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The Amazon leader is being accused of lying, it could be a criminal case

Five members of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee wrote a letter to the CEO of Amazon.com Inc. on Sunday accusing the company’s top executives, including founder Jeff Bezos, of either misleading Congress, or lie directly about Amazon’s business practices.

The letter also states that the committee is considering “whether it is appropriate to refer the matter to the Department of Justice for criminal investigation”.

A letter to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy followed Reuters ’investigative report last week, saying the company systematically makes copies of third-party products on its site and then manipulates search results to increase sales of its own brands. Amazon has denied any involvement in this practice.

The letter states that the “credible accounts” in Reuters’ disclosure material and recent articles by several other news agencies directly contradict Amazon’s top executives – including the affidavits and statements of former CEO Jeffrey Bezos “.

” At best, this report confirms that Amazon representatives misled the committee. In the worst case, it proves that they may have lied to Congress

In response, an Amazon spokesman issued a statement stating: “Amazon and its executives did not mislead the committee and the inaccurate media articles in question

Added: “As stated earlier, we have internal policies that go beyond what we know about all other retailers. policy: prohibits the use of personal seller data to develop Amazon’s own-brand products. We will investigate all allegations that we have violated this policy and take appropriate action. “

The House Committee on Justice has been investigating competition in digital markets since 2019, including how Amazon uses it.

In a sworn statement before the Antitrust Subcommittee of the Judicial Committee last year, Bezos said the company was banning its employees from In another hearing in 2019, Nate Sutton, a senior consultant at Amazon, testified that the company does not use such data to create its own branded products or change search results to

At the 2019 congressional hearing on the question of whether the A mazon modifies algorithms to direct consumers to its own products, Sutton replied, “Algorithms are optimized to predict what customers want to buy, regardless of the seller.”

Letter from legislators it gives “one last chance” for Jassy to substantiate the company’s previous testimonies and statements. He also notes that “it is criminally illegal for someone to knowingly and intentionally make statements that are materially false, to conceal a material fact, or otherwise submit false documentation in response to a congressional investigation.”

November 1 gives the CEO a deadline to clarify in his sworn response “how Amazon will use non-public individual vendor data to develop and market its own product line” and how it will favor these products in Amazon’s search rankings

He also requests a copy of all the documents referred to in the Reuters article of 13 October.

true and precise answers to the committee’s request, while considering whether it is appropriate to refer the matter to the Ministry of Justice for a criminal investigation, “the letter said.

Reuters water based on thousands of pages of internal Amazon documents, including emails, strategy papers and business plans. These revealed that, at least in India, Amazon used an official, secret rule to manipulate search results to favor the company’s own products and copy goods from other sellers – and that this had been reviewed by at least two senior corporate executives.

Amazon responded to the Reuters report: “We believe these allegations are factually incorrect and unfounded.” According to the company, the way search results are displayed is not conducive to own-brand products.

The sharp wording of the letter reinforces the rhetoric between Washington and Big Tech. Google, run by Amazon, Facebook Inc., Apple Inc., and Alphabet Inc., is also receiving increasing attention in Washington, Europe, and around the world, fueled by concerns from regulators, lawmakers, and consumer groups that that companies have too much power and engage in unfair practices that harm other businesses.

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