Report: Amazon made $1B with secret algorithm for spiking prices Internet-wide

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2 years ago

October 6, 2023

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“Project Nessie” — Report: Amazon made $1B with secret algorithm for spiking prices Internet-wide Report reveals details about Amazon’s secret algorithm redacted in FTC complaint.

Ashley Belanger – Oct 4, 2023 8:50 pm UTC EnlargeBloomberg / Contributor | Bloomberg reader comments 74 with

Last week, the Federal Trade Commission sued Amazon, alleging that the online retailer was illegally maintaining a monopoly. Much of the FTC’s complaint against Amazon was redacted, but The Wall Street Journal yesterday revealed key details obscured in the complaint regarding a secret algorithm. The FTC alleged that Amazon once used the algorithm to raise prices across the most popular online shopping destinations.

People familiar with the FTC’s allegations in the complaint told the Journal that it all started when Amazon developed an algorithm code-named “Project Nessie.” It allegedly works by manipulating rivals’ weaker pricing algorithms and locking competitors into higher prices. The controversial algorithm was allegedly used for years and helped Amazon to “improve its profits on items across shopping categories” and “led competitors to raise their prices and charge customers more,” the WSJ reported.

The FTC’s complaint said:

Amazon uses its extensive surveillance network to block price competition by detecting and deterring discounting, artificially inflating prices on and off Amazon, and depriving rivals of the ability to gain scale by offering lower prices.

The FTC complaint redacted this information, but sources told the WSJ that Amazon made “more than $1 billion in revenue” by using Project Nessie, while competitors learned that “price cuts do not result in greater market share or scale, only lower margins,” the FTC’s complaint said.

“As a result, Amazon has successfully taught its rivals that lower prices are unlikely to result in increased salesthe opposite of what should happen in a well-functioning market,” the FTC alleged.

Amazon stopped using the algorithm in 2019for no clear reason, sources told the WSJ.

FTC spokesman Douglas Farrar told the WSJ that the agency wants more public access to redacted information in the complaint and continues to “call on Amazon to move swiftly to remove the redactions and allow the American public to see the full scope of what we allege are their illegal monopolistic practices. Advertisement

Amazon’s spokesperson Tim Doyle told Ars that the FTCs allegations grossly mischaracterize this tool.”

“‘Project Nessie’ was a project with a simple purposeto try to stop our price matching from resulting in unusual outcomes where prices became so low that they were unsustainable,” Doyle said. “The project ran for a few years on a subset of products, but didnt work as intended, so we scrapped it several years ago.

In a blog responding to the FTC’s lawsuit, David ZapolskyAmazon’s senior vice president of global public policy and general counselwrote that the FTC fundamentally misunderstands how retail markets work. Zapolsky said that “matching low prices offered by other retailers” has not “somehow” led “to higher prices.”

“Thats not how competition works,” Zapolsky wrote. “The FTC has it backwards and if they were successful in this lawsuit, the result would be anticompetitive and anti-consumer because wed have to stop many of the things we do to offer and highlight low pricesa perverse result that would be directly opposed to the goals of antitrust law.

According to the FTC’s complaint, “Amazon recognizes the importance of maintaining the perception that it has lower prices than competitors,” but that Amazon designed Project Nessie specifically “to deter other online stores from offering lower prices than those of Amazon.”

In a press release, the FTC confirmed that it intends to prove that Amazon is “stifling competition on price,” among other alleged consumer harms.

“Amazons far-reaching schemes impact hundreds of billions of dollars in retail sales every year, touch hundreds of thousands of products sold by businesses big and small, and affect over a hundred million shoppers,” the FTC’s press release said.

“Seldom in the history of US antitrust law has one case had the potential to do so much good for so many people,” John Newman, the deputy director of the FTCs Bureau of Competition, said. Page: 1 2 Next → reader comments 74 with Ashley Belanger Ashley is a senior policy reporter for Ars Technica, dedicated to tracking social impacts of emerging policies and new technologies. She is a Chicago-based journalist with 20 years of experience. Advertisement Channel Ars Technica ← Previous story Next story → Related Stories Today on Ars

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Bhutan should embrace decentralized identity systems

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2 hours ago

July 17, 2025

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Bhutan should embrace decentralized identity systems

Bhutan’s unique naming culture and values of sovereignty make it a strong candidate for adopting blockchain-based identity systems.

World

Pope ‘deeply saddened’ by deaths at sole Catholic church in Gaza after Israeli strike

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2 hours ago

July 17, 2025

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Pope 'deeply saddened' by deaths at sole Catholic church in Gaza after Israeli strike

The Pope has said he is “deeply saddened” by the deaths of three people in an Israeli strike on the only Catholic church in Gaza.

