Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes amazon-unfair-and-deceptive-practices-0″>filed two new lawsuits against amazon on Wednesday, filing complaints similar to those the company already faces from the Federal Trade Commission.
Both lawsuits are filed under Arizona's own state statutes in the Arizona Superior Court. One of the lawsuits accuses amazon of engaging in deceptive business practices that violate the state's Consumer Fraud Act by allegedly using design tricks known as dark patterns to prevent users from canceling their amazon Prime subscriptions. This is similar to a lawsuit the FTC filed against the company in June.
The other demand accuses amazon of violating the Arizona Uniform State Antitrust Law by unfairly maintaining monopoly status by enforcing agreements with third-party sellers that prevent them from offering lower prices off the platform than on amazon. This type of language, sometimes called the “most favored nation” clause, has also come under attack from other state AGs, including those of the District of Columbia and technology/california-files-antitrust-lawsuit-against-amazon.html”>California. (The DC case was technology/amazon-dc-antitrust-suit.html”>expelledbut AG is trying to reset it.)
The Arizona antitrust lawsuit also targets amazon's Buy Box algorithm through the Consumer Fraud Act. That algorithm is the system that determines which product in a category gets the best placement with the “Buy Now” button. The AG alleges that this algorithm is “biased in favor of amazon's own retail offerings or third-party sellers participating in FBA.” Because of this, the AG argues, consumers reasonably believe that Buy Box items offer the best price, but in reality, they “routinely overpay for items that are available at lower prices from other sellers on amazon… because “amazon has chosen to display the deals for which you will get the highest rates.” Both aspects of this lawsuit are reflected in the FTC's recent antitrust lawsuit against amazon, which is joined by more than a dozen state AGs.
Arizona is asking the court to enjoin amazon from engaging in allegedly deceptive and anti-competitive practices and to impose civil penalties and disgorgement of ill-gotten gains.
amazon did not immediately comment on the lawsuits.
