(Reuters) – Connecticut is investigating whether Amazon.com Inc is engaged in anti-competitive behavior in the e-book business through its distribution agreements with certain publishers, the state’s Attorney General William Tong said on Wednesday.
The probe comes as technology companies face a backlash in the United States and across the world, fueled by concerns among competitors, lawmakers and consumer groups that firms have too much power and are harming users and business rivals.
“The Connecticut Office of the Attorney General took action against Apple and a number of e-book publishers to protect competition in the market for sales of e-books, and our office continues to aggressively monitor this market to protect fair competition for consumers, authors, and other e-book retailers,” Tong said in a statement.
Amazon declined to comment when contacted by Reuters.
Earlier in the day, the Wall Street Journal reported on the investigation, stating that the U.S. state has asked Amazon to provide documents related to its dealings with five of the largest U.S. book publishers, according to a subpoena issued in 2019, and that the e-commerce retailer has co-operated with the subpoena. (https://on.wsj.com/2XzKEGG)
(Reporting by Arundhati Sarkar in Bengaluru and Nandita Bose in Washington, Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips)
