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For many independent merchants who sell their products on Amazon, there has long been a deep concern: if the e-commerce giant saw a particular product sell well, the company would duplicate it, but at a lower price.
The head of the antitrust union of the European Union said on Wednesday that there may be reasons to worry.
Margrethe Vestager, Commissioner of Competition, announced the start of an investigation into whether Amazon was unfairly using data collected from third-party sellers to make its own decisions about which products to sell – a potentially anti-competitive benefit.
The announcement keeps Europe at the center of a debate on how to regulate global technology platforms. Amazon, whose CEO, Jeff Bezos, is the richest person in the world, has become an antitrust review center, as its vast and rapidly expanding online retail business dominates.
Ms. Vestager, the world's most aggressive regulator of US tech giants, said Amazon's dual position as the host of the largest online platform for third-party vendors and product retailers deserved a study more thorough European investigators. His office sent a number of questionnaires to market participants to learn more about Amazon's practices.
"The question here is about the data," Vestager said at a press conference Wednesday. She said that she wanted to know if Amazon was using data collected from merchants to make its own calculations on "what's the big new thing, what do people want, what kind of business?" offers they like to receive, what allows them to buy things? ? "
She called the "preliminary" investigation and noted that a formal investigation had not been opened. European antitrust investigations can last for years.
"It is very early in this antitrust investigation into Amazon's business practices," Ms. Vestager said.
Amazon has no immediate comment.
Most of the products sold on Amazon come from third-party vendors who use the platform to find customers. The practice has been mutually beneficial: merchants have access to Amazon customers that they could not reach otherwise, while Amazon is able to offer a wider range of products and collect more revenue. fees on all products sold. Just over half of the company's unit sales come from third-party sellers.
But in recent years, the relationship has become more difficult. Amazon has expanded the number of products that it manufactures itself – clothing, toiletries and kitchenware, office supplies, electronics and others. And as he becomes more and more a trader, often in direct competition with third-party vendors, there is a risk of anti-competitive behavior, Ms. Vestager said.
Amazon, she added, can use sales data from other traders to improve its offerings.
The survey is part of a larger argument by Vestager that the value of data must play a bigger role in antitrust enforcement because in the digital economy it can be used to block competition unfairly. Previously, she had investigated Apple's acquisition of the Shazam music app due to data concerns, but she finally approved the agreement.
This is not the first time Amazon has been in Mrs. Vestager's views. Last year, his office ordered Luxembourg to collect 250 million euros, or about 290 million dollars at the current exchange rate, in return for taxes from the giant online sales.
The European Union has become the world's safest control against the technology sector, penalizing companies such as Apple, Facebook, Google and the semiconductor manufacturer Qualcomm. Although the approach has been criticized as an unfair attack on US companies, it is increasingly seen as a possible model by some US officials who want more control over companies at the center of the digital economy. .
An earlier version of this article, using information from an Amazon spokesperson, erroneously referred to the proportion of Amazon sales from third-party vendors. That's just over half of unit sales globally, not revenues.
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