Amazon used sellers' own sales data against them — Brussels made it stop for seven years

The European Commission opened a formal investigation in July 2019 into whether Amazon used data generated by independent sellers on its marketplace — sales volumes, pricing, margins — to inform its own retail and private-label decisions, giving Amazon's own products an advantage no independent seller could match. A second investigation, opened in November 2020, examined whether Amazon's 'Buy Box' (the default purchase button most shoppers click) and Prime eligibility criteria systematically favored sellers who used Amazon's own logistics service over those who didn't.

Rather than contest the findings through to a formal decision, Amazon negotiated commitments with the Commission that became legally binding in December 2022. Amazon agreed not to use non-public seller data for its own retail business or private-label products, to display a second, equally prominent Buy Box for competing offers that differ meaningfully on price or delivery, and to apply Prime eligibility criteria that don't structurally favor its own logistics service.

The commitments run seven years for the Buy Box and Prime provisions and five years for the data-use restriction. Accepting them let Amazon avoid a formal infringement decision and a fine that could have reached 10% of its global annual turnover — a case the Commission had spent more than three years building.