EU Competition Commissioner announces early stage investigation over Amazon use of data

During the press briefing, European Commissioner for Competition, Margrethe Vestager, announced that a preliminary antitrust investigation over Amazon has been opened in order to gather information about ways the company uses data. More specifically, it aims to examine how the company uses data that it gathers through transactions and from sellers on their marketplace, as well as to see if that data potentially gives Amazon a competitive advantage over merchants by having an insight into consumer behaviour. Questionnaires have been sent to merchants in order to ‘get the full picture’, however Vestager underlined: ‘We are at very early days, there are no conclusions yet, and the case has not been formally open yet.’ The media reports that the Amazon refused to comment.