Jeff Bezos accused of deleting evidence amid antitrust probe

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos tumbled into hot waters as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) accused him and his executives of deleting chats, even after they were notified they were under investigation, Washington Post reported.

The FTC, in a statement, said, "For years, Amazon’s top executives, including founder and former chief executive Jeff Bezos, discussed sensitive business matters, including antitrust, over the Signal encrypted-messaging app instead of email.

"These executives turned on Signal's 'disappearing message' feature, which irrevocably destroys messages, even after Amazon was on notice that Plaintiffs were investigating its conduct."

Amazon is currently involved in an antitrust lawsuit, brought by 17 state attorney generals and FTC, who claim that Amazon abused its dominance to clamp on competition, leading to a higher price for customers.

The commission last year had first accused Amazon for intentionally deleting messages in its original antitrust complaint.

It has now demanded that the United States District Court judge order the e-commerce company to turn over documents related to its handling of data.

They said, "Plaintiffs need these documents to assess whether Amazon failed to take reasonable steps to preserve documents and to map out what information has been destroyed."