Amazon in court: did the platform make advertisers pay too much?

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and as many as 21 U.S. states are suing Amazon for overcharging advertisers. Since 2019, the e-commerce giant is alleged to have overcharged advertisers by more than $20 billion through its advertising platform.

“Billions of ad auctions manipulated”

The regulator alleges that Amazon misled advertisers about the pricing and terms of so-called sponsored listings, which appear at the top of the page when users search on the marketplace. According to the plaintiffs, Amazon misled more than 1.2 million advertising customers—including more than 500,000 small and medium-sized businesses—about how the company calculates advertising costs on its platform.