The Federal Trade Commission is set to launch an antitrust case against Amazon, the fourth against the retail king this year and the biggest one yet, according to a report in Bloomberg.
The FTC’s reportedly spent months preparing for a far-reaching case that charges Amazon with running a monopoly on its platform, forcing sellers to use its logistics services and penalising those who don’t. Amazon offers third-party sellers a range of services from shipping to advertising to warehousing, and the company’s take has grown to the point that it rakes in more than 50% of each sale. Given FTC chair Lina Khan’s background, it’s likely that the government will try to break up Amazon once and for all.
This case would mark the biggest test for FTC chair Lina Khan, perhaps the business world’s most frightening boogeyman. Khan rose to power on the heels of academic arguments that our existing antitrust legislation has everything regulators need to take on big tech. Khan’s FTC has brought action against all of the big four consumer tech companies, with cases against Amazon, Google, and Meta, and an ongoing investigation into Apple.
It’s made Khan the subject of endless attacks from corporate apologists like the editors of the Wall Street Journal’s Opinion pages, where she’s painted as dangerous, irresponsible, and incompetent. Companies including Google and Amazon have attempted to make Khan recuse herself in other cases given her history of legal arguments against big tech. It’s likely that Amazon will make that request again, and it’s likely that Khan will refuse. Amazon and the FTC did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
For years, big tech’s worst alleged abuses went unchecked by the government despite widespread bipartisan agreement that the technology industry needs reigning in, and loud bellyaching calls from politicians that gee, somebody really oughta do something about all this stuff. Under Khan’s leadership, consumer advocates and tech critics believe they finally have their champion.
Khan’s FTC has turned the tech industry’s status quo on its head. For decades, conservatives fought to weaken the FTC and hobble the government’s ability to stop monopolies in particular. But the FTC is done shuffling its feet. It’s picked up the few anemic legal resources at its disposal and launched a series of cases and settlements that didn’t seem possible just a few years ago. It’s about as exciting as possible for the likes of a dry and carefully moving agency full of lawyers and regulators. If the FTC is successful, it could deliver the internet that everyone from consumers to politicians have been clamoring for.