{"id":6901,"date":"2020-04-24T14:45:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-24T14:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/icrowdnewswire.com\/?p=2529142"},"modified":"2020-04-24T14:45:00","modified_gmt":"2020-04-24T14:45:00","slug":"amazon-allegedly-used-sellers-data-to-make-competing-products","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/2020\/04\/24\/amazon-allegedly-used-sellers-data-to-make-competing-products\/","title":{"rendered":"Amazon allegedly used sellers\u2019 data to make competing products"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"o-title_mark@tp+ bc-gray-1 col-10-of-12@tl+\">\n<div class=\"t-d7@m- t-d4@tp t-d3-b@tl t-d2@d mt-15 mt-25@tp c-gray-3 c-gray-6@m-\">Even high-level executives might have had access.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<section id=\"engadget-article-meta-bar\" class=\"o-meta_bar@tl+          mt-35 mt-20@m-\" data-ylk=\"sec:articlemetabar;itc:0;\">\n<div class=\"grid@tl+\">\n<div class=\"grid@tl+__cell col-12-of-12@tp col-5-of-12@tl+ vm\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/o.aolcdn.com\/images\/dims?thumbnail=640%2C&amp;quality=80&amp;image_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fs.yimg.com%2Fos%2Fcreatr-images%2F2019-10%2F38f415d0-e45e-11e9-bfea-99781616e866&amp;client=amp-blogside-v2&amp;signature=23e9f2f95fba63bb902d2da954937936cb0588ca\" alt=\"November 2, 2018 Sunnyvale \/ CA \/ USA - Amazon headquarters located in Silicon Valley, San Francisco bay area\" \/><\/div>\n<div class=\"grid@tl+__cell col-12-of-12@tp col-5-of-12@tl+ vm\">\n<div id=\"engadget-post-contents\" class=\"o-article_block pb-15 pb-5@m- o-subtle_divider\" data-ylk=\"sec:postcontents;slk:Amazon%20allegedly%20used%20sellers%27%20data%20to%20make%20competing%20products;elm:link;itc:0;\">\n<div class=\"grid@tl+\">\n<div class=\"grid@tl+__cell col-8-of-12@tl+\">\n<div class=\"article-text c-gray-1\">\n<p>Amazon&rsquo;s policies forbid it from using sellers&rsquo; data to undermine their own products, but the practical reality might be very different.&nbsp;<em>Wall Street Journal<\/em>&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/amazon-scooped-up-data-from-its-own-sellers-to-launch-competing-products-11587650015?mod=hp_lead_pos2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">sources<\/a>&nbsp;say Amazon employees have been using proprietary seller data to help design and price&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2018-09-20-amazon-alexa-microwave-hands-on.html\" data-rapid_p=\"2\" data-v9y=\"1\">in-house products<\/a>, including decisions to enter certain categories. To develop a car trunk organizer, as an example, the internet retailer reportedly studied a third-party&rsquo;s sales, marketing spending and Amazon&rsquo;s share of sales.<\/p>\n<p>This also includes executives, according to the sources. While Amazon officially has measures to prevent its product higher-ups from accessing individual sellers&rsquo; data, those rules apparently haven&rsquo;t been consistently enforced. Execs would use workarounds, such as having analysts create reports or obtaining supposedly aggregated data that was really collected from one seller.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"o-article_block pb-15 pb-5@m- mt-n35 mt-n25@m mt-n15@s\">\n<div class=\"grid@tl+\">\n<div class=\"full-width@tp- grid@tl+__cell col-8-of-12@tl+\">\n<div class=\"article-text c-gray-1 no-review\">\n<p>In a statement, Amazon said it &ldquo;strictly prohibit[s]&rdquo; workers from using private seller info to determine its own-label product launches, and that it had launched an internal investigation into the practice.<\/p>\n<p>Whether or not that investigation leads to reforms, Amazon may face serious legal repercussions. The company&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2019-07-09-tech-giants-antitrust-testimony-in-us-house.html\">testified to Congress<\/a>&nbsp;in July that it doesn&rsquo;t use seller data to gain an unfair advantage &mdash; if the claims are accurate, that wasn&rsquo;t a truthful statement even if leaders didn&rsquo;t authorize it. That could lead to further scrutiny from US regulators&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2019-09-13-us-asks-apple-google-facebook-and-amazon-for-docs-in-antitrust.html\">concerned about Amazon&rsquo;s dominance<\/a>, not to mention EU investigators&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2019-07-17-eu-amazon-probe-merchant-data-sensitive-advantage.html\">already worried<\/a>&nbsp;the company might be abusing merchant data. If Amazon can&rsquo;t show that data misuse was limited to a rogue batch of employes, it could face penalties and government-mandated reforms.