Amazon Inc
In a letter sent to United States Attorney General Merrick Garland, members of the House Judiciary Committee alleged that the tech giant "lied through a senior executive" during sworn testimony.
"Throughout the course of the Committee's investigation, Amazon attempted to cover up its lie by offering ever-shifting explanations of what it called its "Seller Data Protection Policy," the Committee writes in the letter. "Among other things, in written statements to the Committee, Amazon made a distinction between the "individual" seller data that Amazon supposedly protected and the 'aggregated' seller data that its private-label business could use. Yet Amazon's representations were misleading."
The Committee turned to reports by media outlets that present information contradictory to the company's testimony, such as a Reuters report detailing Amazon's efforts to create branded items and manipulate search results in its favor. The Committee also pointed to a particularly damning report by the Wall Street Journal based on interviews from former employees that Amazon used third-party sellers' data for its own gain.
While Amazon has come out in defense of itself as expected, it is hard to ignore the years-long trail of evidence that it struggles to counteract. In addition to finding itself directly targeted by proposed legislation from the House Judiciary Committee, the ecommerce giant has also faced intense scrutiny from the Federal Trade Commission, along with contemporaries like Alphabet
While the Department of Justice has not yet commented on the matter, that isn't terribly unusual. However, greater oversight of big tech is a prevalent issue with broad bipartisan support. Having already attracted enough government attention as is, the potential of having lied to members of Congress only serves to make Amazon a bigger target for regulatory probes.
Amazon shares only made modest progress last week, inching up 0.06% by Friday's close.
