Senator slams Amazon over coronavirus price gouging on hand sanitizer and face masks

US Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) is harshly criticizing what he sees as Amazon’s inconsistent response to ongoing coronavirus-related price gouging on the e-commerce company’s third-party Marketplace platform. While Markey is acknowledging that Amazon is indeed removing an ever-increasing number of listings, he said Wednesday in a new letter to CEO Jeff Bezos that Amazon’s response needs to improve. He’s chiefly concerned about the lack of transparency around how it determines a product is having its prices unfairly raised and the process Amazon undergoes to detect that and then take action.

“Last week, Amazon took appropriate first steps in response to this price gouging when it announced it had removed ‘tens of thousands’ of listings and...

Continue reading…