(story via Julia Angwin) You might remember that Amazon solemnly swore to Congress that they did not artificially elevate their own products in search results. Except that they do. Adrianne Jeffries and Leon Yin of The Markup used a machine learning algorithm to predict product placement in search results:
“We found that knowing only whether a product was an Amazon brand or exclusive could predict in seven out of every 10 cases whether Amazon would place it first in search results. These listings are not visibly marked as “sponsored” and they are part of a grid that Amazon identifies as “search results” in the site’s source code.”
Nothing else was anywhere close to as predictive. Amazon products routinely get rated higher than better rated and better-selling competitors. And it isn’t just for obvious Amazon products like “Amazon Basics.” It turns out that a lot of products turn out to be Amazon:
“Using public records from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and Amazon’s own statements, we identified more than 150 brands registered by or owned by Amazon. These include both brands with an obvious connection, such as Amazon Basics and Amazon Commercial, and those that are generally known to be owned by the company, including Kindle and Zappos. But they also include dozens more, such as Happy Belly, Daily Ritual, and Society New York, where the connection to the company is not obvious. Those are in addition to the estimated hundreds of third-party brands that are exclusive to the site.”
Consumers are (understandably) totally confused about who makes the products they see. Actual independent sellers are terrified to complain, because they’re worried about retaliation from Amazon. Those who want to elevate their products can of course pay (one of the companies listed in the article was paying $10,000 a month, another $40,000 – not small change!), though even that might not get them listed above the Amazon products. All of this is, not surprisingly, a potential antitrust problem:
“Bill Baer, a former assistant attorney general in charge of the antitrust division of the U.S. Department of Justice and former director of the Bureau of Competition at the FTC, said if consumers expect Amazon’s product search results to be neutral, but they are not, and the site is essentially a monopoly, that could be a violation of the FTC Act of 1914, which prohibits unfair competition and unfair or deceptive practices in commerce, or the U.S. Sherman Antirust Act, which prohibits monopolies from using their market power to harm competition. If basically you’ve got somebody with market power that is restraining competition both in terms of site access or where things appear on the site,” he said, “that is potentially problematic.”
It’s also a problem because it suggests that Amazon executives lied to Congress. Congress, you’ll recall, is completely dysfunctional and polarized on all topics except one: they all hate big tech. Hence the “social good” part of the AI: the House Judiciary committee just sent a very threatening letter, which opens as follows:
“We write in response to recent, credible reporting that directly contradicts the sworn testimony and representations of Amazon’s top executives—including former CEO Jeffrey Bezos—to the Committee about their company’s business practices during our investigation last Congress. At best, this reporting confirms that Amazon’s representatives misled the Committee. At worst, it demonstrates that they may have lied to Congress in possible violation of federal criminal law. In light of the serious nature of this matter, we are providing you with a final opportunity to provide exculpatory evidence to corroborate the prior testimony and statements on behalf of Amazon to the Committee. We strongly encourage you to make use of this opportunity to correct the record and provide the Committee with sworn, truthful, and accurate responses to this request as we consider whether a referral of this matter to the Department of Justice for criminal investigation is appropriate.”
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