Authors, publishers and booksellers want Congress to act against Amazon's 'anti-competitive' practices

By Emmanuel Legrand

In a joint letter to the chairman of the House Antitrust Subcommittee, Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), Maria Pallante, president and CEO of the Association of American Publishers, Mary Rasenberger, executive director of the Authors Guild, and Allison Hill, CEO of the American Booksellers Association, have urged Congress to act swiftly to curve what they describe as Amazon's anti-competitive methods such as "engaging in systematic below-cost pricing of books to squash competition in the book selling industry as a whole.” 

  “Amazon no longer competes on a level playing field when it comes to book distribution, but, rather, owns and manipulates the playing field, leveraging practices from across its platform that appear to be well outside of fair and transparent competition,” reads the letter. The signatories "believe that Amazon acts anti-competitively in multiple ways, dictating the economic terms of its relationships with suppliers so that publishers, their authors, and the booksellers who sell on Amazon pay more each year for Amazon’s distribution and advertising services but receive less each year in return.” 

  They are asking Congress to consider four recommendations to limit the power of Amazon on the books business: 

  1 - Prohibit Amazon from leveraging data from the operation of its online platform to compete with and disadvantage the suppliers doing business there, as data "gives Amazon an insurmountable lead over any would-be distribution rivals."

  2 - Prohibit amazon from tying distribution services to the purchase of advertising services, as Amazon "brazenly ties them together so that suppliers must spend advertising dollars in order to make distribution services viable.”

  3 - Prohibit Amazon from imposing Most Favored Nations (MFNs) and other parity provisions, as Amazon "imposes MFNs and other parity provisions to eliminate the ability of rivals or new entrants to gain any meaningful competitive advantage relative to Amazon."

  4 - Prohibit Amazon from using loss-leader pricing to harm competition, as Amazon "no longer competes on a level playing field when it comes to book distribution, but, rather, owns and manipulates the playing field, leveraging practices from across its platform that appear to be well outside of fair and transparent competition."

 The signatories conclude the letter by asking government officials to "step in decisively to exercise appropriate governance of Amazon.”