FTC AIMED AT AMAZON’S FUTURE

While 25 million ‘Lord of the Rings’ fans (or

people who incorrectly clicked on the millions of promotional tiles across Amazon’s device range) watched the premiere of the new billion-dollar ‘The Power of the Rings’ on Amazon (roughly 12% of Prime subscribers), the FTC was busy requesting/reading documents about everyone’s favourite cardboard abuser’s recent purchases. Suffice it to say; both events are high drama.

The iRobot purchase (+$1b) and the purchase of One Medical (+$3.9b) have been covered in-depth in previous issues of WDADTW (hit the archive for more) because they’re that important, and the ink isn’t even dry on the contracts. The big question is will the FTC gnash its teeth or extend its paw to swipe at Amazon? Time will tell, and this is the interesting element here. The FTC was never unlikely to say ‘sure, crack on' with your billion dollar purchases’ considering the other parts of Amazon that the FTC is investigating for monopolistic behaviour. The move to directly look at these two recent purchases will allow investors and third parties to discuss ‘concerns’ with the FTC and others.

While each deal has its intricacies, both share the common ground of data that will be provided to Amazon and what Amazon could do with that data considering everything we know about Amazon, their goals and the company’s history of data missteps and overreach. A moving device is one thing, and a medical record is another. While it may deliver packages and content fast/free, Amazon does not enjoy the same confidence when it comes to knowing what's in customers' houses or bodies.

SO WHAT?

Amazon - and everyone - expected this. The process, as much as the outcome, will be interesting. Amazon has shown it has more plans to buy healthcare companies which is likely spurring the FTC on. Will the FTC be able to get information for a larger case? Will whistleblowers come forward? Time will tell. Don’t expect this to be a lightning-fast case. Apart from being a complex case, the FTC needs a win, so it doesn’t look toothless or completely understaffed, even if the latter is an absolute reality. Previous attempts and decisions made the FTC look bad and powerless - the organisation cannot afford to repeat this, nor can Lina M. Khan.

Amazon announced that ‘The Ring of Power’ pulled in 25m viewers (±12% of Prime Subscribers) in the first two days. /Deadline
Emily Blunt will star in Amazon's 'The English'. /People
Amazon will stream three Yungblud (us neither) concerts. /Variety
‘Euphoria’ Actor Barbie Ferreira will join the cast of ‘House of Spoils’. /Variety
Amazon Studios Europe Chief Georgia Brown will leave Amazon after five years in the post. /Deadline
Amazon announced more Anime launching in Japan. /Amazon
Amazon set royalty rates with music Publishers through 2027. /THR
Amazon’s Russo-brothers series ‘Citadel’ had a creative overhaul which ballooned the budget to +$200M. /THR
Suze Orman’s financial show archives will soon be on Freevee. /Deadline
Amazon’s LOTR is suffering a racist backlash. /THR
Amazon and WWE joined forces to fight content counterfeiting. /Amazon
Amazon’s NFL show averages 1.03 million viewers. /ProFootballTalk
Amazon announced it would put a 72-hour delay on commenting. /Deadline

Amazon introduced Seller storage service to tackle supply-chain issues. /Reuters
AWS announced that Prasar Bharati News Services would use AWS to scale operations around India and the world. /Amazon
Amazon introduced the encrypted communication service AWS Wickr. /Infoq
Amazon (and Google) slammed Microsoft's cloud computing changes. /Reuters

Amazon announced new reference-price requirements for Prime Exclusive Discounts. /Amazon
Amazon Japan announced packaging changes to help environmental impact. /Amazon
Amazon is expanding its warehousing logistics business. /ECB
Amazon announced Holiday storage limits are back for FBA Sellers. /ECB
Amazon launched a Compliance Reference tool that helps Sellers manage their compliance obligations. /Channelx
Amazon offers sellers long-term inventory storage with a new service. /Retail Dive
Amazon opened registrations for the Amazon Brand Conference 2022. /Amazon
Amazon told Sellers when to have stock in Amazon by for holidays. /Amazon

Amazon UK staff said they are ready to strike. /Reuters
Amazon has decided to close more US warehouses and abandon growth plans for others. /Bloomberg
Amazon is still making some US land plays, though. /Tampabay
Amazon opened another Fresh store in Chevy Chase, US. /WGB
Amazon took all U.S. solar rooftops offline last year after a flurry of fires, and electrical explosions. /CNBC
Amazon beat the patent suit over Alexa and enabled devices. /Bloomberg
Amazon is sending 326,000 bottles of water to flooded Mississippi communities. /Amazon
Jeff Bezos attended the LOTR premiere. /Deadline
Amazon hit a major setback in overturning the Staten Island vote. /Retail Dive
Amazon rolled out a delivery route algorithm to reduce miles driven. /Retail Dive
The judge in the class action Ebooks lawsuit called for dismissal. /Reuters
Amazon announced the recipients of the second annual Amazon Future Engineer Canada university scholarship program. /Amazon

Amazon is struggling to compete in India, per reports. /Techcrunch
Despite years of investments, many Amazon grocery sellers still face uphill battles. /Modern Retail
Shopify warned merchants against using Amazon’s ‘Buy With Prime’ service. /CNBC
CVS is said to be near an $8b purchase of Signify Health. /Bloomberg
The cost of watching Premier League has risen by up to a third after Amazon’s entry. /Bloomberg
Alibaba is planning a European push, per CEO. /Bloomberg
Disney is thinking about creating a Prime-esque offering. /Deadline

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What Did Amazon Do This Week?

What Did Amazon Do This Week? - 04-09-2022