If Amazon Was Untruthful, Perjury Referral Is ‘Appropriate,’ Cicilline Says
If Amazon was untruthful in July when it testified about third-party seller data, a perjury referral would be "appropriate,” said House Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman David Cicilline, D-R.I., on Thursday. Last week, Cicilline said he was considering whether a perjury referral is warranted due to discrepancies between a Wall Street Journal report (see 2004300054) and testimony from Amazon Associate General Counsel-Litigation and Regulatory Legal Nate Sutton. “It certainly appears as if the testimony Mr. Sutton gave was contradicted directly by the WSJ report, and so I’m going to review all of that carefully,” Cicilline said during a Politico livestream.
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Cicilline said the testimony concerned a critical aspect of the House Judiciary Committee investigation: whether Amazon uses the data it collects from third-party sellers in deciding to launch its own private label products to compete with sellers, putting it at a significant competitive advantage. “The testimony that they don’t use third-party data in any way to inform their own product line seems to have been completely contradicted,” Cicilline said. “If it in fact turns out Mr. Sutton testified untruthfully, then he needs to be held accountable.”
Citing previous comments and July testimony, a spokesperson emailed that the company “prohibits employees from using nonpublic, seller-specific data to determine which private label products to launch.” The platform denies the claims, saying it takes “these allegations very seriously” and previously “launched an internal investigation."
CEO Jeff Bezos hasn’t committed to testifying (see 2005010016), Cicilline said. It’s hard to imagine the committee completing the investigation without hearing from the CEOs from major tech platforms, including Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google, he said. Cicilline added he has spoken with the other corporate chiefs very recently, and Bezos is the only one expressing reservations about testifying.
Cicilline said he expects House Judiciary members to issue a report with tech recommendations by "the end of spring at the latest.” Whether any related legislative proposals are enacted in both chambers before the end of the year in the context of an election is “an open question,” he added.
All committees are exploring ways to operate virtually, to hold hearings and mark up legislation, the lawmaker said: “If this pandemic is going to be prolonged, we’re going to have to find a way to get some of our committee work done, and there are ongoing discussions.”
Cicilline was asked about his push for a moratorium on takeovers in the upcoming COVID-19 stimulus package (see 2004230031). FTC Commissioner Noah Phillips warned that a draconian moratorium could wipe out the benefits of pro-competitive transactions. Agencies have limited resources and should be focused on price gouging and other consumer-related issues, not on jamming through deals that could result in more consolidation, Cicilline said.
Cicilline said lawmakers had a briefing last week with DOJ and the FTC about price-gouging efforts. DOJ “seems to be very aggressive” with cases across the country. “I wasn’t as impressed with the FTC,” he said. “They don’t seem to understand or accept the notion they have a role here, and so” there should be related language in the upcoming relief package. The FTC didn’t comment.
Top Senate Commerce Committee Republicans introduced a privacy bill Thursday that would set requirements for companies collecting data on COVID-19. Introduced by Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss.; Senate Majority Whip John Thune, R-S.D.; and fellow Republicans Jerry Moran, Kan.; Marsha Blackburn, Tenn.; and Deb Fischer, Neb., the COVID-19 Consumer Data Protection Act would set collection, use and transparency standards for gathering personal health, geolocation and proximity data. Companies under FTC jurisdiction would have to secure “affirmative express consent” for collecting and processing data for purposes of tracking the virus. It would include transparency standards and reports for how data is handled and how long it’s retained. It would set definitions for aggregation and de-identification of data. Individuals would be able to opt out of data collection and processing. State attorneys general would be able to enforce the act.
The U.S. needs “a workable national standard for data privacy that sets clear rules for transparency on how data is used, stored and shared,” House Consumer Protection Subcommittee ranking member Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash., wrote Thursday in Morning Consult. It will help strengthen consumer trust, she said, which in turn will allow technology like the Google-Apple contact tracing app (see 2004230061) to work for consumers, she said. The subcommittee on Thursday scheduled a teleconference forum with FTC Chairman Joe Simons at noon Monday to discuss COVID-19 and other issues.
Consumer Protection Bureau Director Andrew Smith discussed how the FTC is strengthening privacy orders, at a Ballard Spahr webinar. He said the commission increased accountability for third-party privacy assessors, which can “no longer take the company’s word for it. They can’t just interview the company and say, ‘You’ve complied with all the requirements of your data safeguarding program.’” The FTC “effectively removed” Facebook’s independent privacy assessor last year (see 1912050061). Smith said now that assessors must identify evidence that supports their conclusions and independently sample transactions, interview employees, review documents and show them to the FTC.