Amazon has agreed to make main adjustments to its business practices to settle antitrust investigations that discovered the e-commerce big gave itself an unfair benefit over rival retailers, European Union regulators mentioned Tuesday.
Amazon promised to offer merchandise from rival sellers equal visibility within the “purchase field,” a premium piece of actual property on its web site that results in larger gross sales, the EU’s government fee mentioned.
The firm additionally pledged to cease utilizing “personal knowledge” from impartial sellers on its platform to offer insights into its personal merchandise to compete towards these retailers. Amazon additionally agreed to not discriminate towards sellers in its Prime membership service and let Prime members freely select any supply service.
The settlement permits Amazon to keep away from a authorized battle with the E.U.’s high antitrust watchdog that might have ended with enormous fines, value as much as 10% of its annual worldwide income.
“We are pleased that we have addressed the European Commission’s concerns and resolved these matters,” Amazon mentioned in a ready assertion.
The settlement, which solely applies to Amazon’s business practices in Europe, follows concessions the corporate supplied in July to resolve two EU antitrust investigations. Under the settlement introduced Tuesday, Amazon made enhancements to these preliminary proposals.
