Amazon says the Federal Trade Commissioninvestigation into the company was "harassment" against Jeff Bezos. increase.
In filings from the shopping giant released by the FTC, lawyers representing current CEO Andy Jassy and former CEO Jeff Bezos testified to the businessmen. It clarifies that it is complaining that asking is "extremely unreasonable".
The Commission is looking into Amazon Prime and the difficulty of canceling subscription services, as well as "his five separate subscription programs other than Prime."
The 49-page document states that the FTC's request for a subpoena-like Civil Investigative Demand (CID) from Bezos and Jassy "would be a tremendous burden on them." claim. "Without knowledge of the details of running a business and day-to-day responsibility."
Attorneys said the request was "extremely unreasonable, unduly burdensome, and serves no purpose other than to harass top Amazon executives and disrupt business operations." There is."
According to Amazon, it now includes at least five subscription programs, not just Amazon Prime. Audible, Amazon Music, Kindle Unlimited, Subscribe & Save, and unidentified third-party programs. Not provided by Amazon.
It's unclear exactly what this refers to, but Amazon recently acquired MGM, One Medical, and iRobot, which makes Roomba vacuum cleaners.
In June, agency staff attempted to serve subpoenas at the homes of nearly 20 current and former Amazon employees with dates to testify in the coming weeks. , says the petition.
Amazon said in its petition that he had worked "intensively and cooperatively" with FTC staff for more than a year to provide information relevant to the investigation, and that nearly 37,000 pages of documents had been filed. said to have provided It said the information requested in the subpoena was "too extensive and burdensome."
It blames it on "unexplained pressure on staff to rush to complete the investigation by an arbitrarily chosen deadline."
Last year, Amazon accused FTC Chairman Lina Khan that her past public criticism of the company's market power made it impossible for her to be fair. to withdraw from a separate antitrust investigation into its business, but to no avail.
An FTC spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
With an estimated 150 million subscribers in the US, Amazon Prime is both a significant revenue stream and a wealth of customer data for the Seattle-based company. It costs $139 a year. The service added a much-needed feature this year by acquiring exclusive video rights to the NFL's "Thursday Night Football."
In his March of this year, a secret project codenamed "Iliad" after a long poemappeared between Amazon's main page and its eventual cancellation. It was reported to have laid out many layers of questions and offers. We hope that users will eventually continue to use the service.
At some point in 2017, Prime churn dropped to 14% after this was implemented.
Last January, the Norwegian Consumer Council (NCC) said of the process: It was a "deliberate attempt to confuse and annoy customers".
Amazon Prime Vice President Jamil Ghani said at the time, "Customer transparency and trust are our top priorities. By design, we do not allow customers to sign up or cancel their Prime membership. We make it clear and easy to do both.We continually listen to customer feedback and look for ways to improve the customer experience.”
Associated Additional Report by Press
