Margrethe Vestager, a European Commission vice president, said Amazon was unfairly using data to box out smaller competitors.
European Union regulators brought antitrust charges against Amazon on Tuesday, saying the online retail giant broke competition laws by unfairly using its size and access to data to harm smaller merchants who rely on the company to reach customers. The European Commission, the executive branch of the 27-nation bloc, said Amazon had abused its duel role as both a retail store used by millions of vendors, and a merchant that sells its own competing goods on the platform. The authorities accused Amazon of harvesting data from the millions of merchants who use its marketplace to spot popular products, then copy them and sell at a lower price. “We must ensure that dual role platforms with market power, such as Amazon, do not distort competition,” Margrethe Vestager, the commission’s vice president for digital issues, said in a statement.
