Members of Congress have accused Amazon of misleading the antitrust committee after reports alleged that the company used data to copy products while simultaneously favoring its own products over others in search results.
See also: Amazon: Team approach to remote work
Among the reports are allegations by Reuters that Amazon has carried out a systematic campaign of creating knockoffs and manipulating search results to boost its own product lines in India, which is one of the company's biggest growth markets.
Members of Congress said Monday that the information from those reports contradicts Amazon's testimony to the Judiciary Committee's antitrust subcommittee, which has been conducting the bipartisan antitrust investigation since 2019.
Amazon executives, in 2019 and 2020, appeared before the antitrust subcommittee and said it did not use specific seller data to create its own private-label products. Company executives, including Amazon founder and former CEO Jeff Bezos, also testified that Amazon's search rankings are not designed to favor its own products.
See also: Amazon: Further relaxes employee checks for cannabis use
In a letter to Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, five members of Congress who sit on the antitrust committee said Amazon has misled the committee's investigation into competition in digital markets.
“At best, this report confirms that Amazon representatives misled the Commission. At worst, it demonstrates that they may have lied to Congress about a possible violation of federal criminal law,” the members of Congress wrote in the letter.
In light of the contradictory testimony, committee members asked the company to clarify the record and provide documents and other evidence that corroborate Amazon's previous testimony and statements to the committee.
See also: How to check for fake product reviews on Amazon and other sites?
Amazon has until November 1st to provide these documents.
