October 18, 2021

Mr. Andy Jassy

President and Chief Executive Officer
Amazon.com, Inc.
410 Terry Avenue N. Seattle, WA 98109

Dear Mr. Jassy:

We write in response to recent, credible reporting that directly contradicts the sworn testimony and
representations of Amazon’s top executives—including former CEO Jeffrey Bezos—to the
Committee about their company’s business practices during our investigation last Congress. At
best, this reporting confirms that Amazon’s representatives misled the Committee.1 At worst, it
demonstrates that they may have lied to Congress in possible violation of federal criminal law.

In light of the serious nature of this matter, we are providing you with a final opportunity to
provide exculpatory evidence to corroborate the prior testimony and statements on behalf of
Amazon to the Committee. We strongly encourage you to make use of this opportunity to correct
the record and provide the Committee with sworn, truthful, and accurate responses to this request
as we consider whether a referral of this matter to the Department of Justice for criminal
investigation is appropriate.

Last Wednesday, Reuters reported that Amazon “ran a systematic campaign of creating knockoffs
and manipulating search results to boost its own product lines in India, one of the company’s

1
As part of this investigation, the Committee requested documents and communications related to Amazon’s
relationships with sellers, including Amazon’s use of third-party seller’s data. Letter from Hon. Jerrold Nadler,
Chairman, H. Comm. on the Judiciary, Hon. Doug Collins, Ranking Member, H. Comm on the Judiciary, Hon. David
N. Cicilline, Chairman, Subcomm. on Antitrust, Commercial and Admin. Law of the H. Comm. on the Judiciary &
Hon. F. James Sensenbrenner, Ranking Member, Subcomm. on Antitrust, Commercial and Admin. Law of the H.
Comm. on the Judiciary to Jeff Bezos, CEO, Amazon.com, Inc. (Sept. 13, 2019),
https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/democrats.judiciary.house.gov/files/documents/amazon%20rfi%20-%20signed.pdf;
see also Letter from Hon. Jerrold Nadler, Chairman, H. Comm. on the Judiciary, et al., to Jeff Bezos, CEO,
Amazon.com, Inc. (May 1, 2020), https://judiciary.house.gov/uploadedfiles/2020-05-
01_letter_to_amazon_ceo_bezos.pdf?utm_campaign=2719-519.
largest growth markets.”2 This report was the result of a review of thousands of Amazon’s internal
documents, including emails, plans, and strategy papers. As this report notes, these internal
documents show a pattern of Amazon “exploiting proprietary data from individual sellers to
launch competing products and manipulating search results to increase sales of the company’s own
goods.”3 In one example, Amazon replicated a popular brand of shirts, copied the measurements of
the shirt “down to the neck circumference and sleeve length,” and then partnered with the
manufacturer of the product to produce a version of similar quality. As Amazon’s internal
document noted, “It is difficult to develop this expertise across products and hence, to ensure that
we are able to fully match quality with our reference product, we decided to only partner with the
manufacturers of our reference product.”4

The following day, a new investigation by The Markup provided similar evidence that Amazon
“places products from its house brands and products exclusive to the site ahead of those from
competitors—even competitors with higher customer ratings and more sales, judging from the
volume of reviews.”5 As this investigation found, an analysis of Amazon search results for 3,492
popular products showed that it “gave its brands the top spot, it placed its products above
competitors that had both better ratings and more reviews than the Amazon brand or exclusive
product.”6 As one seller noted, this unfair advantage made it more difficult for smaller sellers to
compete on Amazon’s marketplace, imposing costs on “entrepreneurs and small businesses that
don’t have the means to fight.”7

These investigations are consistent with prior reports. On April 23, 2020, The Wall Street Journal
reported that interviews with more than 20 former employees of Amazon’s private-label business
showed that employees pulled data on competitors, including individual sellers, as part of a
“standard operating procedure at the company” before Amazon decided to make its own line of
copycat products.8 If they did not have access to this data, “managers sometimes would ask an
Amazon business analyst to create reports featuring the information, according to former workers,
including one who called the practice ‘going over the fence.’”9 This report also noted that in some
cases, aggregate data “was derived exclusively or almost entirely from one seller, former
employees said.”10 On July 18, 2019, The Capitol Forum reported that a former Amazon employee

2
Aditya Kalra & Steve Stecklow, Amazon copied products and rigged search results to promote its own brands,
documents show, REUTERS (Oct. 13, 2021), https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/amazon-india-
rigging/.
3
Id.
4
Id.
5
Adrianne Jeffries & Leon Yin, Amazon Puts Its Own “Brands” First Above Better-Rated Products, THE MARKUP
(Oct. 14, 2021), https://themarkup.org/amazons-advantage/2021/10/14/amazon-puts-its-own-brands-first-above-better-
rated-products.
6
Id.
7
Id.
8
Dana Mattioli, Amazon Scooped Up Data From Its Own Sellers to Launch Competing Products, WALL ST. J. (Apr.
23, 2020), https://www.wsj.com/articles/amazon-scooped-up-data-from-its-own-sellers-to-launch-competingproducts-
11587650015?.
9
Id.
10
Id.

