The FTC will reportedly monitor Amazon closely amid antitrust scrutiny

Amazon logo.
(Image credit: DENIS CHARLET/AFP/Getty Images)

On Friday it was Google. Now it's Amazon's turn.

The Wall Street Journal reported late on Friday that Google could soon be the subject of a Justice Department investigation of possible antitrust practices by its parent company, Alphabet, Inc. The following day, The Washington Post reported that Amazon will also be watched carefully as part of heightened antitrust scrutiny, people familiar with the matter said.

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"This should be a wake-up call to both Google and Amazon to behave themselves because it at least shows that the Justice Department and FTC are thinking about them," Gene Kimmelman, the president of Public Knowledge, a Washington-based consumer advocacy group, said.

The FTC declined to comment on the matter and Amazon did not immediately respond to the Post's requests. Read more at The Washington Post.

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Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.