What You Won’t Learn About Amazon From FTC’s New Antitrust Suit
- Federal Trade Commission case redacts sales, customer data
- More evidence could be unsealed as the litigation goes forward
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The Federal Trade Commission’s blockbuster antitrust lawsuit against Amazon.com Inc. alleges a far-reaching monopolistic scheme to stifle competition across online marketplaces and harm US consumers and businesses.
But anyone hoping to immediately drill down into data about Amazon’s operations — details about its Prime subscriber base, profits, and internal operations, for example — will be disappointed. The lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court in Seattle is rife with black redaction bars. That can be typical in the first public version of a case that pulls evidence from business records marked as confidential when investigators receive them.