this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2023
688 points (98.7% liked)
Technology
59665 readers
3278 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
This is the best summary I could come up with:
WASHINGTON, Nov 2 (Reuters) - Amazon.com (AMZN.O) used a series of illegal strategies to boost profits at its online retail empire, including an algorithm that pushed up prices U.S. households paid by more than $1 billion, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission detailed in a new court filing on Thursday.
... Amazon used Project Nessie to extract more than a billion dollars directly from Americans' pocketbooks," the FTC said.
Amazon spokesperson Tim Doyle said the FTC "grossly mischaracterizes" the pricing tool and the company stopped using it several years ago.
Amazon paused the algorithm during its Prime Day sales events and the holiday shopping season when there was more media and customer attention on the online retailer, the FTC said.
The FTC called Nessie's algorithm an "unfair method of competition" because it manipulates other online stores into raising prices, allowing Amazon to do the same.
In the complaint, the FTC noted that Amazon does not allow other big online stores such as Walmart.com to sell on its platform.
The original article contains 661 words, the summary contains 167 words. Saved 75%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!