FTC lawsuit alleges Amazon has been ‘secretly and systematically’ overcharging for ads

美国联邦贸易委员会（FTC）起诉亚马逊“秘密且系统性地”超额收取广告费

The FTC and 22 state attorneys general are suing Amazon for allegedly using a “secret ad surcharge” to drive up prices for ads on its website and app. FTC chairman Andrew Ferguson claims in a blog post on the lawsuit that the higher advertising prices “were largely passed on to American consumers.” According to the complaint, Amazon violated the FTC Act and over a dozen state laws. This lawsuit comes almost a year after Amazon agreed to pay $2.5 billion to settle an earlier FTC lawsuit over Prime subscription practices.

美国联邦贸易委员会（FTC）与 22 位州检察长正在起诉亚马逊，指控其利用“秘密广告附加费”推高其网站和应用程序上的广告价格。FTC 主席安德鲁·弗格森（Andrew Ferguson）在一篇关于此诉讼的博客文章中声称，这些更高的广告价格“很大程度上转嫁给了美国消费者”。根据诉状，亚马逊违反了《联邦贸易委员会法》及十几项州法律。此次诉讼距离亚马逊同意支付 25 亿美元以和解此前关于 Prime 订阅行为的 FTC 诉讼仅过去近一年。

In Amazon’s “second price” auctions for ads on its platform, the winning bidder is supposed to only pay one cent more than the second-highest bidder. However, the FTC’s complaint alleges that Amazon has been “manipulating” the auctions since 2019: Amazon’s advertising organization (“Amazon Ads”) decided to set and charge customers higher prices for advertising placements itself. After Amazon runs its ad auctions and determines the winning and second-place bidders, it then replaces the price determined by the auction with a higher price designed to maximize Amazon’s profits and decrease the cost efficiency of its advertisers’ campaigns. As explained internally by Amazon’s Senior Vice President in charge of Amazon Ads, in Amazon’s auctions “the second price isn’t set by an actual bidder, but rather by” Amazon in the form of a “proxy 2nd price that we calculate.”

在亚马逊平台上的广告“第二价格”拍卖中，中标者理应只需支付比第二高出价多一分钱的价格。然而，FTC 的诉状指控亚马逊自 2019 年以来一直在“操纵”拍卖：亚马逊的广告部门（“Amazon Ads”）决定自行设定并向客户收取更高的广告位费用。在亚马逊进行广告拍卖并确定中标者和第二名出价者后，它会用一个旨在最大化亚马逊利润并降低广告商活动成本效率的更高价格，来取代拍卖确定的价格。正如亚马逊负责广告业务的高级副总裁在内部所解释的那样，在亚马逊的拍卖中，“第二价格并非由实际竞标者设定，而是由”亚马逊以“我们计算出的代理第二价格”形式设定。

The complaint claims this practice “has likely illegally extracted over 20 billion dollars from [Amazon’s] unwitting advertising customers.” Amazon responded in a blog post saying the FTC’s lawsuit is “misguided” and claiming that “from 2019 to 2024, the average winning bid for Sponsored Products search ads fell 50%.” It also disputed the FTC’s claim that higher advertising prices were passed on to consumers.

诉状称，这种做法“很可能已经从（亚马逊）不知情的广告客户那里非法榨取了超过 200 亿美元”。亚马逊在博客文章中回应称，FTC 的诉讼是“误导性的”，并声称“从 2019 年到 2024 年，赞助产品搜索广告的平均中标价下降了 50%”。该公司还反驳了 FTC 关于更高的广告价格被转嫁给消费者的说法。