House Panel Report Takes Direct Aim At Amazon’s Retail Dominance

A House antitrust panel took direct aim at one of Amazon’s defenses against scrutiny of its retail dominance and detailed allegations about the company wielding its market power, reported The Wall Street Journal. 

In a reportissued Tuesday, the Democratic-led House Antitrust Subcommittee challenged the company’s stance that its share of total US retail shopping is the most relevant way to understand its size. The committee asserted repeatedly that Amazon dominates US e-commerce. The company’s market share of US online sales is often said to be about 39%, but the figure is as high as 74% across a range of product categories, according to the report.

“Amazon functions as a gatekeeper for e-commerce,” the report said. The document provided details that it says shows how Amazon uses its size and platform to thwart competitors, dedicating more pages to its findings about the Seattle-based technology giant than the other large rivals featured in the probe.

Amazon addressed the findings in a blog post. “All large organizations attract the attention of regulators, and we welcome that scrutiny. But large companies are not dominant by definition, and the presumption that success can only be the result of anti-competitive behavior is simply wrong.”

The House panel argued that Amazon has amassed “monopoly power” over sellers on its site, bullied retail partners and improperly used seller data to compete with rivals.