US booksellers and authors urged the Federal Commerce Fee to research Amazon’s alleged monopolistic grip over the business on Wednesday — even because the e-commerce large already faces a looming US antitrust lawsuit.
Amazon’s critics within the letter included the American Booksellers Affiliation, the Authors Guild and the antitrust nonprofit Open Markets Institute.
They argued the FTC ought to probe how “Amazon used and continues to make use of unfair strategies of competitors” to achieve a stranglehold on e book gross sales and wield undue affect over which titles are promoted or demoted.
The damning letter emerged at the same time as Amazon brass was reportedly set to fulfill with FTC officers for a so-called “final rites” assembly, Politico reported — a transfer broadly thought-about the final ultimate step earlier than a proper federal antitrust motion concentrating on its huge on-line retail operation.
“Amazon has an outsized energy to manage what readers see when looking for books. Solely Amazon understands how its algorithm works,” mentioned the letter, which was addressed to Lina Khan, the embattled FTC chair and famous antitrust crusader, and Jonathan Kanter, the Justice Division’s antitrust chief.
In a bit labeled “ongoing harms,” the teams spotlight Amazon’s gross sales dominance inside the US publishing business.
The e-commerce large purportedly sells greater than 50% of all bodily books within the retail market, in addition to 90% of bodily books which can be bought on-line and greater than 80% of e-books.
The teams made a number of accusations about Amazon’s allegedly anticompetitive actions, together with “strong-arm techniques to pressure conventional publishers to conform to onerous contract phrases and circumstances” and self-preferential therapy for e book listings and pricing.
“Amazon successfully makes use of the identical mannequin that the railroads used within the nineteenth century — i.e., if you wish to get your product to market, you pay the tax and play by their guidelines,” the letter mentioned. “It has the ability to behave on this method as a result of it fully dominates virtually each side of the e book market.”
In the meantime, the variety of brick-and-mortar bookstores within the US has plunged from about 12,000 in 1998 to “little greater than 6,000” in 2019, the letter mentioned, citing information from Statista.
The Put up has reached out to Amazon for touch upon the letter.
The scope of a possible FTC or DOJ lawsuit concentrating on Amazon’s enterprise, together with whether or not it might scrutinize its bookselling enterprise, stays unclear.
In late June, Bloomberg reported that the FTC was prepping a “far-reaching antitrust go well with targeted on Amazon’s core on-line market.”
The company reportedly plans to argue that Amazon improperly pressures sellers into utilizing its logistics hub.
As The Put up reported in June, Amazon has equipped for the looming authorized battle by hiring a number of ex-FTC officials to aid its defense.
During the last a number of years, Amazon has confronted criticism from lawmakers over its alleged promotion of its personal product listings on the expense of third-party distributors lively on its market.
Amazon has denied wrongdoing and publicly lobbied towards proposed laws concentrating on Massive Tech companies, such as the American Innovation and Choice Online Act, which might block firms from boosting their very own services and products in search outcomes.
