Government alleges
The FTC and 22 states say Amazon used undisclosed soft reserves to raise Sponsored Ads prices above a competition-generated result.
Trust and sourcing
Editorial Methodology
A transparent process for separating allegations, party responses, court decisions, and unresolved questions.
Last reviewed: September 2, 2026
Three distinct records
Allegation, response, and ruling are not the same thing
Amazon says
Amazon says relevance drives ad placement, reserve prices are common, bids are maximum CPCs, and advertisers were neither deceived nor harmed.
Court has ruled
No court has ruled on liability, advertiser damages, restitution, a settlement, or eligibility for recovery.
Source priority
- Federal court documents and docket entries.
- FTC and participating state government materials.
- Amazon statements and documents.
- Reputable reporting.
- Legal analysis and commentary, clearly identified as such.
Source cards distinguish primary sources from reporting and commentary. A public-source docket review is not described as a complete official docket review. Redacted or unavailable information is labeled unresolved rather than reconstructed.
How claims are written
Consequential factual statements are linked to the most direct available source. Pleading allegations use language such as “the complaint alleges.” Amazon's positions use “Amazon says.” Only entered decisions are described as court rulings. Statistics and damage estimates remain attributed to the party presenting them.
Time-sensitive verification
Settlement, refund, claim-form, class-action, assigned-judge, and procedural-status statements carry an as-of date. Before a material update, we check current court records and official party sources. The visible site-wide verification timestamp comes from one structured case-status record.
Corrections
Readers can submit a correction, missing primary source, or attribution concern through the contact page. Please include the page URL, disputed text, and the strongest available source. Submissions do not create an attorney-client relationship.