North Carolina helped welcome Amazon’s planned $10 billion data center. Now the state is one of 22 joining the Federal Trade Commission in a lawsuit that alleges Amazon inflated online ad auction prices by more than $20 billion since 2019, affecting over 1.2 million advertisers, The Center Square reported.
The case: FTC v. Amazon
According to The Center Square, the complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington as Federal Trade Commission v. Amazon. The plaintiffs seek a permanent injunction, monetary relief, and whatever additional relief the court deems “just and proper,” along with civil penalties, restitution, disgorgement, and/or forfeitures under state laws.
The report says specific monetary relief for North Carolina is not detailed in the filing. It notes a request of up to $5,000 for each knowing violation, along with other unquantified relief.
What the plaintiffs allege
The Center Square writes that the FTC and states allege Amazon ran an illegal ad pricing scheme by deploying hidden “shill” bids to drive up what auction winners paid. Plaintiffs say documents from Amazon show the company knew advertisers believed they were in a true second‑price auction.
North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson’s office said in a release that internal Amazon discussions included increasing prices while “hoping that advertisers don’t notice and decrease bids or ad spend,” per The Center Square.
Potential hit to consumers, per North Carolina’s AG
Jackson said businesses can pass higher ad costs to customers buying groceries, pharmacy products, clothing, and school supplies through Amazon. “Amazon secretly rigged its bidding system to charge businesses more, and customers paid the price,” Jackson said, as quoted by The Center Square. “We believe Amazon manipulated its ad auctions to inflate what sellers had to pay, adding billions of dollars in costs that ultimately get passed on to customers with higher prices. We’re taking Amazon to court to stop it.”
Separate from North Carolina’s data center deal
The Center Square reports the litigation is not tied to Amazon’s planned Amazon Web Services investment in Richmond County, North Carolina, near Hamlet. Amazon described a $10 billion AWS data center supply chain project with a minimum of 500 jobs in cloud computing and artificial intelligence on an innovation campus, including roles such as data center engineers, network specialists, engineering operations managers, and security specialists.
Amazon’s scale
Per The Center Square’s summary of Amazon’s 2024 financial report, company revenue grew 11% year over year to $638 billion, with Amazon Web Services revenue at $108 billion. A decade earlier, company revenue was $89 billion and web services revenue was $4.6 billion.
Note: The allegations are contained in the lawsuit and in statements quoted by The Center Square; a court has not ruled on the claims.
