A congressional committee questioned whether Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:AMZN) executives misled them during a probe into its business practices and if they may have lied under oath, the Wall Street Journal reports.
The subcommittee probed Amazon’s use of data from third-party sellers as it has developed private-label products. Amazon refuted the allegations.
The WSJ reported that Amazon employees regularly used such data to reverse engineer bestsellers under their brands. News outlets including Reuters and the Markup also published reports that Amazon used internal data to copy products and advantage private-label products on its site.
The WSJ reported that Amazon used data from its third-party sellers to create nearly identical products for its line of Amazon-branded goods and steered shoppers to its items.
The report also found that Amazon prevented its top competitors in the device space from buying slots in search results to boost sales of Amazon devices like Ring doorbells and Fire TV devices.
In a series of hearings in 2019 and 2020, Amazon executives, including Jeff Bezos, defended the company’s business practices. Amazon denied abusing its dual role as a seller of its own branded products and the operator of one of the largest e-commerce marketplaces in the world.
In June, House lawmakers proposed multiple bills to curb Amazon’s power, including structural separation of Amazon and other big technology companies. Last week, the Senate announced bipartisan legislation prohibiting companies like Amazon from favoring their products on their platforms.
Price Action: AMZN shares traded lower by 1.11% at $3,447 in the market session on the last check Monday.