“To remedy the conduct, Google should treat its own comparison shopping service and those of rivals in the same way,” stated the Commission. In one of its three Google antitrust cases, the European Commission charged Google with abusing its dominant position in search to steer traffic towards Google Shopping and away from competing comparison shopping services. Such a non-discrimination standard is already on the horizon abroad.

The latter method was proposed by fellow Washington Bytes contributor Hal Singer, who suggested the FCC should police discrimination by edge providers to the same extent it polices discrimination by ISPs. To check the market power of Amazon and other tech platforms, Khan offers two main options for regulators: 1) promote competition by policing predatory pricing and vertical integration, or 2) prohibit discrimination, as is done with utilities and common carriers. If Amazon did not account for nearly 1 out of every 2 dollars spent online, the laptop stand maker could viably sell their wares elsewhere when faced with such disfavored treatment. The Capitol Forum similarly reported that, for Amazon’s private label clothing, Amazon disproportionately promotes its own brands over competitors’ brands in the carousel “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought.”Īnd Bloomberg told the story of the laptop stand maker whose sales nose-dived and search rank plummeted after Amazon manufactured its own version (having learned from its data that the stand was a hot item). For example, Khan writes that sellers who use Fulfillment By Amazon tend to be ranked higher in Amazon search results than sellers who use other delivery methods. ILSR’s arguments that Amazon hurts jobs may resonate with Trump, despite Amazon’s recent promise to create 100,000 new jobs.Īs for platform privilege, Amazon has reportedly prioritized its own products and services as it vertically integrates into a wide range of industries. Not only does Trump have an antagonistic relationship with Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, but he has also criticized Amazon’s market power and is now pitted against Silicon Valley on immigration issues. Under Trump, that political will may be shifting. antitrust scrutiny of powerful tech platforms has been more an issue of political will than lack of legal foundation.

Amazon gets antitrust scrutiny on usage