FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For media inquiries, please contact: Reggie Rucker, ILSR Communications Director
Washington, D.C. (September 02, 2026) — Ron Knox, senior researcher and policy advocate at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR), issued the following statement after the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and a bipartisan group of 22 state attorneys general sued Amazon for rigging its display advertising auctions at the expense of third-party sellers, shoppers, and competition on the company’s dominant online marketplace.
“This lawsuit to end Amazon’s ad auction rigging is a welcome development for the online economy. Amazon has brazenly ripped off both its third-party sellers — many of whom are small and independent businesses — and its shoppers through this advertising price-rigging scheme. Ending that scheme is an important step toward restoring fairness to its dominant platform.
“However, the lawsuit fails to mention the outright power Amazon holds in the online retail industry, and how it uses its monopoly control to trap both sellers and shoppers in its ecosystem. As ILSR has shown through our research and reporting, Amazon increasingly forces the hundreds of thousands of businesses that sell on the platform to buy advertising in order to be visible on the site. The ad-rigging scheme uncovered by the FTC and state enforcers would not have been possible without Amazon’s unchecked monopoly power.
“The lawsuit exposes the company’s complete lack of accountability to sellers, shoppers, or government regulators. According to the complaint, Amazon understood that federal and state enforcers had been investigating its advertising auction wrongdoing since at least 2024 — but the company simply continued ripping off sellers who bought ads on the site, lining its own pockets at the expense of Amazon shoppers. Those allegations mirror our findings that, since the FTC and 17 state attorneys general sued Amazon for its monopoly abuses in 2023, the company’s anticompetitive tactics have only grown more flagrant and harmful.
“While we are encouraged by this new lawsuit and the attention federal and state enforcers are paying to Amazon’s abuses, we contend that without a positive resolution of the ongoing federal monopolization lawsuit against Amazon, the company’s harmful conduct will continue unabated.”
For more than a decade, ILSR has been raising the alarm about Amazon’s outsized power and its implications. Our team has produced ground-breaking analysis, including the first report to illuminate Amazon’s monopoly strategy; testified before Congress as part of its Big Tech investigation; and helped build coalitions and advocacy strategies to challenge Amazon’s power. Our work has been profiled by The New York Times and featured in numerous publications.
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About the Institute for Local Self-Reliance
The Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) is a national nonprofit research and educational organization founded in 1974. ILSR has a vision of thriving, diverse, equitable communities. To reach this vision, we dismantle concentrated power and equip changemakers to build communities with locally accountable power. We believe that democracy can only thrive when economic and political power is widely dispersed. Whether it’s fighting back against the outsize power of monopolies like Amazon or advocating to keep local renewable energy in the community that produced it, ILSR advocates for solutions that harness the power of citizens and communities.