Amazon rivals offer help to antitrust investigators

Some of the biggest retailers in America have thrown their weight behind antitrust investigations into Amazon and Google.

The Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA), which counts Walmart, Target, and Best Buy among its members, wrote a 10-page letter to the Federal Trade Commission, saying it would be happy to assist with regulatory probes, reports Business Insider.

One of the main concerns raised in the letter is to do with tech giants controlling how people search online. “It should… be quite concerning to the Commission that Amazon and Google control the majority of all of Internet product search, and can very easily affect whether and how price and product information actually reaches customers,” the letter said.

RILA takes particular aim at Amazon for “degrading the consumer experience on its own platform,” and said the company “tends to deceive consumers” by pretending to sell directly from trusted brands, even when those brands choose to remain off the platform and their merchandise is being sold on by third-party sellers.

The retailers’ letter turns up the heat on rivals like Amazon. Democratic presidential hopeful Elizabeth Warren is among those to have said that Amazon’s role as both marketplace and vendor is a prime reason for breaking up Jeff Bezos’ company.

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