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Unredacted FTC suit shows 'Project Nessie' price-raising algorithm made Amazon $1.4B
(techcrunch.com)
So everyone gets $3.50 back?
this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2023
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No, the government gets a couple million in fines and Amazon raises their prices to compensate for the next quarter but never lowers the cost so they'll make even more the quarter after.
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So what's the government's ~~price~~ fine for something like that, 5 mil?
These kinds of crimes should come with a fine that's 10x what they profited. Then even they manage to hide some of the profit, it's still gonna hurt.
And jail time as well as taking their personal wealth. Or throw them in the middle of the Atlantic, both options are valid.
The documents cited by the FTC paint a different picture. The project ran for five years, and whatever intentions Amazon had for it, it generated about $1.4 billion in additional profits. Amazon is quoted as deeming Project Nessie “an incredible success,” which somewhat contradicts their more recent statement. And if it was strictly about preventing “unsustainable” low prices, it doesn’t make sense that it would only target retailers that would match Amazon’s markups.
and nothing will happen ever.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Unfortunately, when the lawsuit was filed, it was full of redactions, and Nessie was clearly the biggest risk, with every mention and entire pages of the section dedicated to it blocked by black bars.
But the process in court is that these redactions must be first honored and then defended — and clearly the argument of public interest won out over Amazon’s preference.
And so the newly unredacted lawsuit is sporting far fewer stripes, though the occasional proprietary or internal figure is still blocked out.
And if it was strictly about preventing “unsustainable” low prices, it doesn’t make sense that it would only target retailers that would match Amazon’s markups.
That it was “scrapped” is also questionable, since in 2022 the CEO of Worldwide Amazon Stores Doug Herrington suggested turning on “our old friend Nessie, perhaps with some new targeting logic” to boost retail profits.
They may, however, have more detailed refutations in store in their own court filings, though on this matter of Nessie, they may well decide that discretion is the better part of public opinion.
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