"The Journal's report of an SEC investigation comes just weeks after the House of Representatives' judiciary committee referred Amazon to the Department of Justice for potential criminal investigation. In that instance as well, how Amazon and executives talked about use of seller-data from its mammoth e-commerce platform was a main focus. In a letter to the DOJ, committee members cited the Journal's 2020 report to suggest Amazon executives may have lied to Congress during the House's investigation into Amazon and other tech giants' market power and business practices. Amazon denied those allegations. The original Journal report found that Amazon employees "have used data about independent sellers on the company's platform to develop competing products, a practice at odds with the company's stated policies." The company since has launched an internal investigation but has not shared findings, according to the Journal.
Media reporting on Amazon going back several years has suggested that Amazon in individual instances launched its own products that competed with those of successful sellers. A paper in the Yale Law Journal from early 2017 pointed to that reporting and described the potential antitrust issues in Amazon's dual role as platform and retailer on its online store.
The author of that paper, Lina Khan, was an attorney for the House's investigation of Amazon and today sits at the head of the Federal Trade Commission, which reportedly has its own investigation of Amazon going back to the Trump Administration. "
https://www.retaildive.com/news/amazon-under-investigation-by-sec-over-disclosures-on-seller-data-use-wsj/621735/