In its ongoing antitrust proceedings against Amazon, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is making serious allegations against the internet giant. The company's senior employees are said to have used the Messenger Signal app to communicate with each other between 2019 and 2022. According to court documents, they used the function that prevents messages from being saved. The FTC said this would hamper its investigation.
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Since September 2023, the Federal Trade Commission has been conducting antitrust proceedings against Amazon that were prepared several years ago and joined by 17 attorneys general from several US states. As part of these investigations, the court may order companies charged by the FTC to turn over certain documents. An Amazon spokesperson told US News Bloomberg that the FTC already has 1.7 million documents from Amazon's business operations and that a total of 100 terabytes of data were transferred. The FTC's allegations are “baseless,” the spokesman said.
Chats are not saved despite continuous operation
The conversations in question, reportedly involving Amazon founder and former CEO Jeff Bezos, his successor Andy Jassy, general counsel David Zapolsky and other senior managers, among others, would likely be lost if the delete function was used. However, the FTC is requesting information in a filing with the court about how the company's use of Signal is regulated and whether there are instructions to turn on automatic deletion.
The alleged use of disappearing letters in antitrust proceedings could pose a significant problem for Amazon because the company already knew during the period in question that it was the subject of trade law investigations. Hence, a special order is not even necessary, and the company targeted by the FTC must, on its own initiative, retain all documents that may be relevant to the proceedings.
In the antitrust case, the FTC isn't just accusing Amazon of exploiting its monopoly position. The company is also said to have hindered the growth of competitors such as other retailers through its proprietary platform mechanics. One of the many claims is that retailers who also offered their goods through the marketplace were penalized by an algorithm if they were cheaper than Amazon. The FTC has also been investigating the iRobot and MGM acquisitions for years.
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