#美股收跌亚马逊遭ftc起诉
Major U.S. stock indexes fell across the board, and tech giant Amazon was hit again by a major negative development. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), together with 22 state attorneys general, has formally filed a lawsuit against Amazon. The lawsuit alleges that over the past seven years, Amazon used an ad auction mechanism to carry out deceptive and unfair practices, concealing and charging hidden fees from more than one million platform merchants and advertisers, unlawfully extracting hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue.
The complaint states that Amazon claims it uses a “second-price auction” model, where the winning bidder only pays a small difference above the second-highest bid. However, in practice, the platform allegedly secretly introduced undisclosed hidden add-on fees and internal pricing adjustments, forcing as many as 80% of advertisers to pay their full bid. This effectively amounts to altering the auction mechanism into a “first-price auction,” seriously harming advertisers’ interests.
Impacted by this heavy regulatory blow and a more cautious market sentiment, Amazon’s share price fell, further dragging down overall performance in tech stocks. Analysts noted that the lawsuit not only highlights the ongoing close attention of U.S. regulators on advertising and monopoly-related behavior by large technology companies, but also adds further uncertainty to a series of antitrust legal battles expected to unfold.
Major U.S. stock indexes fell across the board, and tech giant Amazon was hit again by a major negative development. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC), together with 22 state attorneys general, has formally filed a lawsuit against Amazon. The lawsuit alleges that over the past seven years, Amazon used an ad auction mechanism to carry out deceptive and unfair practices, concealing and charging hidden fees from more than one million platform merchants and advertisers, unlawfully extracting hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue.
The complaint states that Amazon claims it uses a “second-price auction” model, where the winning bidder only pays a small difference above the second-highest bid. However, in practice, the platform allegedly secretly introduced undisclosed hidden add-on fees and internal pricing adjustments, forcing as many as 80% of advertisers to pay their full bid. This effectively amounts to altering the auction mechanism into a “first-price auction,” seriously harming advertisers’ interests.
Impacted by this heavy regulatory blow and a more cautious market sentiment, Amazon’s share price fell, further dragging down overall performance in tech stocks. Analysts noted that the lawsuit not only highlights the ongoing close attention of U.S. regulators on advertising and monopoly-related behavior by large technology companies, but also adds further uncertainty to a series of antitrust legal battles expected to unfold.