<story><title>The FTC sues to break up Amazon over an economy-wide “hidden tax”</title><url>https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/the-ftc-sues-to-break-up-amazon-over</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>thelastgallon</author><text>An excerpt from: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;pluralistic.net&amp;#x2F;2023&amp;#x2F;04&amp;#x2F;25&amp;#x2F;greedflation&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;pluralistic.net&amp;#x2F;2023&amp;#x2F;04&amp;#x2F;25&amp;#x2F;greedflation&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Amazon binds its sellers over to something called Most Favored Nation status. That means that sellers can&amp;#x27;t offer their goods more cheaply than they do on Amazon – even if it costs them (lots) less to sell in Target or direct from their websites. This means that every time a seller adds a dollar to their Amazon sale price, they have to add a dollar to the price of their goods everywhere else, too.&lt;p&gt;After a bunch of state AGs filed lawsuits against Amazon over this, the company promised to cut it out.&lt;p&gt;They lied.&lt;p&gt;A new filing in California&amp;#x27;s suit against Amazon reveals that sellers live &amp;quot;in constant fear&amp;quot; of retaliation from Amazon if they allow their goods to be sold more cheaply elsewhere.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>granzymes</author><text>According to the FTC&amp;#x27;s lawsuit, Amazon no longer binds its sellers with a Most Favored Nation clause. Instead, Amazon now will refuse to promote an offer in its &amp;quot;buy box&amp;quot; space if it detects a lower price for that good on another website.&lt;p&gt;The FTC alleges that this simply reconstitutes the MFA since most sales on Amazon take place from the buy box. Amazon responds that it is within its rights to not promote uncompetitive offers that make its site look bad for not having the lowest available price.</text></comment>
<story><title>The FTC sues to break up Amazon over an economy-wide “hidden tax”</title><url>https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/the-ftc-sues-to-break-up-amazon-over</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>thelastgallon</author><text>An excerpt from: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;pluralistic.net&amp;#x2F;2023&amp;#x2F;04&amp;#x2F;25&amp;#x2F;greedflation&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow noreferrer&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;pluralistic.net&amp;#x2F;2023&amp;#x2F;04&amp;#x2F;25&amp;#x2F;greedflation&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Amazon binds its sellers over to something called Most Favored Nation status. That means that sellers can&amp;#x27;t offer their goods more cheaply than they do on Amazon – even if it costs them (lots) less to sell in Target or direct from their websites. This means that every time a seller adds a dollar to their Amazon sale price, they have to add a dollar to the price of their goods everywhere else, too.&lt;p&gt;After a bunch of state AGs filed lawsuits against Amazon over this, the company promised to cut it out.&lt;p&gt;They lied.&lt;p&gt;A new filing in California&amp;#x27;s suit against Amazon reveals that sellers live &amp;quot;in constant fear&amp;quot; of retaliation from Amazon if they allow their goods to be sold more cheaply elsewhere.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ct0</author><text>Just change the SKU of the product so they are &amp;quot;different&amp;quot;. Big box stores do it all the time to reduce the probability of price matching.</text></comment>