New York joins California in investigating Amazon

Joining California investigators who announced in June that they would be looking into Amazon’s private label practices, the attorney general's office from New York announced Monday it would be partnering with the Federal Trade Commission and the attorney general in California to investigate. 

The three agencies would work in concert to interview witnesses in the coming weeks, according to a Bloomberg report. The issue at question is Amazon’s use of third-party seller data to enhance its private label program. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos testified to congress last week defending Amazon’s policy against using third-party seller data but also couldn’t confirm the policy had not been broken.

Bezos said during his opening statement that there are 1.7 million small and medium-sized businesses selling in Amazon’s stores, and more than 200,000 entrepreneurs worldwide surpassed $100,000 in sales from Amazon’s stores in 2019. He said he estimates that third-party businesses selling in Amazon’s stores have created over 2.2 million new jobs around the world.