Dear Friend,

This is HUGE: The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has launched an
investigation into Jeff Bezos and Amazon’s $8.45 billion acquisition of
MGM studios.^1

The MGM merger would add a catalog of more than 4,000 films and 17,000
episodes to Amazon’s Prime Video service and give it control of future
production, increasing its monopoly over content, and allow it to control
intellectual property rights that will stretch over other businesses.^2
This comes along with news that Amazon is planning to open department
stores across the nation to take over brick and mortar space.

We need FTC Chair Lina Khan, an antitrust advocate, to block this merger
as a critical first step to reining the mega company in. We’ve written a
letter to Khan with more than 30 other organizations to ask the FTC to do
just that, and now we need to publicize how terrible Amazon is to get
grassroots energy on our side.

[ [link removed] ]Will you chip in $10 to help break up Amazon?

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If Amazon is permitted to own MGM, consumers will be more forcefully
pushed into subscribing to Amazon Prime to access content that should be
available across all platforms, and Amazon can use its Fire TV products to
keep other streaming devices out.

Two hundred million people worldwide are already members of Amazon Prime,
the subscription that controls content, delivery of goods, and
groceries.^3

It’s just one part of the all-encompassing empire that Jeff Bezos,
chairman of Amazon, has built. Millions of houses use the Ring security
system, seventy-seven million people read the Washington Post, and one
million websites—from Airbnb to NASA to Zillow—use Amazon Web
Services.^4,5,6 Amazon is even planning on opening department stores
across the country.^7

This kind of consolidation allows Amazon to dominate the market and abuse
employees.

A report by the House of Representatives found that the company was using
AI technology to crush competitors.^8 Amazon warehouses are pushing down
wages in areas with union presence.^9 And customers are paying more for
lower quality products.^10

Demand Progress has been a leader in the fight against Amazon. We’ve
driven in tens of thousands of messages to Congress and federal regulators
urging them to take on the company, and we co-founded the Athena coalition
to unite the grassroots against Amazon’s power. We need the FTC to step up
and start applying antitrust law to break up Amazon and stop its
acquisitions of huge companies. Will you donate?

[ [link removed] ]Yes, I’ll chip in to help stop Amazon’s monopoly.

Thanks for standing with us.

Robert Cruickshank,
Demand Progress

PS: Your contributions are what keep us nimble and prepared to take on
important fights like these as they happen. [ [link removed] ]Will you become a monthly
donor to keep our work going?

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Sources:

1. The Verge, "The FTC has reportedly opened an investigation into
Amazon’s MGM acquisition," [ [link removed] ]July 9, 2021
2. The Washington Post, "Amazon merger with MGM bolsters its Prime
ambitions," [ [link removed] ]May 27, 2021
3. Ibid.
4. Recode, "Amazon Ring sales nearly tripled in December despite hacks,"
[ [link removed] ]January 21, 2020
5. The Washington Post, "Audience & Traffic," [ [link removed] ]accessed June 2, 2021
6. Contino, "Who's Using Amazon Web Services? [2020 Update]," [ [link removed] ]January
28, 2020
7. The Wall Street Journal, "Amazon Plans to Open Large Retail Locations
Akin to Department Stores," [ [link removed] ]August 19, 2021
8. The New York Times, "The House Antitrust Report on Big Tech,"
[ [link removed] ]October 6, 2020
9. Fast Company, "What Happens When An Amazon Warehouse Opens? Lower
Wages, No Increase In Jobs," [ [link removed] ]February 5, 2018
10. The New York Times, "Welcome to the Era of Fake Products,"
[ [link removed] ]February 11, 2020
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