FTC Sues Amazon Over Alleged Ad-Price Manipulation as ChatGPT Faces EU Scrutiny
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has sued Amazon over allegations of manipulating advertising prices on its platform. The lawsuit claims that Amazon secretly raised the minimum price businesses had to pay to advertise their products, misleading advertisers in the process.
The FTC is joined by a bipartisan group of more than 20 state attorneys general who are also suing Amazon. The lawsuit alleges that this scheme generated tens of billions of dollars in extra revenue for Amazon over seven years.
In other news, the European Commission has designated ChatGPT as a 'Very Large Online Search Engine' under the Digital Services Act, putting it alongside Google and opening it up to tighter oversight across the EU. This designation is triggered when a service tops 45 million monthly users in the EU, which ChatGPT has clearly surpassed.
Australia's digital ad spend has also hit a four-year high, growing 14% to AUD$19.8bn (£10.45bn) in FY26. Search continued to anchor the market, holding a 43% share and hitting a record AUD$8.6bn (£4.54bn), but video really stood out, jumping 18.8% to AUD$5.9bn (£3.11bn) and now making up nearly a third of total ad spend.