EC Accepts Amazon's Commitments On E-Commerce Marketplace

(RTTNews) - The European Commission Tuesday said it has decided to accept commitments offered by Amazon. The commitments are in response to the commission's three preliminary competition concerns about Amazon's practices in its e-commerce marketplace. Amazon will implement these commitments by June 2023.

Amazon agreed that it will reshape three central pillars of its marketplace ecosystem, the use of data, the conditions of access to the Buy Box and third, the conditions of access to the Prime programme.

Amazon also said it will refrain from using non-public seller data to the benefit of its retail operations. This commitment applies to both Amazon's employees and algorithmic tools that largely drive its business decisions.

Amazon committed to displaying a second Buy Box. Prime sellers will be free to choose any carrier for their logistics and delivery services.

According to EC, the commitments will prevent Amazon from calibrating its business decisions using data generated by the activities of independent sellers and thus it will restore a level-playing field on the platform.

The Commission's first preliminary competition concern was regarding the use of big data and Amazon's dual role as both a marketplace and a competitor to sellers active on its marketplace.

The second concern was about the rules of access set by Amazon for sellers to appear in the Buy Box and the third concern was about the rules of access set by Amazon for sellers and carriers to participate in the Prime Programme.

The Commission also found that Amazon gathers a lot of data from the activities of independent sellers on the marketplace and uses the data collected for its own retail activities.

Further, the commission said Amazon's retail operations get many insights from sensitive business data of 800 000 active sellers in the EU and use this data to make business decisions in its retail operations. The main concern of EC is that Amazon will be able to take fewer risks than competing retailers active on its platform, while competitors have no access to such data.

The Buy Box, which consumers see when looking for a specific product on Amazon was favouring its retail operations. Further, EC said it had concerns that access to Prime was favouring Amazon's retail and logistics operations.