Josh Hawley asks Amazon to testify about strengthening its own products



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Republican Josh Hawley (R-MO) Tuesday called on Amazon to testify during a the Wall Street newspaper report that the company has denied.

The article, that the the Wall Street newspaper Posted Monday, Amazon has accused Amazon of having modified its search algorithms to boost and promote the promotion of its own products, citing anonymous sources that allegedly worked on the changes.

"Any modification of Amazon's search system has far-reaching implications, since the giant's ranking can make or break a product" Newspaper Explain. "The search bar of the site is the most common way to search for online items for US buyers.Most purchases come from the first page of search results."

"The issue is particularly delicate because the United States and the European Union are examining Amazon's dual role as a market operator and seller of its own products. A profit-oriented algorithm could direct customers to thousands of Amazon's internal products offering higher profit margins than the site's competing lists, "the paper said, noting that such algorithm changes could" create problems with antitrust regulators ".

The exchange between Hawley and Amazon took place after the senator posted the Newspaper story on his Twitter account on Monday, and commented"This deserves careful consideration. Does Amazon use a monopoly to eliminate small businesses and other competitors? Do consumers suffer from it? Millions of American families depend in some way on Amazon. "

Amazon denied the claims and replied to Hawley: "This is not true. The story of @WSJ based on anonymous sources is false. We did not change the criteria used to rank the search results to include profitability. We offer products that customers want, whether from our own brands or products offered by our business partners. "

"Will you testify under oath? And will you open your books to the investigators to prove it? Hawley replied, but the company did not answer.

On Friday, members of the House Judiciary Committee requested documents from Amazon, Google, Apple and Facebook to determine whether the companies had closed the competition.

[[[[Photo of Mark Wilson / Getty Images]

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