{"id":128368,"date":"2019-09-21T15:20:50","date_gmt":"2019-09-21T19:20:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=128368"},"modified":"2019-09-21T15:20:50","modified_gmt":"2019-09-21T19:20:50","slug":"everyone-is-gunning-for-amazon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=128368","title":{"rendered":"Everyone is gunning for Amazon"},"content":{"rendered":"
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MICHAEL GLENWOOD<\/p><\/div>\n

A \u2018Grass Roots\u2019 Campaign to Take Down Amazon Is Funded by Amazon\u2019s Biggest Rivals<\/h1>\n

Walmart, Oracle and mall owner Simon Property Group are secret funders behind a nonprofit that has been highly critical of the e-commerce giant<\/h3>\n

By James V. Grimaldi
\nThe Wall Street Journal<\/p>\n

About 18 months ago a new nonprofit group called Free and Fair Markets Initiative launched a national campaign criticizing the business practices of one powerful company:\u00a0Amazon.com<\/a>\u00a0Inc.<\/span><\/p>\n

Free and Fair Markets accused Amazon of stifling competition and innovation, inhibiting consumer choice, gorging on government subsidies, endangering its warehouse workers and exposing consumer data to privacy breaches. It claimed to have grass-roots support from average citizens across the U.S, citing a labor union, a Boston management professor and a California businessman.<\/p>\n

What the group did not say is that it received backing from some of Amazon\u2019s chief corporate rivals. They include shopping mall owner\u00a0Simon Property Group<\/a>\u00a0Inc.,<\/span>\u00a0retailer\u00a0Walmart<\/a>\u00a0Inc.<\/span>\u00a0and software giant\u00a0Oracle<\/a>\u00a0Corp.<\/span>\u00a0, according to people involved with and briefed on the project. Simon Property is fighting to keep shoppers who now prefer to buy what they need on Amazon; Walmart is competing with Amazon over retail sales; and Oracle is battling Amazon over a $10 billion Pentagon cloud-computing contract.<\/p>\n

The grass-roots support cited by the group was also not what it appeared to be. The labor union says it was listed as a member of the group without permission and says a document purporting to show that it gave permission has a forged signature. The Boston professor says the group, with his permission, ghost-wrote an op-ed for him about Amazon but that he didn\u2019t know he would be named as a member. The California businessman was dead for months before his name was removed from the group\u2019s website this year.<\/p>\n

Free and Fair Markets, or FFMI, declined to reveal its funders or disclose if it has directors or a chief executive.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bottom line is that FFMI is focusing on the substantive issues and putting a spotlight on the way companies like Amazon undermine the public good\u2014something that media outlets, activists, and politicians in both parties are also doing with increasing frequency,\u201d it said in a statement in response to questions from The Wall Street Journal. \u201cIf Amazon can not take the heat then it should stay out of the kitchen.\u201d<\/p>\n

The creation of a group aimed solely at Amazon is an indication of the degree to which competing companies have coalesced to counter the growing and accumulated power of Amazon and how far competitors are increasingly willing to go to counter-strike. Lobbyists that exaggerate the extent of their grass-roots support\u2014a practice known as \u201cAstroTurf lobbying\u201d\u2014are common in Washington, but it is rare for a nonprofit group to be created for the sole purpose of going after a single firm.<\/p>\n

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PHOTO:\u00a0<\/span>MICHAEL GLENWOOD<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Amazon is facing additional opaque opposition as well, with websites and articles popping up portraying the software giant as the Evil Empire. The website Monopolyamazon.com, which does not disclose who is behind it and registered its web address anonymously, includes a handful of articles calling on the Defense Department to reject Amazon\u2019s bid for a $10 billion cloud-computing contract. For months last year, an anti-Amazon dossier circulated in Washington alleging conflicts of interest in the Pentagon procurement process and a chart from the document later reached President Trump before he asked for a review of the Amazon bid.<\/p>\n

Free and Fair Markets is run by a strategic communications firm, Marathon Strategies, that works for large corporations, including Amazon rivals. Marathon founder Phil Singer is a veteran political operative who has worked as a top aide to prominent Democrats, including Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York and on Hillary Clinton \u2019s 2008 presidential campaign.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Mr. Singer defended the group. \u201cFFMI is not obligated to disclose its donors and it does not,\u201d Mr. Singer said.<\/p>\n

