The FTC is going hard on Amazon without thinking twice, putting the company in a sticky situation, ever since it launched a mega lawsuit that accused it of deceptive dealings.
The news comes after it recently went public with the reasons why it was pursuing legal action against Amazon through some information that was redacted in the past.
The data went into detail about the algorithm that Amazon chose to conceal called Project Nessie. This included a long list of practices it felt were deceptive to better consumer pricing by nearly $1 billion. This entailed purposefully forcing the firm’s search to get worse with time.
As confirmed by the FTC, it was shocking to see how the head of the firm, Jeff Bezos knew about this all along and gave approval of the activity, thinking no one would find out.
Why is this important? Well, if the leading American firm is highlighted as guilty of the act which includes putting out high fees for all those who would roll out irrelevant advertisements that damage the entire user experience, then the aftermath could be damaging.
It would certainly make advertisers wish they never dealt with Amazon, to begin with, and hence would wish to make considerations of moving ad spending to those places that would give them better returns and ensure the right ads are placed in the right position.
But the FTC has no plans of backing down and is certainly not coming slow. They added how Amazon’s quality has gone down, ever since it chose to make the jump from putting organic search at the forefront to now displaying ads outlined as pay-to-play.
The company further added how bosses at Amazon knew more regarding how this would cause harm to its user base because it would be difficult to reach for high-quality service. The latter includes no more organic content and instead, the focus would shift more toward things that were not relevant but sponsored.
Similarly, it highlighted how Amazon forces its sellers to set out a certain ad fee to ensure it reaches out to its huge online family that shops frequently. This would further ensure search results are not as frequent and are more costly for shoppers.
Such ads dubbed Junk Ads are better called Defects by the firm’s head and his employees, which is astonishing considering how sellers jet out a huge fee for it.
One executive from the company added how rolling out Junk Ads in place of search results garnered organically could hurt the overall user’s shopping experience. It’s not uncommon to find results that have nothing to do with what you’re searching for.
Other shocking actions of Amazon being highlighted included saying no to safety measures that would provide protection to users. They continued to say no to the thought of putting in the right safeguards for its respective ads so that users could get a great experience. Even if that came with so many flaws, Amazon accepted it.
Seeing the head put money before his loyal customers is just shocking, the FTC confirmed and now, more defective ads are getting approval to make more revenue at the cost of poor user experience.
Other than that, the FTC has highlighted how raising prices for the company’s users has led it to become a profit-generating machine, no matter what shortcomings arise in its direction. The perfect example is the Pay to Play system which has costs rolled down to clients and therefore forces them to pay extra money.
So as you can see, Amazon’s shady practices are not being loved one bit and the FTC says a lawsuit is necessary to keep the firm at bay.
Read next: Beyond Search Engines: The Unseen Competitors of Google's Digital Empire
The news comes after it recently went public with the reasons why it was pursuing legal action against Amazon through some information that was redacted in the past.
The data went into detail about the algorithm that Amazon chose to conceal called Project Nessie. This included a long list of practices it felt were deceptive to better consumer pricing by nearly $1 billion. This entailed purposefully forcing the firm’s search to get worse with time.
As confirmed by the FTC, it was shocking to see how the head of the firm, Jeff Bezos knew about this all along and gave approval of the activity, thinking no one would find out.
Why is this important? Well, if the leading American firm is highlighted as guilty of the act which includes putting out high fees for all those who would roll out irrelevant advertisements that damage the entire user experience, then the aftermath could be damaging.
It would certainly make advertisers wish they never dealt with Amazon, to begin with, and hence would wish to make considerations of moving ad spending to those places that would give them better returns and ensure the right ads are placed in the right position.
But the FTC has no plans of backing down and is certainly not coming slow. They added how Amazon’s quality has gone down, ever since it chose to make the jump from putting organic search at the forefront to now displaying ads outlined as pay-to-play.
The company further added how bosses at Amazon knew more regarding how this would cause harm to its user base because it would be difficult to reach for high-quality service. The latter includes no more organic content and instead, the focus would shift more toward things that were not relevant but sponsored.
Similarly, it highlighted how Amazon forces its sellers to set out a certain ad fee to ensure it reaches out to its huge online family that shops frequently. This would further ensure search results are not as frequent and are more costly for shoppers.
Such ads dubbed Junk Ads are better called Defects by the firm’s head and his employees, which is astonishing considering how sellers jet out a huge fee for it.
One executive from the company added how rolling out Junk Ads in place of search results garnered organically could hurt the overall user’s shopping experience. It’s not uncommon to find results that have nothing to do with what you’re searching for.
Other shocking actions of Amazon being highlighted included saying no to safety measures that would provide protection to users. They continued to say no to the thought of putting in the right safeguards for its respective ads so that users could get a great experience. Even if that came with so many flaws, Amazon accepted it.
Seeing the head put money before his loyal customers is just shocking, the FTC confirmed and now, more defective ads are getting approval to make more revenue at the cost of poor user experience.
Other than that, the FTC has highlighted how raising prices for the company’s users has led it to become a profit-generating machine, no matter what shortcomings arise in its direction. The perfect example is the Pay to Play system which has costs rolled down to clients and therefore forces them to pay extra money.
So as you can see, Amazon’s shady practices are not being loved one bit and the FTC says a lawsuit is necessary to keep the firm at bay.
Read next: Beyond Search Engines: The Unseen Competitors of Google's Digital Empire
