China News Agency, Brussels, November 10 (Reporter De Yongjian) On the 10th, the European Union has "dual-pronged" the US e-commerce giant Amazon, determined that Amazon violated EU antitrust laws and used seller data to profit from its own business, and will conduct in-depth investigations Whether Amazon favors self-operated business or sellers who use FBA business on the platform.
The European Commission that led the investigation issued an announcement on the same day that it had issued an "Statement of Objection" to Amazon, which is the preliminary conclusion of the EU antitrust investigation.
In July last year, the European Commission formally launched an antitrust investigation against Amazon.
The announcement shows that the European Union will investigate the issue of "following sales" of Amazon's self-operated business that has been criticized for a long time.
The European Commission’s investigation found that Amazon’s data processing system can collect and aggregate a large amount of seller data, such as the number of orders, seller income, and clicks on seller offers. By analyzing these data, Amazon’s self-operated business can "follow and sell" the best-selling platform. Commodities, or optimize commodity pricing based on seller data.
As a result, the European Commission determined that Amazon used seller data to circumvent normal market competition risks and consolidate its position as the “largest online sales platform” in France, Germany and other countries. However, this action violated EU antitrust laws and distorted the EU online retail market. competition.
On the other hand, the European Commission announced in its announcement that it will conduct an in-depth investigation of Amazon's "Buy Box" (Buy Box) and paid membership system in accordance with EU antitrust laws.
On the Amazon platform, the two are closely related to the seller's sales. Once the seller wins the "golden shopping cart", consumers can directly add the seller's products to the shopping cart, and the paying members are mostly "quality customers" whose purchasing power is significantly higher than that of ordinary users. .
However, the announcement stated that the European Commission suspects that Amazon uses the "golden shopping cart" and paid membership system to favor self-employed or Amazon logistics sellers, including whether the "golden shopping cart" is artificially inclined to these two groups. Are there more opportunities to contact paid members?
According to the EU's antitrust investigation procedures, after issuing an "Statement of Objection" to Amazon on the 10th, Amazon can reply to the EU in writing within a certain period of time, or apply for a hearing to explain its views on the investigation, after which the EU will announce the final conclusion.
In recent years, the European Union has launched investigations on business giants from time to time, and Amazon has no exception.
In 2014, the European Union launched an investigation into the tax treaty reached between Amazon and the Luxembourg government and finally ruled that Amazon must pay 250 million euros in tax to the Luxembourg government. Both Amazon and the Luxembourg government expressed dissatisfaction with the EU Court of Justice.
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