Amazon vs the FTC: this will be one for the history books

The Federal Trade Commission, along with 17 states, have brought its largest ever antitrust lawsuit, against Amazon, which the media has already dubbed “the Big One”. The brainchild of Lina Khan, who came to her position as president of the FTC after having written a very influential 95-page article in the Yale Law Journal in 2017, attacking the ultraliberal simplicity that the only thing consumers care about is lower prices.

As The New York Times, points out, this is a true cage fight between Khan and Bezos, a case that could redefine monopoly and competition, and is a direct threat to a giant that has written the rules in creating its empire. It will be a long, drawn out case, with all kinds of experts being called, and in which, before starting, and regardless of what the powerful Amazon lobby is able to do or influence, we all know passes the duck test: if it looks like a duck, swims like a duck and it quacks like a duck, then it’s probably a duck.

Anyone who has bought stuff on Amazon over the last couple of decades cannot fail to have noticed its evolution to the point that it enjoys a de facto monopoly. This will be even clearer for businesses that sell on Amazon. And when both suppliers and customers are in agreement, the only outcome we can expect from this case is to confirm to the world that Amazon is no…