Marathon initially asked for a fee of $250,000 per company to fund the anti-Amazon group, according to a person at one of the companies approached. Among those invited to fund the group but declined were a trade association that includes members who compete with Amazon, and\u00a0International Business Machines<\/a>\u00a0Corp.<\/span>\u00a0, according to people familiar with the contacts. IBM, which declined to comment, previously was a client of Marathon.<\/p>\n

In a statement, Amazon said, \u201cThe Free & Fair Markets Initiative appears to be little more than a well-oiled front group run by a high-priced public affairs firm and funded by self-interested parties with the sole objective of spreading misinformation about Amazon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Simon Property, the world\u2019s largest mall landlord, declined to comment. Simon does not have any brick-and-mortar Amazon stores in its roughly 200 malls, outlets and open-air centers in the U.S., whereas its peers with smaller portfolios count multiple Amazon stores in theirs. The Indianapolis-based landlord recently launched its own online shopping platform, Shoppremiumoutlets.com.<\/p>\n

Walmart funds the organization indirectly by paying an intermediary that pays for Free and Fair Markets, according to sources familiar with the arrangement. Walmart is a client of Marathon.<\/p>\n

Walmart spokesman Randy Hargrove said, \u201cWe are not financial supporters of the FFMI but we share concerns about issues they have raised.\u201d Mr. Hargrove declined to comment further.<\/p>\n

The group\u2019s aim is to sully Amazon\u2019s image on competition, data-security and workplace issues, while creating a sense of grass-roots support for increased government regulatory and antitrust enforcement, according to people familiar with the campaign.<\/p>\n

Free and Fair Markets has lobbied the government for\u00a0legislation\u00a0<\/a>and investigations of Amazon, sent dozens of letters and reports to Congress and staff, according to congressional staffers, published scores of op-eds in local and online media and tweeted hundreds of social media posts blasting Amazon.<\/p>\n

Over the past year, many of the actions advocated by the group have gained traction. Amazon has come under\u00a0increasing antitrust scrutiny\u00a0<\/a>from the Department of Justice, Federal Trade Commission, states attorneys general and the European Union. In New York, Amazon\u00a0backed out of plans<\/a>\u00a0to open a second headquarters in Long Island City after\u00a0facing political opposition<\/a>. Free and Fair Markets campaigned against government subsidies to support the site and tweeted more than 300 times on the topic.<\/p>\n

Oracle provided financial support as part of an all-out strategy to stop Amazon from getting a $10 billion mega-contract to handle cloud computing for the Defense Department. The Pentagon eliminated Oracle as a bidder in the first round. Kenneth Glueck, who runs Oracle\u2019s office in Washington, confirmed that the computer technology firm has contributed to the effort.<\/p>\n

A goal of the organization was achieved in July when President Trump said he wanted to conduct a review of the contract. In August, the secretary of defense said he was investigating conflict-of-interest allegations surrounding the $10 billion contract known as Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure, or JEDI. At the\u00a0urging of President Trump<\/a>, the bid award has been put on hold during the review.<\/p>\n

Mr. Trump, a frequent critic of Amazon, cited complaints about the project from several of Amazon\u2019s competitors, which in addition to Oracle included IBM and\u00a0Microsoft<\/a>\u00a0Corp.<\/span>\u00a0, saying he had heard the contract \u201cwasn\u2019t competitively bid.\u201d The contract has not been awarded and Microsoft remains one of the two remaining bidders.<\/p>\n

Though Free and Fair Markets has contacted members of Congress and the administration, it has not registered as a lobbying organization. Such groups are required to file with Congress if more than 20% of their work involves lobbying. Marathon said it complies with lobby disclosure rules.<\/p>\n

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A \u2018Grass Roots\u2019 Campaign to Take Down Amazon Is Funded by Amazon\u2019s Biggest Rivals Walmart, Oracle and mall owner Simon Property Group are secret funders behind a nonprofit that has been highly critical of the e-commerce giant By James V. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-128368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=128368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128368\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=128368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=128368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=128368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}