FTC accuses Amazon of using Signal’s auto-deleting messages to erase evidence
According to a court document viewed by Engadget, the Federal Trade Commission accused Amazon of using Signal’s disappearing messages feature to conceal communications as part of its antitrust suit against the company. The FTC says the retailer continued to auto-delete its communications even after the agency notified it that it was under investigation and asked it to preserve them. Founder and former CEO Jeff Bezos and current CEO Andy Jassy are among the accused.
The FTC wants a federal judge to compel Amazon to provide documents related to its data handling. The government agency says the retailer didn’t disclose its Signal use until March 2022, ahead of a Wall Street Journal article highlighting the covert practice.
The issue appears to be an increasingly common business practice in Silicon Valley. Last year, the DOJ accused Google of routinely destroying its internal chat histories, which it was required to preserve under federal law. In addition, before Elon Musk bought Twitter and changed its name to X, the company asked a judge to sanction the Tesla founder for using Signal’s auto-deletion to withhold messages sent through the app.
