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Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Suspect Amazon executives, including founder Jeff Bezos and CEO Andy Jassy, said in now-deleted text messages that “we have no business concerns,” according to Thursday’s court filing. The documents say they are talking about “confidential matters” and may have been used as evidence by the FTC. Ongoing antitrust litigation against Amazon.
Amazon executives used the encrypted messaging app Signal from April 2019 to May 2022 and continued to delete messages through the app, according to Thursday’s filing. disappearing message This feature was also present when the FTC was investigating Amazon.
“Amazon executives deleted many of the signaling messages during Plaintiffs’ pre-complaint investigation, and Amazon did not continue to engage employees until more than 15 months after Amazon learned that Plaintiffs’ investigation was underway. “The FTC did not instruct its employees to save the signaling messages,” the FTC said in its filing.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images
The FTC named Bezos and other senior executives, including Amazon’s top lawyer David Zapolsky, as some of the leaders who used Signal and its disappearing message feature.
Related: Amazon’s two most popular Prime features may actually be illegal
The filing is part of a larger antitrust case that the FTC began in September. sued Amazonaccused the retail giant of illegally maintaining a monopoly through anticompetitive practices.
Amazon answered The lawsuit argued that it could harm both consumers who shop on the company’s platform at higher prices and independent businesses that sell products through the platform.
In Thursday’s filing, the FTC asked Amazon how Amazon executives directed employees to communicate on Signal, when to use it, and whether there were specific instructions for deleting messages. I asked for more information.
Related: Amazon uses a ‘secret algorithm’ to increase prices by more than $1 billion, FTC announces
Amazon spokesperson Tim Doyle said: bloomberg The FTC’s allegations are “baseless,” and Amazon claimed that it disclosed its use of Signal to the FTC “years ago.”
Doyle also said business insider “The FTC has a complete view of Amazon’s decision-making in this case, including 1.7 million documents and more than 100 terabytes of data from sources such as emails, internal messaging applications, and laptops.”