Amazon will no longer dictate how sellers evaluate their products



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The e-commerce company no longer prohibits its third-party sellers from registering their products on other sites at a lower price than they have on Amazon's US site. .

The change comes as stipulation, called price parity, could be a violation of US antitrust law.

Amazon (AMZN) confirmed the policy change, which came into effect Monday, but would not comment on it.

Senator Richard Blumenthal had previously convened the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission to investigate antitrust violations and their impact on the prices that consumers pay for goods.

"Amazon's price parity provisions can drive up prices for consumers in the short and long term," he wrote in letters to the GM and the FTC in December. "At the same time, Amazon's price parity provisions could block the emergence of more efficient online markets that could offer consumers lower prices for their favorite products."

In a statement to CNN Business, Blumenthal praised Amazon's decision, but said it was "deeply troubled by the fact that federal regulators responsible for cracking down on anticompetitive practices seem asleep at the wheel, at the expense of innovation and American consumers ".

Amazon still needs to be carefully scrutinized by lawmakers who want more regulation of large technology companies.

Senator Elizabeth Warren asked that technology companies be divorced because they have too much power. It singled out several companies, including Amazon, and proposed a law that would prevent Amazon from selling its own branded products, such as AmazonBasics, on its platform, which would result in lost revenue.

Amazon has also recently abandoned plans to build a large campus in Long Island City, following negative reactions from politicians and local residents about the incentives it was getting from the city.

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