Europe Lays Out Amazon Antitrust Charges, Targeting Its Use Of Merchants’ Data

Europe’s antitrust regulators have been officially looking into Amazon’s dual role as marketplace owner and marketplace participant since mid-2019, and it turns out they don’t like what they found. On Tuesday, EU competition chief Margrethe Vestager—best known for hammering Google with $9 billion in antitrust fines—sent a statement of objections to Amazon over its alleged misuse of the data it holds on third-party merchants using its platform. That’s a formal step on the road to an antitrust decision that could potentially include a fine of up to 10% of Amazon’s global revenues, plus an order to stop breaking the rules. It’s now up to Amazon to convince the European Commission that it shouldn’t take the matter that far. Read more at Fortune.