2
contested claims by Amazon that it does not use individual seller data to compete with third-party
merchants. He told the reporter, “I used to pull sellers' data to look at what the best products were
when I was there.”11

Each of these investigative reports are inconsistent with the sworn testimony and numerous
statements made by Amazon’s executives to the Committee during our investigation into
Amazon’s business practices last Congress.

On July 16, 2019, Nate Sutton, Amazon’s Associate General Counsel, testified that “we do not use
any seller data for – to compete with them,” adding that Amazon does not “use any of that specific
seller data in creating our own private brand products.”12 At the same hearing, Mr. Sutton testified
that Amazon’s search rankings are not designed to favor its own products:

Mr. Sutton: Our algorithms, such as the buy box, is aimed to predict what customers
want to buy and we apply the same criteria whether you're a third-party seller or
Amazon to that because we want customers to make the right purchase regardless
of whether it's a seller or Amazon.

Mr. Cicilline: But the best purchase to you is an Amazon product?

Mr. Sutton: No, that's not true.

Mr. Cicilline: So you're telling us, sir, under oath that Amazon does not use any of
that data collected with respect to what is selling, where it's selling, what products to
inform the decisions you make or to change algorithms to direct people to Amazon
products and prioritize Amazon and deprioritize competitors?

Mr. Sutton: The algorithms are optimized to predict what customers want to buy
regardless of the seller. We provide the same criteria.13

In a post-hearing letter, David Zapolsky, Amazon’s General Counsel, wrote on July 26, 2019 that
Amazon “prohibit[s] in our private label strategy the use of data related specifically to individual
sellers,” and instead uses “aggregated store data on total sales and search volume for categories
and products.”14 In response to a question about whether the same criteria is used by Amazon for
its own products and other sellers, Mr. Zapolsky represented that Amazon’s search ranking “does
not favor any particular type of offer, rather it seeks to determine which offer to highlight based on
a prediction of which offer customers would choose if they were to compare all offers in detail . . .
11
Amazon: Former Employee Challenges Executives’ Denial About Company’s Use of Sellers’ Data, CAPITOL FORUM
(July 18, 2019) (on file with staff).
12
Online Platforms and Market Power, Part 2: Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Hearing Before the Subcomm. on
Antitrust, Commercial and Admin. Law of the H. Comm. on the Judiciary, 116th Cong. 38 (2019) (statement of Nate
Sutton, Assoc. Gen. Counsel, Competition, Amazon.com, Inc.),
https://judiciary.house.gov/calendar/eventsingle.aspx?EventID=2258.
13
Id. at 41.
14
Letter from David Zapolsky, Gen. Counsel, Amazon.com, Inc. to Hon. David N. Cicilline, Chairman, Subcomm.
on Antitrust, Commercial and Admin. Law of the H. Comm. on the Judiciary at 3 (July 26, 2019) (on file with
Comm.).

3
that algorithm seeks to highlight the offer a customer would choose based on factors beyond price,
including fulfillment speed, delivery speed, Prime eligibility, and seller performance.”15

On October 11, 2019, Mr. Sutton said in response to questions for the hearing record that
“Amazon prohibits Amazon’s private brand products business from using individual sellers’ data
to decide which products to launch, and Amazon prohibits the use of individual sellers’ data to
make sourcing, pricing, or inventory decisions for its private brand products.”16 Mr. Sutton also
added that “‘[a]ggregated data’ is data that is aggregated across all third-party sellers and
Amazon’s first party sales and is therefore not specific to an individual seller,” and that “Amazon
prohibits the use of non-public seller-specific data to inform development of private brand
products.”17 In response to a request to identify all factors for its search rankings, Mr. Sutton said:

Amazon designs its shopping and discovery experience to feature the items
customers will want to purchase, regardless of whether they are offered by
Amazon or one of its selling partners. Amazon considers many factors when
choosing the shopping results featured for customers, including,for example,
customer actions (such as how frequently an item was purchased), information
about the item (such as title, price, and description), and availability.18

On July 29, 2020, Jeff Bezos, then-CEO of Amazon, testified that Amazon enforces a policy
against using seller-specific data to develop competing products, but clarified that Amazon
considers seller data from more than a single seller to be “aggregate” for purposes of its policy.19
In response to post-hearing questions for the record, Mr. Bezos claimed that this policy “prohibits
the use of anonymized data, if related to a single seller, when making decisions to launch private
brand products.”20

