Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., wants Attorney General William Barr to investigate Amazon after a report said the company used proprietary data collected from third party sellers to produce and sell its own products.
Hawley is calling on Barr to launch a criminal antitrust probe into the company, The Hill reported.
“Abusing one’s position as a marketplace platform to create copycat products always is bad, but it is especially concerning now,” said Hawley in a Tuesday letter to Barr.
"Thousands of small businesses have been forced to suspend in-store retail and instead rely on Amazon because of shutdowns related to the coronavirus pandemic. Amazon’s reported data practices are an existential threat that may prevent these businesses from ever recovering.”
His comments follow a report in The Wall Street Journal last week that said Amazon was collecting the third party sellers’ data in violation of its own policies and statements to Congress.
The Journal had cited more than 20 former employees of the company’s private-label business and documents for its report. Amazon told the Journal it has launched an internal investigation.
And The Hill noted the company said it “strictly prohibits” employees from using nonpublic data when developing other products.
Jeffrey Rodack ✉
Jeffrey Rodack, who has nearly a half century in news as a senior editor and city editor for national and local publications, has covered politics for Newsmax for nearly seven years.
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