A new round of confrontation between Amazon and the FTC over the exchange of encrypted messages
The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has increased pressure on Amazon, demanding to disclose details of the use of the encrypted messaging app Signal by company executives. The demand comes as part of an ongoing antitrust investigation into the tech giant.
After a years-long case that began in 2019, the FTC sued Amazon in September, accusing the company of engaging in unfair business practices to maintain a monopoly in e-commerce markets. Now the regulator is trying to find out whether Amazon used the Signal application, which allows you to automatically delete messages, to hide important information.
In a new round of legal action, the FTC demanded that Amazon provide additional information about its policies and instructions for using Signal — messenger with end-to-end encryption to ensure the security of correspondence and calls. According to the commission, many of the company's top managers, including former CEO and current chairman Jeff Bezos, CEO Andy Jassy, chief legal officer David Zapolsky and other executives, were active users of Signal.
«Amazon tightly controls employee correspondence, but senior management used a different communication channel, avoiding the need for discreet negotiations and destroying their messages», — FTC lawyers said in a court filing.
The company called the regulator’s accusations «baseless». Amazon claims that it voluntarily provided information about the use of Signal, provided the Commission with messaging messages from employees' phones, and allowed those conversations to be audited.
«The FTC has a complete picture of Amazon's decision-making in this case, including 1.7 million documents from email, corporate messaging and laptops, as well as more than 100 TB of data», & mdash; stated company representatives. However, Amazon refuses to disclose confidential legal information.
Amazon previously asked the court to dismiss the FTC's lawsuit, saying the disputed business practices led to lower prices and were common at retail. The company described the regulator's claims as an «attack» to one of the most consumer-oriented enterprises in the United States.
In a new court filing Thursday, the Federal Trade Commission ordered Amazon to provide two sets of documents related to management's use of the messaging app Signal: the company's data retention notices and instructions for using messaging apps, including Signal.
The FTC alleges that Amazon waited more than a year after the investigation began before instructing employees to save communications on Signal. «It is highly likely that the relevant information was destroyed due to the actions and inactions of Amazon», — says court documents.
The Commission points out that it was not until March 2022, more than two years after notification of the commencement of the proceedings, that Amazon directed several executives to download the company's Wickr messaging app for secure messaging with centralized data storage.
Two days after this instruction, Amazon first informed the regulator about the use of the encrypted Signal service, according to the case file.
The FTC's demand for documents is part of a broader antitrust investigation into Amazon that the commission launched in 2019. The regulator accuses the tech giant of using unfair practices to maintain a monopoly position in e-commerce markets.