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Arizona accuses Amazon of being a monopoly and deceiving consumers with “dark patterns” (www.theverge.com)

submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Arizona's Attorney General, Kris Mayes, filed two lawsuits against Amazon on Wednesday for allegedly engaging in deceptive business practices and maintaining monopoly status. The first lawsuit accuses the company of using dark patterns to keep users from canceling their Amazon Prime subscriptions, violating Arizona's Consumer Fraud Act. This is similar to a complaint filed by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) against Amazon in June.
The second lawsuit alleges that Amazon unfairly maintains its monopoly status through agreements with third-party sellers that restrict them from offering lower prices off of the platform than they do on Amazon, violating Arizona's Uniform State Antitrust Act. This practice has also been targeted by other state attorneys general in cases filed against Amazon.
Additionally, the lawsuit accuses Amazon's Buy Box algorithm of being biased towards first-party retail offers or sellers who participate in Fulfillment By Amazon, leading consumers to overpay for items that are available at lower prices from other sellers on Amazon. This aspect is also reflected in the FTC's recent antitrust lawsuit against Amazon, which has been joined by more than a dozen state attorneys general.
Arizona seeks to stop Amazon from engaging in these allegedly deceptive and anticompetitive practices and award civil penalties and disgorgement of ill-gotten gains.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (4 children)

I don't mean to support amazon in this, but the article outlines them promoting their own products over others? Unless the buy box implies something other than "we would like you to buy this", I dont really understand the issue with that particular point

[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 months ago (3 children)

I mean even in that case where you think it benign, yes...

If I search for a specific product by name, and an amazon variant exists, they push their above the one I was specifically searching for.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 6 months ago (1 children)

For example:

[–] [email protected] 20 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Exactly an example. This is the "dark pattern".

Notice that it's so perfectly crafted that the "add to cart" for the Anker is off the page. Making it 2 actions to get to the one you actually wanted, and just one for theirs. This is why the lawsuit is for "Dark patterns" and monopolization. It's super anti-consumer, but likely makes them boatloads of money and they do this stuff EVERYWHERE.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

Thanks for elaborating. I essentially don't use amazon so I'm not familiar with their newest shitty practices. This is obviously very anti consumer, I just failed to see it as explained in the article

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