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The European Commission has accused online retail giant, Amazon, of breaching the bloc’s antitrust rules.
It is accused of distorting competition in online retail markets by relying on the non-public business data of third-party sellers that trade on its marketplace.
The Commission alleges that Amazon uses this data to favour its own products.
A second investigation has also been opened up into Amazon’s e-commerce business practices.
Speaking in Brussels on Tuesday, Margaret Vestager, the Commissioner responsible for competition policy, told journalists:
“We must ensure that dual role platforms with market power, such as Amazon, do not distort competition. Data on the activity of third-party sellers should not be used to the benefit of Amazon when it acts as a competitor to these sellers. The conditions of competition on the Amazon platform must also be fair.”
She added: “Its rules should not artificially favour Amazon’s own retail offers or advantage the offers of retailers using Amazon’s logistics and delivery services. With e-commerce booming, and Amazon being the leading e-commerce platform, a fair and undistorted access to consumers online is important for all sellers.”
Amazon was contacted, but no comment was given.
For trade unions, however, the announcement has been a long time coming, as Oliver Roethig, UNI Global Union’s European Regional Secretary explained to Euronews.
“We definitely welcome it. It is really high time that they actually do it. When I look at some of the clear evidence we have already about Amazon’s monopolistic behavior, we really need Commission intervention on this.”
This isn’t the first time that Amazon has landed in hot water. Earlier this year, it was accused of spying on workers in order to keep an eye on so-called “threats”.
In the United States too, not just the EU, the tide is slowly turning against the company, after Congress began investigating it, as well as other large tech companies like Apple and Google, over how they operate across the world’s digital economy.
For now though, the charges against Amazon are just an announcement, but they could be the beginning of a different type online marketplace in Europe, where businesses like Amazon are much less dominant.
Watch the report in the player above.
