Jake Huang, Period 1, 09/27/2023

Jake Huang

Period 1

Blog #1

Socio-political Consciousness

Amazon has over three hundred and ten million users worldwide and remains the most popular online shopping site and app. They’re known for their high-quality products and excellent customer service. Today, Tuesday in the afternoon, it was reported that Amazon is being sued by the FTC (Federal Trade Commission) led by Lina Khan and 17 states over multiple allegations. This is a major lawsuit followed by previous lawsuits such as Amazon enrolling consumers in Amazon Prime without consent and sabotaging their attempts to cancel. Unironically, I’ve been struggling to cancel my membership today and was not able to get a refund.

This lawsuit is one of the few that has been happening recently. Google is being sued for illegally arranging its business dealings so it’s the first search engine people see when they go on their phones and web browsers. Amazon having a similar problem has been accused of monopoly power, unfair competition, pricing practices, and seller restrictions. Amazon’s response to this lawsuit is claiming that the government is changing the interpretation of the laws and how it will hurt Americans, the economy, and small businesses. They claim that businesses that sell on their site can set their own prices independently to offer more competitive prices but it is clearly shown that there is a forced markup of almost fifteen percent of the total price of a product. This gives Amazon a commission making money off of independent businesses. In their defense from Amazon General Counsel David Zapolsky, “If the FTC gets its way, the result would be fewer products to choose from, higher prices, slower deliveries for consumers, and reduced options for small businesses– the opposite of what antitrust law is designed to do”. The antitrust law in basic terms is to make sure businesses are competing fairly and Amazon is being accused of violating that. The business claims, “The FTC’s complaint alleges that our pricing practices, our Fulfillment by Amazon offering, and Amazon Prime are anticompetitive. In so doing, the lawsuit reveals the Commission’s fundamental misunderstanding of retail”.

Personally, FTC makes a lot of fair accusations as I have faced a lot of struggles with the same thing. To start, Amazon takes a cut of every item sold which ranges from 6% to as high as 45% which results in independent businesses being forced to markup their prices to be able to earn money including more fees and advertisement charges. It’s clearly shown of favoring their own products and the top picks and sponsored items in search results regardless of competing prices have a higher rating or review counts. If anyone were to search for anything they wanted to buy from Amazon there would be a sponsored product that pays the e-commerce to advertise their products on the top of the list when searching disregarding the reviews, ratings, and prices. Hopefully, losing the lawsuit will result in Amazon making forceable changes to be in greater favor of users than the company itself.










David Zapolsky, Senior Vice President. “The FTC’s Lawsuit against Amazon Would Lead to Higher Prices and Slower Deliveries for Consumers-and Hurt Businesses.” US About Amazon, US About Amazon, 26 Sept. 2023, www.aboutamazon.com/news/company-news/amazon-ftc-antitrust-lawsuit-full-response.

Ritchie, John Newman & Amy, and Staff in the Bureau of Competition & Office of Technology. “FTC Sues Amazon for Illegally Maintaining Monopoly Power.” Federal Trade Commission, 26 Sept. 2023, www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/09/ftc-sues-amazon-illegally-maintaining-monopoly-power.

Selyukh, Alina. “U.S. Sues Amazon in a Monopoly Case That Could Be Existential for the Retail Giant.” NPR, NPR, 26 Sept. 2023, www.npr.org/2023/09/26/1191099421/amazon-ftc-lawsuit-antitrust-monopoly?ft=nprml&f=1006.

“What Just Happened to Amazon? The FTC’s Antitrust Lawsuit, Explained.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 26 Sept. 2023, www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/09/26/ftc-amazon-antitrust-lawsuit-explained/.