The FTC’s lawsuit against Amazon, alleging anti-competitive practices, is largely full of things we already knew in a general sense: price increases, pressure to use Amazon fulfillment, etc. But then we come to a sea of newsrooms and the mysterious “Project Nessie.” What is it? Could it be as alarming as the unedited sections make it seem?
The project, product or process is mentioned more than a dozen times in the complaint filed by the FTC. And it’s one of those situations where the redactions probably make it seem scarier than it really is.
Probably.
The first reference comes on page 6:
Amazon also has (written up) through a (written up) operation called “Project Nessie”. (written up) Amazon’s Project Nessie has already mined more (written up) of American homes.
What are you extracting? Money? Data? Something quantifiable, otherwise the document would not say “finished.” While I wouldn’t overlook Amazon, the context doesn’t suggest anything physical or private, like videos or biometrics.
An Amazon Blog Post since 2018 discovered by GeekWire describes Nessie as “a system used to monitor spikes or trends on Amazon.com.” However, much of the lawsuit timeline takes place since then, so this definition (such as it is) may no longer be accurate, if it ever was.
Then, on page 11, among the discussions of “anti-discounting” tactics, we have:
Amazon has considered Project Nessie (written up): has generated more than (written up) excess profits for Amazon.
In addition to overcharging their clients…
Therefore, Nessie makes a profit, but not necessarily directly, although the last sentence implies this.
A little wording research: a previous sentence describes Nessie as a “(written up) algorithm”, with the opaque text consisting of no more than 5 or 6 characters (and note, “a”, not “an”). Price? Revenue? Sales? “Search” would also fit.
The last reference to Nessie in the lawsuit is the entire section 7, which consists of 4 pages dedicated exclusively to Project Nessie.
The Nessie project is an algorithm. (written up). Aware that this scheme belies its public claim that it “seeks to be the most customer-centric company in the world,” (written up).
How distressing. He later refers to “Part VI.A.3, supra” in the middle of a redacted paragraph; the section is about how “Amazon maintains its monopolies by suppressing price competition with its proprietary anti-discount algorithm.”
Amazon recognizes the importance of maintaining perception which has lower prices than competitors. Behind closed doors, however, Amazon executives actively (written up).
Instead, (written up) “Prices will go up.”
Unfortunately, the rest has almost completely disappeared, as you can see:
Image credits: FTC
So what are we going to do with this mysterious Project Nessie? It is a highly secret internal algorithm and an associated operation that makes them a lot of money, probably by manipulating price or search.
Are those small, seemingly arbitrary changes in price we see on items (an increase of a few cents today and a few tomorrow) the Nessie Project in action, increasing or decreasing the price as necessary based on the immense amount of sales data they have access to? to? This seems the most likely explanation, and the ability to dictate pricing based on what a customer is likely to pay would be highly profitable and fit the description of “disproving” the customer’s narrative first.
Or could it be that search, which we know Amazon rigs heavily in favor of certain sellers, is also being boosted in some unknown way? It could also be something completely different, more arcane or technical.
One thing’s for sure: Amazon doesn’t like to talk about it. (I contacted the company for comment and have yet to receive a response.)
Will we ever find out what it is? It seems very unlikely that all this litigation and this trial will not shed at least a little light on this.
But we may know it sooner. Of course, Amazon has the right to request that confidential information be hidden in a public document. But the company will soon have to present documents justifying its numerous and extensive redactions, which will be weighed and, if deemed deficient, eliminated. So it’s possible that in a few weeks we’ll learn more about Project Nessie, whatever it is.