A further nine people were wounded when the Gaza’s Holy Family Church was hit, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem said in a statement.

“On behalf of the entire Church of the Holy Land, we extend our deepest condolences to the bereaved families, and from here, we offer our prayers for the swift and full recovery of the wounded,” the statement reads.

“The Latin Patriarchate strongly condemns this tragedy and this targeting of innocent civilians and of a sacred place.

“However, this tragedy is not greater or more terrible than the many others that have befallen Gaza.”

Parish priest Father Gabriele Romanelli, an Argentinian who used to regularly update the late Pope Francis about the conflict in Gaza, was lightly injured in the attack.

In a telegram for the victims, Pope Leo said he was “deeply saddened” and called for “an immediate ceasefire”.

The Pope expressed his “profound hope for dialogue, reconciliation and enduring peace in the region,” according to the telegram, which was signed by the Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin.

Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, told the Vatican News website that the church was shelled by a tank.

“What we know for sure is that a tank, the IDF says by mistake, but we are not sure about this, they hit the Church directly, the Church of the Holy Family, the Latin Church”, he said

The church was sheltering both Christians and Muslims, including a number of children with disabilities, according to Fadel Naem, acting director of Al-Ahli Hospital, which received the wounded.

The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said it was “aware of reports regarding damage caused to the Holy Family Church in Gaza City and casualties at the scene. The circumstances of the incident are under review”.

“The IDF makes every feasible effort to mitigate harm to civilians and civilian structures, including religious sites,
and regrets any damage caused to them,” the statement added.

Israel’s foreign ministry said in a statement on X that the results of the investigation would be published.

It also said the country did not target churches or religious sites and regretted harm to them or civilians.

The previous pope, Francis, spoke almost daily with Gaza church. In the last 18 months of his life, Francis would often call the church in the Gaza Strip to see how people huddled inside were coping with a devastating war.

At least 20 more people were killed on Thursday by Israeli attacks across the besieged enclave, medics said.

Throughout the 21-month war, more than 58,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel’s military campaign, according to Gaza’s health ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.

Israel launched a retaliatory campaign against Hamas following the militant group’s 7 October 2023 attacks, during which 1,200 people were killed and about 250 taken hostage.

World

Syria’s president vows to protect Druze population after Israel airstrikes – as new ceasefire begins

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2 hours ago

July 17, 2025

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Syria's president vows to protect Druze population after Israel airstrikes - as new ceasefire begins

Syria’s president has said protecting the rights of the Druze population is “our priority” after Israel warned it would destroy forces attacking the minority.

In a televised statement early today, Ahmed al Sharaa told the Druze “we reject any attempt to drag you into hands of an external party”.

Several hundred people have reportedly been killed this week in the south of Syria in violence involving local fighters, government authorities and Bedouin tribes.

Following the president’s announcement and a ceasefire agreement, Syrian government forces on Thursday largely withdrew from the volatile southern province of Sweida.

Under the terms of the agreement, Druze factions and clerics have been appointed to maintain internal security.

As the violence escalated in Sweida, Israel launched airstrikes, including attacks on Wednesday on the defence ministry in Damascus and a target near the presidential palace.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has pledged to “act resolutely against any terrorist threat on its borders”.

The Druze population follow an offshoot of Islam and are estimated to number about one million, spread between Syria, Lebanon and Israel.

Sharaa – Syria’s interim leader after President Assad fled last year – gave a televised statement on Wednesday telling the Druze “we reject any attempt to drag you into hands of an external party”.

“We are not among those who fear the war,” he added.

“We have spent our lives facing challenges and defending our people, but we have put the interests of the Syrians before chaos and destruction,” said the president.

He also claimed Israel has “consistently targeted our stability and created discord among us since the fall of the former regime”.

Israel has accused the Syrian regime of being barely disguised jihadists – despite warming ties with Western countries such as the UK and US.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, as of Wednesday morning, more than 300 people had been killed in the flare-up of violence.

Around 1,000 Druze people broke through a fence into southern Syria on Wednesday in a bid to help, according to The Times of Israel.

Prime Minister Netanyahu urged people not to cross into Syria and Israeli military chief of staff Eyal Zamir warned they would not “allow southern Syria to become a terror stronghold”.

The UN Security Council will discuss the situation today, despite the US secretary of state saying yesterday that America had brokered an end to the violence.

“We have engaged all the parties involved in the clashes in Syria,” Marco Rubio said on social media.

“We have agreed on specific steps that will bring this troubling and horrifying situation to an end tonight.”