Amazon offers concessions to end EU antitrust investigation

US-based retail giant Amazon Inc. has proposed certain concessions as it looks to settle antitrust cases against it in the European Union (EU).  

As part of the concessions, Amazon said that it will not use non-public data about sellers on its marketplace that would help it compete with third-party sellers, and will allow Prime sellers to choose any delivery services, according to a Reuters’ report. In other words, Amazon will allow third-party sellers on its marketplace to access more information that can help them sell more products online.

The commission launched an investigation four years ago over concerns that Amazon was using data from merchants selling products on its platform to gain an unfair advantage over them. It also opened a separate investigation into whether Amazon, with its dual role as both a marketplace and a retailer on its own platform, was breaking EU law by using market sensitive information to favour its own retail business at the expense of rivals.

Meanwhile, the European Parliament adopted the final text of the Digital Markets Act, which will ban technology groups from ranking their own products and services at the expense of rivals as regulators seek to ensure a level playing field.

Regulators and Amazon have also struck another deal regarding the tech giant’s “buy box”, which ranks sellers high on search results and directs a large part of purchases on the site. 

Sources involved in the matter said that the timing and details of the agreement could still change.

Some companies, such as Apple and Meta, have been aggressively pushing back against the new rules. But Amazon has struck a more conciliatory tone with regulators, said the report.

This is not the first time Amazon has reached an agreement with the EU. In 2017 Brussels accepted commitments after opening a probe to examine whether the US-based online retailer unfairly excluded rivals from the electronic books market.