further and ensuring search results led to people to those products.

“At best, this reporting confirms that Amazon’s representatives misled the Committee,” wrote the lawmakers on Sunday. “At worst, it demonstrates that they may have lied to Congress in possible violation of federal criminal law. In light of the serious nature of this matter, we are providing you with a final opportunity to provide exculpatory evidence to corroborate the prior testimony and statements on behalf of Amazon to the Committee.”

For its part, Amazon said in a statement that it can’t comment on the Reuters’ documents since it hasn’t seen them yet. Nonetheless, a company spokesperson said the claims were “factually incorrect and unsubstantiated.”

Photo: Wicked Monday/Unsplash

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