The EU’s antitrust chief, Margrethe Vestager,
said she’s taking a “very close look at Amazon’s
business practices and its dual role as
marketplace and retailer.”
In addition to selling its own products, Amazon
allows third-party retailers to sell their goods
through its site. Last year, more than half of the
items sold on Amazon worldwide were from
third-party sellers.
In doing so, Amazon collects data about
activity on its platform that, the EU says, it
might be able to use to favor its own products
for sale. In particular, the EU will look at how
Amazon determines which trader is selected
as the default seller of an item that a customer
wants to buy.
The EU opened a preliminary probe into the
issue last year, and Vestager said it has shown
that “Amazon appears to use competitively
sensitive information - about marketplace
sellers, their products and transactions on the
marketplace.”
The investigation could lead to fines and
eventually cause Amazon to change the
way it works. Previous EU antitrust cases have
resulted in such change, though it is unclear
how big their ultimate impact has been in
addressing the EU’s concerns. For example,
Google had to tweak the display of search
results, which the EU had said favored Google
goods and services.
Amazon said it “will cooperate fully with the
European Commission and continue working
hard to support businesses of all sizes and help
them grow.”