Subj : UK retailers launch 1bn claim against Amazon for data misuse
To   : All
From : TechnologyDaily
Date : Fri Jun 07 2024 10:45:05

UK retailers launch 1bn claim against Amazon for data misuse

Date:
Fri, 07 Jun 2024 09:29:33 +0000

Description:
British sellers are unhappy with how Amazon is using their data and 
prioritizing its own in-house sales.

FULL STORY
======================================================================

Amazon has reached a settlement with the UKs competition watchdog regarding 
its use of Marketplace sellers data, but third-party sellers are still 
unhappy with the ecommerce giant. 

The British Independent Retailers Association (BIRA), representing thousands 
of members, has announced it would be filing a 1.1 billion damages claim 
against Amazon. 

The claim alleges that Amazon illegally misused members proprietary data for 
competitive purposes and manipulated the Buy Box to favor its own interests. 
Britains independent retailers vs Amazon 

The Buy Box, where the Buy Now and Add to Basket options are housed, uses an 
algorithm to determine which retailers offer is highlighted. With few buyers 
exploring alternative sellers and instead opting to go for the seemingly 
preferred retailer, Amazons algorithm could have a huge impact on how well 
retailers perform on the online shopping platform. 

Third-party sellers on the platform must also pay a 30% commission to Amazon 
for each sale made on the platform. 

BIRA CEO Andrew Goodacre commented: if small business want to sell online, 
Amazon is the dominant marketplace in the UK Whilst the retailers knew about 
the large commissions charged by Amazon, they did not know about the added 
risk of their trading data being used by Amazon to take sales away from them. 

This class action is linked to a 2022 probe by the Competition and Markets 
Authority (CMA) investigating Amaons potential abuse of market power to 
benefit its retail business over third-party sellers. 

Amazon settled with the CMA, agreeing to renewed monitoring and transparency 
measures. 

To complement its class action, BIRA is submitting 1,150 pages of evidence. 

Boris Bronfentrinker, representing the retailers, commented: This is 
precisely the sort of claim that the new collective action regime was brought 
in for, to enable small and medium size businesses to be able to recover 
damages caused to them by a huge multinational. 

 TechRadar Pro has asked Amazon for comment, but we did not receive an 
immediate response at the time of publication. More from TechRadar Pro Take 
your store online with the best shopping cart software around Weve rounded up 
a list of the best free website builders Amazon is making it easier to buy 
from SMBs



======================================================================
Link to news story:
https://www.techradar.com/pro/uk-retailers-launch-pound1bn-suit-against-amazon
-for-data-misuse


--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A47 (Linux/64)
 * Origin: tqwNet Technology News (1337:1/100)

.