Amazon’s secret pricing algorithm, codenamed “Project Nessie,” may have generated the company more than $1 billion in extra profits, according to new details released Thursday from the Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust case against the e-commerce giant. 

In September, the FTC and more than a dozen state attorneys general sued Amazon, claiming that the company operates an illegal monopoly. Among other claims, the complaint says that Amazon buried listings offered at lower prices from other retailers and charged sellers steep fees in order to inflate product prices. 

The existence of Project Nessie was first revealed in a previously redacted version of the complaint. Nessie was allegedly an algorithm that would increase the price of products on Amazon and monitor whether other retailers, like Target, would follow suit. If they didn’t, the algorithm would revert the Amazon listing to its original price. 

Amazon reportedly stopped using Nessie in 2019, but the FTC alleges that the company “has repeatedly considered turning it back on.” 

These details were blacked out of the original case and partially reported by The Wall Street Journal. On Thursday, a new version of the lawsuit was released with fewer redactions, providing the public with more insight into the FTC’s arguments and evidence.

“The FTC claims that an old Amazon pricing algorithm called Nessie is an unfair method of competition that led to raised prices for consumers,” Tim Doyle, Amazon spokesman, said in a statement responding to the new Nessie information Thursday. “This grossly mischaracterizes this tool. Nessie was used to try to stop our price matching from resulting in unusual outcomes where prices became so low that they were unsustainable.”

This includes allegations outside of Project Nessie. According to the less-redacted complaint, the FTC alleges that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos directed company executives to accept “junk” ads as a means of extracting “billions of dollars through increased advertising despite worsening its services for customers.” 

Responding to this, Doyle said that the shopping experience of Amazon’s customers is “consistently positive” and pointed to a study claiming that the company’s ads are the most relevant in the world.

The company’s Prime membership program has come under scrutiny by the FTC as well. In the new complaint, the FTC says that Amazon had multiple opportunities to fix flaws in Prime’s signup system “and instead continued to trick more users into signing up” for the service.

Updated November 2nd, 2023 at 2:50PM ET: Added comments from Amazon spokesman Tim Doyle.

Live Nation, the parent company of Ticketmaster, promised to scrap the hidden fees plaguing its ticketing service earlier this year. But one senator says the company’s not doing nearly enough. 

In a letter to Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino Wednesday, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) called on the company to turn on an “all-in” pricing filter that it added this year by default. Klobuchar said it’s “still too difficult” for users to turn on the filter that’s “buried within a tab that gives no indication that it contains” the option in the first place. 

“Millions of Americans rely on your company for the chance to see their favorite artist, band, or sports team,” Klobuchar wrote. “In return for their business and trust, your customers expect a transparent and honest ticket buying process free from hidden fees.”

Back in June, Live Nation, along with AirBnB, SeatGeek, and DICE, pledged to disclose the full price of their tickets and services as part of an agreement with the White House to reduce “junk fees.” At the time, Live Nation said that these new rules would start applying to events in September. 

Responding to Klobuchar’s letter, Live Nation argues that it’s fulfilled its pricing promise. And it says that the agreement only applied to events held at venues Live Nation operates and did not extend to venues the company doesn’t control.

“If we had the power to do that it would have been part of our commitment to the White House and our June 15 announcement,” a Live Nation spokesperson told NBC News Wednesday. “This just underscores the importance of all-in pricing legislation.”

Legislation might be on the way. Earlier this year, Klobuchar introduced the Unlock Ticketing Markets Act, a bill that would empower the Federal Trade Commission with the authority to challenge contracts ticketing platforms enter into with venues. 

“In your own press release, Live Nation-Ticketmaster touted that it will ‘lead the industry with new all-in pricing,’” Klobuchar wrote. “Yet, it is still too difficult for consumers to find the all-in price of a ticket before checkout.”

Apple announced that it would be making all of the parts, tools, and information necessary for consumers and repair shops to fix the device maker’s products during a White House event on Tuesday.

Apple is already required to make these materials available in California after the state passed its Right to Repair Act earlier this month, but the company says it will bring this new support to consumers and independent repair shops nationwide. 

“We intend to honor California’s new repair provisions across the United States,” Brian Naumann, Apple vice president and general manager of the company’s repair business, said during Tuesday’s meeting. “Apple also believes that consumers and businesses would benefit from a national law that balances repairability with product integrity, usability and physical safety.”

Until recently, Apple has fought efforts to support independent repair services by restricting access to the guides and parts necessary to fix the company’s products. But the company has slowly started to embrace the right-to-repair movement (even if its original answer was to ship out 79 pounds of tools). Apple’s gone as far as supporting legislative efforts to codify right-to-repair principles into law. In a surprise move in August, Apple endorsed California’s Right to Repair Act.

Tuesday’s meeting was part of the Biden administration’s broader effort to promote economic competition. In 2021, President Joe Biden signed an executive order urging the Federal Trade Commission to crack down on companies that made consumers jump through hoops to fix their own devices. On Tuesday, the White House called on Congress to pass similar legislation protecting the right to repair. 

“From smartphones to wheelchairs to cars to farm equipment, too often, manufacturers make it difficult to access spare parts manuals and tools necessary to make fixes,” National Economic Council Director Lael Brainard said during Tuesday’s event. “Consumers are compelled to go back to the dealer and pay the dealer’s price, or to discard and replace their device entirely.”

While a handful of states have approved right-to-repair laws in the past, federal efforts have fallen flat. After Biden’s 2021 executive order, Congress picked up the pace, introducing bills promoting the principles for tractor and vehicle repair and holding hearings with experts. 

The FTC voted unanimously in 2021 to ramp up efforts to go after companies making everything from smartphones and farm equipment to microwaves and cars for limiting accessibility to the materials needed to repair their products. 

Brainard applauded Apple’s move to expand its right-to-repair commitments nationwide, saying, “whether you are in California, Maine or Michigan, Apple will make the parts, tools, and documentation needed to repair your Apple products available to you at reasonable prices.”

Data workers urged lawmakers to protect their rights ahead of a Senate meeting with artificial intelligence leaders on Tuesday. 

In a letter addressed to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), workers and civil society groups demanded Congress guard against a “dystopian future” of surveillance and low wages for the people in charge of training AI algorithms.

“The contributions of data workers, often invisible to the public, are critical to advancements in AI,” the letter read. “Congress should develop a new generation of economic policies and labor rights related to prevent corporations like Amazon from leveraging tech-driven worker exploitation into profit and outcompeting rivals by taking the low road.”

The letter was sent ahead of Schumer’s second bipartisan AI Insight Forum. The forums are a series of meetings bringing together tech leaders like Elon Musk and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg with lawmakers as the Senate considers regulating AI. Over 20 guests were invited to Tuesday’s meeting, including tech investor Marc Andreessen and executives from companies like Stripe and Micron are expected to join the meeting. 

Some advocates are also expected to attend, including NAACP president and CEO Derrick Johnson and AFL-CIO Technology Institute director Amanda Ballantyne, according to CNBC. 

Turkopticon, a group supporting Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) workers, signed the Tuesday letter to Schumer. For years, businesses have hired MTurk workers, who often earn far below minimum wage, to help train these algorithms. Tuesday’s letter urged lawmakers to protect the rights of workers like those at MTurk to collective bargaining and to safeguard them from predatory surveillance and management systems. 

“Establishing robust protections related to workplace technology and rebalancing power between workers and employers could reorient the economy and tech innovation toward more equitable and sustainable outcomes,” the letter said.