The story was based on a leaked document from ethics official Lorielle Pankey, which states in its first paragraph, “I do not find participation would constitute a per se federal ethics violation.” Nevertheless, this has sent conservative opponents of Khan into high dudgeon, including the Wall Street Journal editorial page, which published its 67th editorial about Khan over this issue, two days before giving Samuel Alito op-ed space to explain why he didn’t need to recuse himself over taking undisclosed fishing junkets alongside billionaires with business before the Supreme Court.Īt the time of being named FTC chair, Khan worked at Columbia University, along with her husband. (The FTC did sue to block the merger, but lost the case.) Last week, a splashy Bloomberg article claimed that Khan rejected the recommendation of the agency’s top ethics official that she recuse from a decision on whether to sue Meta over its acquisition of virtual reality firm Within. Facebook, now Meta, did the same on multiple occasions, even asking a federal judge to throw out an antitrust suit against the company on this basis the judge denied the request. Two years ago, Amazon sought Khan’s recusal from matters concerning the company, claiming personal bias. But this won’t likely matter, because it fits into an ongoing smear campaign about Khan’s ethics. It says nothing about Amazon using unfair practices to acquire and retain Prime customers. That article talks about Prime in the context of below-cost pricing to hook consumers (Amazon nearly doubled Prime fees since its initial offer, a tactic known as recoupment) and the importance of the membership program to increase purchases and revenue. Khan rose to prominence after publishing a law review article in 2017 about the need for new efforts to mitigate Amazon’s market power. It’s the first suit against Amazon since Lina Khan became FTC chair, and we can surely expect loud howls from the industry lobby about conflicts of interest. (A classics scholar might grumble that “Odyssey” would be a more appropriate Greek epic, but perhaps Amazon was saving that for an even worse process.) The FTC is asking for a permanent injunction and civil penalties. The company called their cancellation program “Iliad,” after the Greek epic depicting the ten-year siege of the city-state of Troy, which involved navigating “a four-page, six-click, fifteen-option” gauntlet just to get out of the $139 annual membership. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) argues that Amazon used dark patterns and other online tricks to dupe people into signing up for Prime, and then made it next to impossible to get out. “Our goal with Amazon Prime, make no mistake, is to make sure that if you are not a Prime member, you are being irresponsible,” Bezos said.Ī federal lawsuit out this week alleges that Amazon relied on more than just good features to build subscriptions in Prime. Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan speaks at the American Bar Association Antitrust Law Spring Meeting at the Marriott Marquis in Washington, March 31, 2023.įormer Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos told shareholders at the company’s annual meeting in 2016 that he wanted Amazon Prime to be such a compelling product that every consumer would covet it.
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