Amazon is sued by the FTC and 22 states for 'secretly' overcharging advertisers since 2019

The company's "deception continues to this day," the lawsuit says.

The FTC and 22 state attorneys general are suing Amazon for allegedly using a "secret ad surcharge" to drive up prices for ads on its website and app. FTC chairman Andrew Ferguson claims in a blog post on the lawsuit that the higher advertising prices "were largely passed on to American consumers." According to the com

"Since 2019, Amazon.com has secretly and systematically overcharged its approximately 1.2 million advertising customers by manipulating the “auctions” that it uses to set the price of ads on its platform," according to the lawsuit.