Amazon, Google, Meta or even Apple. All GAFAM members are accused of abusing their dominant position to gain advantage over their competitors. The European Commission intends to put an end to these abuses.
The European Commission finds that Amazon’s use of merchants’ non-public commercial data from its Marketplace to calibrate its retail commercial offers distorts and prevents effective competition on its platform. The e-commerce giant offered an amicable settlement to the Commission in order to avoid a fine that could have amounted to several billion euros. This one put an end to the lawsuits initiated by the European Union.
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The proposed changes relate in particular to the selection criteria for the Buy Box, the famous yellow “Add to cart” button which guarantees a huge high visibility and hence a big turnover to the chosen sellers. The algorithm for selecting those elected to this feature remains unknown, but experts suspect Amazon of favoring its own products and its “foals”, which, indeed, constitutes a real obstacle to free competition.
Amazon agrees with the EU to change its business practices
Under the terms of the five-year agreement, Amazon agrees to no longer use third-party sellers’ non-public data to determine its offerings. Indeed, since the e-commerce site manufactures its own products under the Amazon Basics brand, it is in direct competition with a number of products sold by independent shops. Knowing this, how to ensure that the competition is balanced and that the company does not use the information at its disposal to gain the upper hand with more attractive offers?
Margrethe Vestager, the Executive Vice-President of the European Commission declares about this agreement: “This decision establishes new rules for how Amazon runs its business in Europe. The company can no longer abuse its dual role and will have to change many of its business practices. (Klonopin) This will benefit operators, independent resellers and consumers.” For its part, Amazon said: “We are engaging constructively to ensure that we can continue to serve our customers in Europe and support the 225,000 European SMEs passing through our stores […] The company is delighted to have alleviated one of the concerns of the European Commission”.
Source : European Union
