{"id":801,"date":"2020-04-23T20:44:24","date_gmt":"2020-04-23T20:44:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/?p=801"},"modified":"2020-04-23T20:44:24","modified_gmt":"2020-04-23T20:44:24","slug":"amazon-is-using-independent-seller-data-to-develop-competing-products-says-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/?p=801","title":{"rendered":"Amazon Is Using Independent Seller Data To Develop Competing Products, Says Report"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By <a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/jakeweindling\">Jacob Weindling<\/a><\/p>\n<h4>KEY POINTS<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li>Amazon told Congress that \u201cwe don\u2019t use individual seller data directly to compete\u201d<\/li>\n<li>WSJ spoke to 20 former employees and reviewed documents all showing this to be untrue<\/li>\n<li>Amazon said they have launched an internal investigation in response to WSJ&#8217;s findings<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Contradicting what Amazon told Congress as well as its publicly stated policies, a report from the Wall Street Journal found that Amazon employees \u201chave used data about independent sellers on the company\u2019s platform to develop competing products.\u201d WSJ was able to come to this conclusion by reviewing documents and conducting interviews with more than 20 former employees of Amazon\u2019s private-label business.<\/p>\n<p>In July of last year, lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee\u2019s antitrust panel <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2019\/07\/16\/amazon-tells-house-it-doesnt-favor-own-brands-in-antitrust-hearing.html\">grilled<\/a> Amazon, Facebook and Google. The chair of the committee, Rep. David Cicilline, D-R.I., pressed Nate Sutton, an associate general counsel at Amazon, about these allegations, saying \u201cYou said we do not consult data to compete with other sellers online. You do collect enormous data about prices [and] what\u2019s popular. You\u2019re saying that you don\u2019t use that in any way to promote Amazon products? I remind you, sir, you\u2019re under oath.\u201d<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Sutton responded, saying \u201cThe algorithms are optimized to predict what customers want to buy regardless of the seller. We provide this same criteria, and with respect to popularity, that\u2019s public data. On each product page we provide the ranking of each product.\u201d He later clarified his statement, saying \u201cWe don\u2019t use individual seller data directly to compete\u201d with businesses on Amazon\u2019s platform.<\/p>\n<p>The WSJ <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/amazon-scooped-up-data-from-its-own-sellers-to-launch-competing-products-11587650015?mod=hp_lead_pos2\">report produced evidence<\/a> which proved this statement made under oath to Congress to be untrue, where \u201cAmazon employees accessed documents and data about a bestselling car-trunk organizer sold by a third-party vendor. The information included total sales, how much the vendor paid Amazon for marketing and shipping, and how much Amazon made on each sale. Amazon\u2019s private-label arm later introduced its own car-trunk organizers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In response to the WSJ\u2019s findings, Amazon produced a written statement which claimed that \u201cLike other retailers, we look at sales and store data to provide our customers with the best possible experience. However, we strictly prohibit our employees from using nonpublic, seller-specific data to determine which private label products to launch.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Amazon told the Journal that the company has launched an internal investigation in response to the report.<\/p>\n<p>It is common practice for grocery stores and other retailers to launch their own products to compete with brand names, but what makes Amazon\u2019s practice highly scrutinized is their unique access to vast troves of data which provides them with a much larger advantage to understand the market than the brands operating on their platform.<\/p>\n<p>Amazon is currently facing antitrust scrutiny from around the world, as the European Union\u2019s top antitrust enforcer launched a probe in 2018 to investigate whether Amazon was abusing its dual role as a marketplace platform and seller of its own products. Last year, the United States Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission began investigating whether Amazon and other big tech companies are unlawfully stifling competition.<\/p>\n<p>A former employee who spoke to the WSJ and claimed they regularly accessed seller data said \u201cwe knew we shouldn\u2019t. But at the same time, we are making Amazon-branded products, and we want them to sell.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Jacob Weindling KEY POINTS Amazon told Congress that \u201cwe don\u2019t use individual seller data directly to compete\u201d WSJ spoke to 20 former employees and reviewed documents all showing this to be untrue Amazon said they have launched an internal investigation in response to WSJ&#8217;s findings Contradicting what Amazon told Congress as well as its [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=801"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":803,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801\/revisions\/803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pbmv.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}