The FTC says Amazon charged advertisers the wrong price 80% of the time

The FTC and 22 states allege Amazon’s search-ad auction charged advertisers their full winning bid instead of the promised second-price (one cent above the next-highest bid) in roughly 80% of cases, affecting over a million brands across seven years. The agency estimates the practice generated tens of billions of dollars in excess revenue, while Amazon argues advertisers base bids on performance and cites $8 billion in saved ad relevance costs from 2021-2025.