RILA Encourages E&C Members to Back INFORM Consumers Act

Following a recent hearing investigating the market power of Big Tech companies, the House Committee on Energy & Commerce sent a letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos regarding the sale of counterfeit and stolen goods on the Amazon marketplace. Bezos was questioned about this at the hearing, to which he gave deliberately evasive answers - making clear that he is, at best, uninterested in the sale of counterfeit and stolen goods on Amazon.com.

As a follow up to House E&C Members' letter, RILA sent a letter to the committee outlining how the unregulated environment in which Amazon’s marketplace operates allows it to sell products that would never be allowed on a store shelf or a retailer’s website. In addition, we urge the committee and the full Congress to enforce basic transparency and accountability on Amazon’s fast-growing online marketplace.

Common-sense legislation has already been introduced which will require online marketplaces to collect and verify third party seller information and require disclosures from third-party marketplace sellers who use online platforms like Amazon.com to sell products to American consumers. The INFORM Consumers Act would provide consumers with greater transparency and allow law enforcement to better identify high-frequency sellers suspected of trafficking stolen and counterfeit goods. America’s leading retailers strongly endorse this legislation.

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• Technology & Innovation
• Competition
• Public Policy