Lina Khan Isn’t Wrong About Amazon
The FTC chair’s antitrust interpretations have met with little success so far, but the e-commerce giant is clearly abusing the market.
FTC Chair Lina Khan has had Amazon in her sights for a while.
Photographer: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
Finally, it’s showtime. Ever since Joe Biden made the bold decision in 2021 to bring in Lina Khan, a 32-year-old law scholar at the time, to lead the Federal Trade Commission, it was known that Amazon.com Inc. would be in her sights. The antitrust case her agency filed on Tuesday, which targets the company’s top-to-bottom control of e-commerce, is the culmination of a yearslong investigation. Or, as Khan’s many critics would have it: a yearslong vendetta.
The case is the fourth brought by the FTC against Amazon this year and is backed by a bipartisan coalition of 17 states. Whereas those earlier lawsuits have targeted narrow business practices — such as the ways in which Amazon boosted sign-ups to its Prime membership program — this latest effort goes for the heart of the business.