After a Reuters investigation revealed the e-commerce giant had duplicated items and manipulated search results in India, US Senator Elizabeth Warren urged for the firm to be broken up, and Indian shopkeepers sought a government inquiry.
According to a Reuters investigation based on hundreds of internal Amazon papers, the business engaged in a deliberate strategy of manufacturing knockoffs and manipulating search results in India, one of the company’s fastest-growing regions.
For the first time, the study revealed that, at least in India, manipulating search results to favor Amazon’s own items, as well as duplicating other sellers’ goods, were part of a formal policy at Amazon – and that it had been vetted by at least two senior officials.
“These records illustrate what we feared about Amazon’s monopolistic power — that the corporation is willing and able to rig its platform to favor its bottom line while stiffing small companies and entrepreneurs,” Warren, a long-time critic of Amazon, said on Twitter, linking to the report.
These documents show what we feared about Amazon’s monopoly power—that the company is willing and able to rig its platform to benefit its bottom line while stiffing small businesses and entrepreneurs. This is one of the many reasons we need to break it up.https://t.co/1M0Tfa2TnV
— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) October 13, 2021
She stated, “This is one of the many reasons we need to split it up.”
On Thursday, a group representing millions of Indian brick-and-mortar businesses demanded the country’s government to investigate Amazon.
