The European Commission is preparing to launch a new investigation into U.S. online shopping giant Amazon, suspected of abusing sales data to the detriment of small vendors that use its platform, according to the Bloomberg financial news agency.
The investigation would be part of a “summer offensive” reportedly being prepared by the European Commissioner in charge of Competition, Denmark’s Margrethe Vestager, against a number of businesses including Amazon.
The U.S. giant is suspected of using to its advantage information obtained from other online stores on its platform, for example to identify the most popular products or consumer profiles.
Neither Amazon nor the Commission wished to react.
This would be the third time that Amazon has come under scrutiny by the Commission. The European executive body had already obliged Luxemburg to recover 250 million euros from the online giant following fiscal agreements made in 2003. That case is still pending. A second matter had to do with e-books, but no fine was imposed on Amazon for that.
The Brussels Times
