E-commerce giant Amazon is again in news after news agency Reuters claimed that Amazon rigged search results & copied products in India. Amid the claims, US Senator has demanded a ‘break up’ of Amazon as the monopolistic activities of the company continues. The update comes on the day when a Reuters investigative report claimed that the company created a slew of copied products and manipulated the search results to boost its own product line.

The news comes months after the Indian government announced the first draft of the Consumer Protection 2021 for e-commerce platforms to safeguard consumers.

Contents hide
1. Background
2. The Facts of the Matter
3. What Does the New Reuters Report Claim?
4. Data Used for “References” So that Products Could Be “Replicated”
5. US Senators Seek Amazon ’Break Up’

Background

According to a Forrester report, second to Flipkart, which has 31.9% market share in India as of 2018, Amazon held a 31.9% market share in India. With over 400 million internet users spread across the country, Amazon wants to eat its cake and not share it too. The company in the past has come under public scanner for having flash sales which involved selling products at a low cost to attract users and kill competition in the process.

Now the platform is again under scrutiny, this time for rigging the search results on its platform, and producing copied products.

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The Facts of the Matter

According to a Reuters report, e-commerce platform Amazon has been accused of selling copied products on its websites. Further, the platform has also been accused of using its internal data to promote the product lines it has come up with at the expense of other retailers. The accusation came after a Reuters report shared that a trove of documents showed that the company ran a campaign of manipulating its search results to give its own product lines the preference.

What Does the New Reuters Report Claim?

A deep-dive into the trove of documents has revealed that the company’s own teams exploited the internal data that amazon has harvested over the years to copy the products of different companies. Further, the documents also reveal that the company rigged the search results so that whenever a person searches for a particular product, Amazon’s own line of products will appear in the first 2 or 3 search results.

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Data Used for “References” So that Products Could Be “Replicated”

Reuters claims that the company first studied the data of other brands that was stored on their platforms, which included customer return issues and more. Reuters claim that the aim of the study was to first “reference” and “benchmark” products so as they can be “replicated”.

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US Senators Seek Amazon ’Break Up’

Meanwhile, a USA senator Elizabeth Warren shared the Reuters story on her Twitter and wrote, “These documents show what we feared about Amazon’s monopoly power — that the company is willing and able to rig its platform to benefit its bottom line while stiffing small businesses and entrepreneurs.”

“This is one of the many reasons we need to break it up,” she further added.

Meanwhile, Republican Party representative Ken Buck took to Twitter and wrote, “This is false. Amazon is deploying anticompetitive tactics such as using third party seller data and self-preferencing to crush competitors. The non-discrimination bill prohibits this behavior, which will create more choices for consumers.”