London, United Kingdom (UK)- The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has launched an investigation into whether Amazon has been giving its own sellers an unfair advantage over third-party rivals on its online marketplace.
In addition, the CMA said its investigation would focus on three main areas, including how Amazon collects and uses third-party seller data and how it sets the eligibility criteria for selling under the Prime label.
“Millions of people across the UK rely on Amazon’s services for the fast delivery of all types of products at the click of a button.
This is an important area so it’s right that we carefully investigate whether Amazon is using third-party data to give an unfair boost to its own retail business and whether it favours sellers who use its logistics and delivery services, both of which could weaken competition.
Thousands of UK businesses use Amazon to sell their products and it is important they are able to operate in a competitive market.
Any loss of competition is a loss to consumers and could lead to them paying more for products, being offered lower-quality items or having less choice,” said Sarah Cardell, general counsel at the CMA.
Germany’s competition authority also announced that Amazon is of paramount significance for competition across markets, which means it will have to abide by tougher rules than smaller rivals.
However, according to close sources, Amazon will soon share more data with rivals and offer buyers a wider choice of products. Amazon will also allow third-party sellers on its marketplace to access more information that can help them sell more products online.
On Tuesday, the European Parliament adopted the final text of the Digital Markets Act, which will ban technology groups from ranking their own products and services at the expense of rivals.