On October 4, 2020, Brian Huseman, Amazon’s Vice President for Public Policy, provided a
summary of some of Amazon’s findings following its own inquiry into reports of Amazon’s abuse
of seller data, “Amazon’s policy does not permit private brands employees to look at the number
of sales made by a single seller.”21

15
Id. at 5.
16
Online Platforms and Market Power, Part 2: Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Hearing Before the Subcomm. on
Antitrust, Commercial and Admin. Law of the H. Comm. on the Judiciary, 116th Cong. at 7 (2019) (response to
Questions for the Record of Nate Sutton, Assoc. Gen. Counsel, Competition, Amazon.com, Inc.),
https://judiciary.house.gov/calendar/eventsingle.aspx?EventID=2258.
17
Id. at 5 (emphasis added)
18
Id. at 2.
19
Online Platforms and Market Power, Part 6: Examining the Dominance of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and
Google: Hearing Before the Subcomm. on Antitrust, Commercial and Admin. Law of the H. Comm. on the Judiciary,
116th Cong. 102 (2020) (statement of Jeff Bezos, CEO, Amazon.com, Inc.).
20
Online Platforms and Market Power, Part 6: Examining the Dominance of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google:
Hearing Before the Subcomm. on Antitrust, Commercial and Admin. Law of the H. Comm. on the Judiciary, 116th
Cong. at 1 (2020) (responses to Questions for the Record of Jeff Bezos, CEO, Amazon.com, Inc.).
21
Letter from Brian Huseman, Vice President, Public Policy, Amazon.com, Inc., to Hon. David N. Cicilline,
Chairman, Subcomm. on Antitrust, Commercial and Admin. Law of the H. Comm. on the Judiciary at 2 (Oct. 4,
4
Under 18 U.S.C. § 1001, it is criminally illegal to knowingly and willfully make statements that
are materially false, conceal a material fact, or otherwise provide false documentation in response
to a congressional investigation.22 Perjurious statements made under oath before Congress, as well
as inducing another person to commit perjury,23 are also a federal crime.24

Accordingly, we ask that you provide the following by no later than November 1, 2021:

1. A sworn response to clarify the record as to how Amazon uses non-public individual seller
data to develop and market its own line of products;

2. A sworn response to clarify the record as to how Amazon advantages its own products over
products from other sellers in its search rankings, including through sponsored results that
are undisclosed;

3. All documents and communications relating to Amazon’s internal inquiry into violations of
its Seller Data Protection Policy as detailed in Amazon’s October 4, 2020 letter;25

4. All documents referred to in the Reuters report entitled “Amazon copied products and
rigged search results to promote its own brands, documents show;”26 and

5. A response to The Markup report entitled “Amazon Puts Its Own “Brands” First Above
Better-Rated Products,” including an explanation as to why Amazon does not publicly
label search results for its brand-product listings as advertisements.27

2019) (on file with Comm.).

22
18 U.S.C. § 1001(a), (c)(2); see, e.g., United States v. Boffil-Rivera, 607 F.3d 736, 741 (11th Cir. 2010) (holding
that a statement is knowingly and materially false when it was intended to deceive or mislead a decision-making body
even where it is ignored or not relied upon).
23
18 U.S.C. § 1622.
24
18 U.S.C. § 1621.
25
Letter from Brian Huseman, Vice President, Public Policy, Amazon.com, Inc., to Hon. David N. Cicilline,
Chairman, Subcomm. on Antitrust, Commercial and Admin. Law of the H. Comm. on the Judiciary (Oct. 4, 2019) (on
file with Comm.).
26
Aditya Kalra & Steve Stecklow, Amazon copied products and rigged search results to promote its own brands,
documents show, REUTERS (Oct. 13, 2021), https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/amazon-india-
rigging/.
27
Adrianne Jeffries & Leon Yin, Amazon Puts Its Own “Brands” First Above Better-Rated Products, THE MARKUP
(Oct. 14, 2021), https://themarkup.org/amazons-advantage/2021/10/14/amazon-puts-its-own-brands-first-above-better-
rated-products.

5
 Sincerely,

Jerrold Nadler David N. Cicilline

Chair Chair
Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and
Administrative Law

Ken Buck Pramila Jayapal

Ranking Member Vice Chair
Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial and
and Administrative Law Administrative Law

Matt Gaetz
Member
Subcommittee on Antitrust, Commercial
and Administrative Law

CC: The Honorable Jim Jordan, Ranking Member, Committee on the Judiciary