The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and 22 states filed a lawsuit against online retailer Amazon, accusing it of defrauding advertising customers. This was reported by AP News.
The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, claims that Amazon overcharged 1.2 million advertising customers by misleading them on prices for online auctions for ads. The company said it was offering competitive prices on several ad products, but in reality, it was inflating auction prices.
FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson said: "When one of the world's largest online retailers engages in unfair and deceptive conduct, the impact can be staggering. Amazon has millions of advertising customers who were misled into paying significantly higher prices."
In response, Amazon wrote in a blog post that the FTC "leans on a handful of simplified communications to allege a companywide effort to deceive." The company called the accusations "patently false."