A Wall street journal The April report offered an in-depth look at this practice. The research found that while Amazon has policies that prohibit employees from viewing individual vendor data, the rules are easy to circumvent and don’t always apply. A source told the WSJ that “managers sometimes ask an Amazon business analyst to create reports with the information” that they would not otherwise be able to access.
Amazon Association. The attorney general swore to me that Amazon does NOT “use any vendor-specific data when creating its own private label product.”
The reports revealed that it was a lie: that they do have access to data from outside vendors.
So I asked Jeff Bezos what it is. See: pic.twitter.com/MiR7NHI7Y8
– Rep. Pramila Jayapal (@RepJayapal) July 29, 2020
Some of these claims were supported by at least one former Amazon employee who spoke to the antitrust subcommittee, according to Washington representative Pramila Jayapal, who read a quote from the unidentified person while questioning Bezos. “There is a rule, but there is no one to impose or do a spot check, it just says ‘don’t help yourself with the data,'” he said. “It is a candy store, anyone can have access to whatever they want.”
It was during Jayapal’s interrogation that Bezos admitted that “he cannot guarantee that this policy has never been violated.”
“We have a policy against using vendor-specific data to help our private label business, but I cannot guarantee that that policy has never been violated,” he said. “We continue to analyze it very carefully, I am still not satisfied that we have reached the bottom and we will continue investigating it.”
The issue also drew scrutiny from European regulators, who opened an antitrust investigation into Amazon last year. “According to the Commission’s preliminary investigation, Amazon appears to be using sensitive competitive information about market vendors, their products and market transactions,” the European Commission (EC) wrote in a statement at the time.
the Wall street journal reported in June that the EC plans to press charges against the retailer.
Amazon’s use of third-party vendor data wasn’t the only problem Bezos faced. He was also questioned about what the company does to detain those who sell stolen or counterfeit products (not enough, according to lawmakers).
And, like Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Bezos was asked about one of his company’s acquisitions. Lawmakers released internal documents showing Amazon’s aggressive strategy to undermine online retailer diapers.com “regardless of cost.” Amazon finally acquired the company in 2010.
