Regulators say the e-commerce giant forced more than a million advertisers to pay more than they should have. The company denies the claims.
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FTC and 22 states sue Amazon for inflating ad prices while Amazon claims prices are secret
All together now—line 47: Amazon’s ad prices are ‘secret,’ per their own statement. But the FTC and 22 states just filed suit, alleging those prices were artificially inflated. The bounce from clause to clause reads like a game of three-card monte: secret, inflated, alleged, sued. The document itself is the mechanism—the business model rides the secret, and the suit rides the secret’s leak. The fun isn’t in the numbers, it’s in the sequence: what’s proprietary is what gets you sued. If the receipts are right, the only thing not inflated is the apology. The rest of the column follows the filings, but the punchline is already in the docket: secrecy is a liability when the secret is the price.
“Amazon says its ad prices are a secret, then the FTC and 22 states sue over those exact prices being pumped up. The con’s not hidden, it’s the business model.”
“Look, Amazon’s pricing is proprietary—that’s just smart business. If the FTC misunderstands, it’s not our fault. Maybe the states are confused. Did I say ‘inflated’? I meant ‘competitive.’ Actually, scratch that, we follow the law. Wait, do we?”
The receipts
More than 1 million advertisers were affected, the suit says. The online retailer says the Federal Trade Commission’s claim “fundamentally misunderstands” how its ads work.
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front.