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Mon, 31 Aug 2026

Mon, 31 Aug 2026 Amazon rigged billions in ad pricing, lawsuit from states and US watchdog alleges

Amazon responded to the lawsuit, arguing the US Federal Trade Commission "misunderstands" their ad market.

* A lawsuit has been filed by the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and a bipartisan group of 22 states against Amazon, alleging that it secretly overcharged more than a million advertising customers by manipulating online auctions.
* The FTC and states claim that Amazon's alleged scheme has netted the company $20bn from advertising customers since 2019.
* Amazon "strongly disagrees" with the allegations and calls the lawsuit "misguided".
* The company's shares fell 2.5% after the announcement of the lawsuit.
* The lawsuit alleges that Amazon charged advertisers more in "second price" auctions, whereby prospective advertisers expect to pay one cent more than the next highest bidder for each bid they win.
* However, the complaint alleges that Amazon has charged its Sponsored Products advertisers their own winning bid close to 80% of the time.
* Amazon responded by saying the FTC "fundamentally misunderstands how advertisers operate" and that average winning bids fell 50% from 2019 to 2025 on Sponsored Products search ads.