Congressional lawmakers accused Amazon of deception and attempting to stop an antitrust investigation.
Congress’s Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law filed a letter on Wednesday requesting that the Department of Justice investigate the Big Tech company over “potentially criminal conduct.”
The committee letter alleged that Amazon engaged in conduct that implied it was “acting with an improper purpose” to “influence, obstruct, or impede” the committee’s investigation into Amazon’s presence in the digital marketplace.
The committee had been investigating allegations that Amazon used third-party seller information to give itself a competitive edge. The company’s employees told the Wall Street Journal that Amazon had used third-party data to develop its products. While Amazon claimed it never used third-party seller data, it failed to provide any substantial evidence to substantiate its claims.
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“Throughout the course of the committee’s investigation, Amazon attempted to cover up its lie by offering ever-shifting explanations of what it called its ‘Seller Data Protection Policy,'” the letter said.
The letter also claimed that Amazon refused to provide evidence that would “either corroborate its claims or correct the record.”
The letter also gestured at reporting from The Markup, which discovered that Amazon had given its internally developed products preference in search results on its website.
The committee said it reached out to Amazon officials, requesting evidence to prove their claims of innocence. Amazon hired a law firm that claimed that it has conducted several internal investigations and found no evidence of Amazon using third-party seller data.
“Without producing any evidence to the contrary, Amazon has left standing what appear to be false and misleading statements to the Committee,” the letter said. “It has refused to turn over business documents or communications that would either corroborate its claims or correct the record. And it appears to have done so to conceal the truth about its use of third-party sellers’ data to advantage its private-label business and its preferencing of private-label products in search results — subjects of the Committee’s investigation.”
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“There’s no factual basis for this, as demonstrated in the huge volume of information we’ve provided over several years of good faith cooperation with this investigation,” an Amazon spokesperson told CNBC.
Amazon is facing additional scrutiny from lawmakers. A bill that would stop Amazon from favoring its own products advanced out of a Senate committee on a bipartisan vote in late January.
