• by Laurie Sullivan , 2 hours ago

The consumer production division of the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) reportedly is investigating whether Amazon and Google misled advertisers about the terms and pricing for ads on their websites.

The FTC's latest investigation focuses on whether the companies properly disclosed the terms and pricing for ads, and seems to have emerged from its earlier antitrust case, according to Bloomberg, citing people who asked not to be identified.

The term in question, "reserve pricing," refers to Amazon’s search ad practices in Sponsored Listings. 

Reserve pricing is defined as the minimum acceptable price a seller is willing to accept for an ad impression in an auction, primarily in programmatic. Bloomberg reports the FTC is seeking details about Amazon's auctions and whether it disclosed "reserve pricing" for some.

The FTC alleges in that complaint that Amazon “litters its marketplace with irrelevant results for search queries, making it harder for shoppers to find what they are looking for and more expensive for sellers to use the platform.”

The practice effectively forces sellers to buy ads to make their product appear in response to consumer searches.

Despite the allegations of Amazon making it more difficult to find products in its marketplace, the report made no mention of Rufus, Amazon’s conversational AI shopping assistant that helps people find and compare products.

While Google was mentioned in the report, it did not provide details with regard to the allegations the Alphabet company faces, stating only that there are ongoing investigations of wrongdoing.