FTC Scrutinizes Amazon Executives’ Use of Disappearing Messages
In a recent development, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has raised allegations against Amazon and its executives, including the company’s founder Jeff Bezos, regarding the use of encrypted messaging applications with self-destructing messages. These claims emerge amidst an ongoing antitrust investigation involving the tech giant.
The FTC’s latest motion, filed on a Thursday, seeks judicial intervention to compel Amazon to produce specific documents. This includes records concerning the preservation—or lack thereof—of messages on Signal, an encrypted messaging service known for its auto-delete feature. The Commission is particularly interested in extracting the details of Amazon’s document preservation notices and instructions regarding the use of such ephemeral messaging applications by its employees.
At the heart of this issue is the FTC’s concern that Amazon executives may have deliberately opted for Signal’s disappearing messages to discuss highly sensitive business topics, including those related to antitrust matters, potentially circumventing the use of email and other more permanent forms of communication.
This scrutiny comes as Amazon faces a significant antitrust lawsuit, jointly pursued by the FTC and attorneys general from 17 states. The lawsuit accuses Amazon of abusing its market dominance to unfairly inflate prices and suppress competition.
The inception of the encrypted messaging practice among Amazon employees is traced back to 2019, as reported by The Washington Post. Notably, the FTC had issued a letter to Amazon in June 2019, explicitly requesting the preservation of all documents pertinent to its investigation. Despite this, the FTC claims that critical communications continued to transpire over Signal’s ephemeral messaging platform.
Responding to the FTC’s allegations, Amazon’s spokesperson Tim Doyle conveyed to The Post that the FTC’s claims are unfounded. Doyle articulated that Amazon had previously disclosed the limited use of Signal by its employees and had gone to considerable lengths to collect and present Signal conversations. He emphasized that the company had provided ample evidence, including a vast array of documents and data, to give the FTC a comprehensive understanding of Amazon’s practices in this context.
The FTC’s current legal maneuver aims to compel Amazon to disclose its preservation notices and instructions concerning the retention of Signal messages related to work activities. The purpose is to ascertain whether Amazon employees were adequately directed to preserve such messages and to what extent any relevant information may have been lost.
The Commission argues that access to these documents is critical to evaluate if Amazon took reasonable steps to safeguard potential evidence and to understand the scope of information that may have been destroyed.