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"o-article_block\">\n<div class=\"grid@tl+ mt-n40\">\n<div class=\"grid@tl+__cell col-8-of-12@tl+ pb-20@tp+ \">\n<div class=\"pb-35 border-top mt-20 mt-35@s pt-35 pt-30@m pt-25@s pb-25@s break-out@s\">&nbsp;<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<p class=\"tags\">\n<div><strong>See Campaign: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2019-09-13-us-asks-apple-google-facebook-and-amazon-for-docs-in-antitrust.html\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/www.engadget.com\/2019-09-13-us-asks-apple-google-facebook-and-amazon-for-docs-in-antitrust.html<\/a><br \/><b>Contact Information:<\/b><br \/>Jon Fingas<\/p>\n<p><b>Tags:<\/b><br \/><a href=\"\"><\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/icrowdnewswire.com\/category\/news-category\/wire\/\" rel=\"category tag\">Wire<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/icrowdnewswire.com\/category\/global-regions\/united-states\/\" rel=\"category tag\">United States<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/icrowdnewswire.com\/category\/language\/english\/\" rel=\"category tag\">English<\/a><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"\" alt=\"image\" width=\"400\" height=\"300\" class=\"cwdfimg\" \/><\/div>\n<div>\n<h3>Contact Information:<\/h3>\n<p>Jon Fingas<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Even high-level executives might have had access. Amazon&rsquo;s policies forbid it from using sellers&rsquo; data to undermine their own products, but the practical reality might be very different.&nbsp;Wall Street Journal&nbsp;sources&nbsp;say Amazon employees have been using proprietary seller data to help design and price&nbsp;in-house products, including decisions to enter certain categories. To develop a car trunk &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/icrowdnewswire.com\/2020\/04\/24\/amazon-allegedly-used-sellers-data-to-make-competing-products\/\">Continue reading <span>Amazon allegedly used sellers&rsquo; data to make competing products<\/span><\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/2020\/04\/24\/amazon-allegedly-used-sellers-data-to-make-competing-products\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,22,54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-english","category-united-states","category-wire"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Amazon allegedly used sellers\u2019 data to make competing products - Business<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/2020\/04\/24\/amazon-allegedly-used-sellers-data-to-make-competing-products\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Amazon allegedly used sellers\u2019 data to make competing products - Business\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Even high-level executives might have had access. Amazon&rsquo;s policies forbid it from using sellers&rsquo; data to undermine their own products, but the practical reality might be very different.&nbsp;Wall Street Journal&nbsp;sources&nbsp;say Amazon employees have been using proprietary seller data to help design and price&nbsp;in-house products, including decisions to enter certain categories. 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Amazon&rsquo;s policies forbid it from using sellers&rsquo; data to undermine their own products, but the practical reality might be very different.&nbsp;Wall Street Journal&nbsp;sources&nbsp;say Amazon employees have been using proprietary seller data to help design and price&nbsp;in-house products, including decisions to enter certain categories. To develop a car trunk &hellip; Continue reading Amazon allegedly used sellers&rsquo; data to make competing products Continue Reading &rarr;","og_url":"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/2020\/04\/24\/amazon-allegedly-used-sellers-data-to-make-competing-products\/","og_site_name":"Business","article_published_time":"2020-04-24T14:45:00+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"https:\/\/o.aolcdn.com\/images\/dims?thumbnail=640%2C&amp;quality=80&amp;image_uri=https%3A%2F%2Fs.yimg.com%2Fos%2Fcreatr-images%2F2019-10%2F38f415d0-e45e-11e9-bfea-99781616e866&amp;client=amp-blogside-v2&amp;signature=23e9f2f95fba63bb902d2da954937936cb0588ca","type":"","width":"","height":""}],"author":"Bilal","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Bilal","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/2020\/04\/24\/amazon-allegedly-used-sellers-data-to-make-competing-products\/","url":"https:\/\/ipsnews.net\/business\/2020\/04\/24\/amazon-allegedly-used-sellers-data-to-make-competing-products\/","name":"Amazon allegedly used sellers\u2019 data to make competing products - 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