9/12/2023 0 Comments Far aim commercial requirementsUnlike some traditional antitrust cases, premised on clearly deceptive or illegal behavior, the FTC's concerns in a (highly redacted) complaint about Amazon are dubious to the point of being laughable.ĭuring the checkout process, in some cases, "the option to purchase items on Amazon without subscribing to Prime was more difficult for consumers to locate," states the FTC press release-as if it's Amazon's fault that some consumers might be a little less observant or tech-savvy. The FTC's new antitrust suit against Amazon represents the latest in a string of actions premised on wacky interpretations and melodramatic complaints. To go after Big Tech companies, the government must prove they're violating existing antitrust laws in some ways-which has led to the rash of ridiculous claims we've seen in recent federal and state antitrust lawsuits. Of course, existing antitrust law doesn't allow the FTC or the Department of Justice to simply dictate that Facebook must sell off Instagram, that Google must give up some of its search traffic to Bing, or that Amazon needs to price its store-brand products higher. Neo-Brandeisians also seem to think it is a good thing for the government to micromanage all sorts of minute facets of the consumer experience. It's a view of economic competition that centers on state control rather than market preferences. In essence, neo-Brandeisians want the government to have the power to say when businesses must stop growing or changing. When large companies like Amazon elevate their own branded products, acquire smaller companies, and expand product and service offerings, that makes it harder for smaller, less robust, or less well-known companies to compete. Neo-Brandeisians think the government can and should go after businesses simply for being too big and too popular. But under what's been termed the neo-Brandeisian school of antitrust thinking (or sometimes " hipster antitrust"), consumer harm is no longer the lodestar of antitrust policy. And current FTC Chair Lina Khan has made no secret of her desire to cut tech companies down to size using novel interpretations of antitrust law.įor decades, antitrust enforcers relied on a consumer welfare standard to gauge harm. Using antitrust enforcement to attack tech companies that irk or unsettle politicians was a strategy utilized under former President Donald Trump and ramped up during the Biden administration. But it is perfectly in keeping with the agency's anti-tech-company agenda.Īs tech companies have become more loathed by certain political and media circles, they've faced increasing attempts to regulate and punish them through any means possible, including antitrust law. On its face, it makes very little sense that the FTC has turned a six-click cancellation process into a matter for federal intervention. (In fact, Amazon routinely garners extremely high favorability ratings in consumer polls.) So…Why? But the argument that it's broadly harmful to consumers-let alone so harmful that it requires the intervention of the federal government-is so far removed from reality that only government bureaucrats with an ax to grind could make it with straight faces. Like many major companies, Amazon has some flaws. Patrick Hedger, executive director of the Taxpayers Protection Alliance, noted that it took him under a minute and required just six clicks to cancel his Prime account-fewer clicks than it takes to submit a public comment on the FTC website. The FTC's complaint revolves around mundane moves by Amazon, like conspicuously asking non-Prime customers if they want to sign up or requiring Prime subscribers to click through several screens to unsubscribe. "Amazon also knowingly complicated the cancellation process for Prime subscribers who sought to end their membership."īut these claims of deception fall apart upon close examination (as noted by my colleague Eric Boehm yesterday). "Amazon has knowingly duped millions of consumers into unknowingly enrolling in Amazon Prime," the agency said in a statement. Prime-a monthly or yearly subscription program that confers many benefits, including free shipping and tons of streaming content, to Amazon customers-is too easy to sign up for and too hard to cancel, the FTC alleges. In a complaint filed Wednesday, the agency alleges that Amazon's incredibly popular Prime program is a scam. The Federal Trade Commission's (FTC) new antitrust lawsuit against Amazon is an amazing exercise in hubris and absurdity.
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