Security News > 2020 > September > Amazon.com staff took bribes, manipulated marketplace and leaked data including search algorithms

US prosecutors claim six people bribed corrupt Amazon insiders to rig the the web giant's Marketplace in their favor and leak terabytes of data including some search algorithms.

In an indictment [PDF] filed late last week, the Dept of Justice asserted that the six defendants paid over US$100,000 to "Complicit Amazon employees and contractors." The DoJ claims at least ten Amazonians took the crooked coin and "Baselessly and fraudulently conferred tens of millions of dollars of competitive benefits on hundreds of 3P seller accounts that the defendants purported to represent".

Actions alleged to have been performed by the crooked insiders include "Reinstate products and merchant accounts that Amazon had suspended or blocked entirely from doing business on the Amazon Marketplace." Among the blocked accounts were vendors of "Dietary supplements that had been suspended because of customer-safety complaints, household electronics that had been flagged as flammable, consumer goods that had been flagged for intellectual-property violations, and other goods."

"The stolen files included, among other things, the formulae for the algorithms that power the Amazon Marketplace search engine, Amazon's product-review rankings" and plenty more inside info on Amazon operations and marketplace retailer rankings.

The DoJ alleges that one of those charged in the affair, Nishan Kunju of Hyderabad, India, first took bribes himself and then quit Amazon, became a consultant and then funneled more bribes to others inside Amazon.

News URL

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2020/09/21/amazon_fraud_ring_charged/