"The FTC is currently weighing whether to challenge Amazon's $1.7 billion acquisition of robot vacuum maker iRobot, with the agency's staff attorneys leaning toward suing to stop the deal according to three people with knowledge of that investigation," reports Sisco. The scope of the Federal Trade Commission's investigations into Amazon is massive, touching on everything from its purchase of the robot vacuum maker iRobot to whether digital voice assistant Alexa violates the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act and how it decides which marketplace products to give the "Amazon Choice" label. "The Biden administration is planning to take action soon on at least three of its half-dozen investigations of Amazon - moves that could lead to a blitz of litigation to rein in the iconic tech-industry giant," Sisco writes. Politico's Josh Sisco details the multipronged effort in Washington to find some reason to wage war with Amazon. Others appear intent on fishing for something that could be massaged into allegations that Amazon's size and reach harms consumers.
Rather, some suggest we should abandon the consumer welfare standard-a mainstay of antitrust law enforcement-and instead focus on the fact that companies like Amazon are very big and this bigness may harm business competitors. Indeed, anti-Amazon crusaders have had a hard time articulating a cogent theory of consumer harm. Poll after poll has shown Americans give the company a high approval rating, with one 2021 poll finding Amazon ranked more highly than all but one of the 18 institutions asked about, including Twitter, Facebook, the FBI, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the U.S.
Unlike monopolists of yore, Amazon is mostly beloved by consumers.
Like other big tech companies, Amazon has been branded a "monopolist" by both Democrats and Republicans who-for different reasons-seem to see it as good politics to aim at taking the company down a peg. A look at the federal government's expansive designs to pin some sort of wrongdoing on Amazon leaves little doubt this crusade is based in something stronger than a simple quest for justice or consumer protection.
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