The Wall Street Journal claimed that the US Federal Trade Commission is preparing a potential antitrust action against Amazon.com Inc.
The report claims that it was unclear which particular parts of Amazon’s businesses the FTC would focus on and when any actions might be filed.
Both the FTC and Amazon declined to comment.
The panel began investigating Amazon during the Trump administration. The company has drawn criticism for allegedly promoting own products on its platform while demonising independent suppliers.
The FTC is looking into the company’s Prime membership service’s bundling strategies.
Amazon reached a deal with the European Union in three antitrust probes in December after addressing the EU’s concerns over the use of seller data. This spared the company from a fine of up to 10% of its worldwide sales.
The link between the agency and Amazon was briefly revealed to the public in August of last year when the agency rejected an attempt by Amazon to prohibit requests that both Chief Executive Andy Jassy and Executive Chairman Jeff Bezos testify at investigative hearings. When the government evaluated the enrollment and cancellation processes for the Prime programme, Amazon questioned the agency’s standards because they were “burdensome,” according to Amazon.
All four websites are being investigated by the FTC and Justice Department. The Justice Department has filed two lawsuits against Google, an Alphabet subsidiary, once for its search business and once for its advertising technology. The FTC has filed a claim against Meta’s Facebook.
The FTC was unable to obtain a court order to stop Meta from purchasing VR startup Within.
