FTC: Amazon made $1B through secret price raising algorithms

reuters.com

42 points·green-eclipse··7 comments

A billion dollars is a lot of money, but it's a tiny fraction of Amazon's annual $250 billion profit. Is it really worth risking an antitrust suit that breaks up the entire company over less than half a percent of profit?

It seems to me Amazon could make damn near as much money for its shareholders without risking its moat. This was almost literally nickel-and-diming -- three dollars per American. They could afford to be a lot less evil and still make vast amounts of money just by the simple act of having a vast and efficient supply chain for practically everything.

https://archive.ph/a8JqF

Is raising prices depending on if someone can afford higher prices illegal?

Anti-competitive behavior and collusion is where they into trouble. If Amazon executives sits down with Walmart execs and said here is a list of minimum prices for these products we will both adhere to, that is illegal. What Amazon is doing instead is automating price increases and see if Walmart will also automatically raise their price too. If yes, then keep that price. If no, then lower the price. Because it is automated and happens so fast, it has a similar effect as handing a list to Walmart.

So Amazon can allegorically determine all of Walmart’s price floors… fascinating leak of information!

Why would Amazon have ever made its pricing algorithms public?

>The FTC lawsuit was filed in September but many details were withheld until Thursday when a version of the lawsuit with fewer redactions was made public in U.S. District Court in Seattle.

I don't think they had a choice...

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