Amazon has mostly avoided antitrust scrutiny, but that may change in 2022

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Amazon has mostly avoided antitrust scrutiny, but that may change in 2022

Amazon.com Inc. has largely escaped the gaze of lawmakers in the antitrust battle, but that is changing rapidly and could lead to some challenges in 2022.

Congress and the Federal Trade Commission have Amazon in their collective crosshairs entering 2022. While new bills target Amazon’s online-sales practices, a longtime antagonist sits atop the FTC as it decides how to best keep the e-commerce leader in check.

A bill from U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and and Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, seemingly takes direct aim at Amazon
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and Apple Inc.
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The American Innovation and Choice Online Act would ban dominant online platforms from favoring their own products or services, a practice known as self-preferencing.

The legislation, which could greatly affect searches provided to users by Amazon and Alphabet Inc.’s Google
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would bar dominant platforms from discriminating among business users in a way

Amazon touts compact company accomplishment amid 3rd-bash vendor scrutiny

Amazon on Tuesday produced new data touting the achievement of sellers on its 3rd-occasion market amid mounting scrutiny from lawmakers of its private-label business techniques.

Amazon introduced the third-celebration market in 2000, allowing for absolutely everyone from small enterprises that operate out of their garage to established brand names to provide their wares on the web-site. It has considering that grown to encompass tens of millions of sellers and now accounts for approximately 60% of Amazon’s all round retail revenue.

But in new months, lawmakers, antitrust watchdogs and advocacy teams have voiced expanding problems about Amazon’s remedy of 3rd-occasion sellers and whether or not the company unfairly favors its very own goods on its marketplace.

In a report issued Tuesday, Amazon sought to characterize the roughly 2 million small- and medium-sized businesses that provide on its website as “promoting associates,” lots of of which have benefited from the outsized progress