 may be entered into the record. I now recognize the gentlelady from Washington, Ms. Chairball. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you all for being with us. Mr. Bezos, in July 2019, your employee, Nate Sutton, told me under oath in this committee that Amazon does not, quote, use any specific seller data when creating its own private brand product. So let me ask you, Mr. Bezos, does Amazon ever access and use third-party seller data when making business decisions, and just a yes or no will suffice, sir? Thank you for the question. I know it's an important topic, and I also want to thank you for representing us. I can't answer that question yes or no. What I can tell you is we have a policy against using seller-specific data to aid our private-labeled business, but I can't guarantee you that that policy has never been violated. Mr. Bezos, you're probably aware that an April 2020 report in the Wall Street Journal revealed that your company does access data on third-party sellers, both by reviewing data on popular individual sellers and products and by creating tiny product categories that allowed your company to categorically access detailed seller information in a supposedly aggregate category. Do you deny that report? I'm familiar with the Wall Street Journal article that you're talking about, and we continue to look into that very carefully. I'm not yet satisfied that we've gotten to the bottom of it, and we're going to keep looking at it. It's not as easy to do as you would think because some of the sources in the article are anonymous, but we continue to look into it. I'll take that as you're not denying that, you're looking into it. I will tell you a former Amazon employee in third-party sales and recruitment told this committee, quote, there's a rule, but there's nobody enforcing or spot-checking. They just say don't help yourself to the data. It's a candy shop. Everyone can have access to anything they want. Do category managers have access to non-public data about third-party products and businesses? Here's what I can tell you. We do have certain safeguards in place. We train people on the policy. We expect people to follow that policy the same way we would any other. It's a voluntary policy as far as I'm aware. There's no actual enforcement of that policy. So it's voluntary and there's no actual enforcement. So maybe that answers my... Sorry. No, I think I may have misspoke. I'm trying to say that the Amazons, the fact that we have such a policy is voluntary. I think no other retailer even has such a policy. Our enforcement of that policy, we would treat that like any internal policy. And if we found that someone violated it, we would take action against them. Well, there's numerous reports and the committee has conducted interviews with former employees who confirm that there are employees who do have access to that data and are using it. And so my next question was going to be if you thought you were actually enforcing these rules, do you think that that's working? And again, I would just say that there's credible reporting that's documented breaches of these rules that you have put into place. And the committee has interviewed employees that typically say that these breaches typically occur. Let's talk about aggregate data for a minute. Your rules do allow for you to access combined data on a product when there are only one or two sellers in the marketplace, correct? Yes, aggregate data is allowed under our policies. That is correct. Okay. And interviews with former employees have made it clear that that aggregate data essentially allows access to highly detailed data in those product categories. There's an example of Fortem, a small business that had no direct competitors except for Amazon Warehouse Deals, a resale clearance account that only sold 17 units. And Amazon employee access to detailed sales report on Fortem's product with information on how much the company spent on advertising per unit and the cost to ship each trunk. And then Amazon launched its own competing products in October 2019. That's a major loophole. And I go back to the general counsel statement to this committee very clearly that there was no access to this data, that Amazon does not use that data for its own benefit. And I'm now hearing you say, well, you're not so sure that that's going on. And the issue that we're concerned with here is very simple. You have access to data that far exceeds the sellers on your platforms with whom you compete. You contract consumer habits, interests, even what consumers clicked on, but then didn't buy. You have access to the entirety of sellers pricing and inventory information past, present, and future. And you dictate the participation of third-party sellers on your platform. So you can set the rules of the game for your competitors, but not actually follow those same rules for yourself. Do you think that's fair to the mom-and-pop third-party businesses who are trying to sell on your platform? I appreciate that question. I like it a lot because I really wanted a chance to address that. I'm very proud of what we've done for third-party sellers on this platform. We started our third-party platform 20 years ago, and we had zero sellers on it. The question I'm asking, I'm sorry, my time is expiring. And the question I wanted to ask you is that you have access to data that your competitors do not have. So you might allow third-party sellers onto your platform, but if you're continuously monitoring the data to make sure that they're never going to get big enough that they can compete with you, that is actually the concern that the committee has. And I think your company started in my district. I want to thank you for that. I want to thank you for the work that you've done and say that the whole goal of this committee's work is to make sure that there are more Amazons, that there are more Apples, that there are more companies that get to innovate and small businesses get to thrive. And that is what we're trying to get at. That is why we need to regulate these marketplaces so that no company has a platform so dominant that it is essentially a monopoly. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.