The FTC—joined (unfortunately) by 17 state attorneys general—on Sept. 26 filed its much-anticipated antitrust complaint against Amazon in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington. Lacking all sense of irony, Deputy Director Newman, quoted above, bragged about the case’s potential to do greater good than almost all previous antitrust lawsuits.
A quick perusal of the FTC’s press release announcing the suit reveals the basic claims the FTC will be making in court. While full details are set forth in the commission’s formal complaint, the press release provides one sufficient reason to believe that this high-profile antitrust complaint is baseless. A few initial comments on this travesty of a lawsuit follow.