Amazon Buy‑Box Price Policing

Unsealed depositions show Amazon allegedly used Buy Box eligibility and automated price‑tracking to punish sellers whose prices were lower on rival sites, causing sales crashes (one seller reported an ~80% drop) and forcing sellers to raise competitor prices or alter listings. The tactic effectively exported Amazon’s pricing rules beyond its own marketplace by making on‑platform visibility conditional on off‑platform pricing behavior. — If true, this is a concrete example of how dominant platforms can distort competition and consumer prices by weaponizing product‑placement algorithms and cross‑site price surveillance.