Unredacted FTC suit shows 'Project Nessie' price-raising algorithm made Amazon $1.4B

dantheclamman@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 511 points –
Unredacted FTC suit shows 'Project Nessie' price-raising algorithm made Amazon $1.4B | TechCrunch
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So everyone gets $3.50 back?

No, the government gets a couple million in fines and Amazon raises their prices to compensate for the next quarter but never lowers the cost so they'll make even more the quarter after.

Free 2 week trial of AMC+

Autosubscribes at the end of the trial.

Of course. And without mention or mailing

Cancellation must be provided in writing at least 180 days before the end of the contract.

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So what's the government's price fine for something like that, 5 mil?

These kinds of crimes should come with a fine that's 10x what they profited. Then even they manage to hide some of the profit, it's still gonna hurt.

And jail time as well as taking their personal wealth. Or throw them in the middle of the Atlantic, both options are valid.

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This is the best summary I could come up with:


Unfortunately, when the lawsuit was filed, it was full of redactions, and Nessie was clearly the biggest risk, with every mention and entire pages of the section dedicated to it blocked by black bars.

But the process in court is that these redactions must be first honored and then defended — and clearly the argument of public interest won out over Amazon’s preference.

And so the newly unredacted lawsuit is sporting far fewer stripes, though the occasional proprietary or internal figure is still blocked out.

And if it was strictly about preventing “unsustainable” low prices, it doesn’t make sense that it would only target retailers that would match Amazon’s markups.

That it was “scrapped” is also questionable, since in 2022 the CEO of Worldwide Amazon Stores Doug Herrington suggested turning on “our old friend Nessie, perhaps with some new targeting logic” to boost retail profits.

They may, however, have more detailed refutations in store in their own court filings, though on this matter of Nessie, they may well decide that discretion is the better part of public opinion.


The original article contains 638 words, the summary contains 178 words. Saved 72%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

I dont know who yall think decides on what prices a company charges other than the company.

Can't tell if trolling or genuinely boot licking Amazon's anti-trust behavior.

Anti-trust means opposing monopoly, i assume you mean anti-competitive. And one company making price changes for their own prices is not anti-competitive, especially when its price increases. Thats encouraging competition. Competition is other companies aiming to sell to you for better quality or cheaper prices, and Amazon going up in price just gives competitors more opportunity to outdo them on price. That theyre taking the opportunity to raise their own prices isnt on Amazon in any way, unless it was a concerted price gouging scheme.

Amazon owns both the product and the platform. They often are involved in the delivery of the products as well. This gives them quite a bit of control over other companies selling on their platform. They can push whatever product they like to the top of the page. They can copy other products and push the original to the last page of results, and then drop their price until the other company can't compete, and then raise their prices.

They have a lot of control which allows them to be anti competitive. And allegedly they use that

None of that is what this article is talking about. This is just about them raising prices.

Price fixing, whether explicit or implied from conduct, is absolutely something anti-trust regulations were designed to prevent.

Price fixing involves multiple companies working together

Which is exactly what was described in the article.

Mmm no its describing an algorithm of raising prices for their own products

Yes, which is the price-fixing I was talking about. There doesn't need to be an overt agreement to fall under price fixing.

It does need at least an implied agreement of companies intentionally working together to raise prices. A computer program to determine your own prices does not imply working with any other company.

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