Amazon has come under scrutiny as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a long-anticipated antitrust lawsuit against the company in September. This lawsuit alleges that Amazon employed illegal tactics to stay at the top of the e-commerce industry. Although details of the suit were initially kept from the public, today, a mostly unredacted version has been released, shedding light on Amazon’s secret pricing tool known as Project Nessie, which, the FTC claims, contributed to price increases of over $1 billion over two years.
While Amazon has argued that its dominance in the online retail space benefits small businesses by granting them access to a broader consumer base, the FTC asserts that the company’s approach has grown exploitative over the years. Amazon’s continuous rise in third-party seller fees has taken a toll on smaller businesses, even pushing some into bankruptcy. Despite Amazon’s previous assertions that these claims were without merit, the unredacted documents disclosed today paint a different picture.
