American online retailer Amazon has been fined 10 million euros by Italian competition authorities for unfair business practices. On the website www.amazon.it, a large number of products choose the option of “regular purchase” by default instead of “one-off purchase”, limiting the consumer’s freedom of choice, the authority noted on Wednesday.
The antitrust authority’s sanction was imposed on two companies of the Amazon group, Luxembourg-based Amazon Services Europe and Amazon EU. As part of the investigation, the Cartel Office found that on Amazon’s website, where the characteristics of the selected goods are described, the “Regular purchase” option instead of “One-time purchase” was used for both products sold by Amazon itself as well as for products sold by Amazon itself. for products sold by third parties Purchase” is preset.
“In this way, consumers’ freedom of choice is significantly limited,” criticized the Italian antitrust authority. Graphically checking off recurring purchases encourages people to regularly buy a product – even if they don’t actually need it – and thus limits the customer’s freedom of choice.
Source: Krone
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
