A newly unredacted portion of the Federal Trade Commission's antitrust lawsuit against Amazon says the company used a secret algorithm that essentially helped the company raise prices on other online sites.

The new excerpts unveiled Thursday allege executives at the e-commerce giant intentionally deleted communication by using a feature on the popular app Signal that makes messages disappear. By doing this, the FTC said Amazon “destroyed more than two years” worth of communications from June 2019 to “at least early 2022” despite instructions it gave Amazon not to do so.

In a prepared statement Amazon spokesperson Tim Doyle called the FTC’s claim “baseless and irresponsible.”

    • LallyLuckFarm@beehaw.org
      1·
      11 months ago

      Amazon employees were using signal to coordinate anticonsumer policies and then destroyed the records, which the FTC had ordered them to preserve. At least, that’s how I read it.

      • douglasg14b@beehaw.org
        1·
        11 months ago

        So… Throw them in jail? Make them accountable? Revoke the companies ability to do business till the records are provided?

        Then again, that’s just fantasy because the laws don’t matter if you’re Rick/big enough anymore.