Amazon employees used data on independent sellers on its platform to launch competing products, according to a Thursday report by The Wall Street Journal. The practice conflicts with statements by the e-commerce giant that it doesn't use information collected from third-party sellers when developing its own products, the Journal said. Â
The information collected by Amazon can reportedly help the company determine pricing, which features to replicate or whether to get involved in a product category. The Journal said it spoke with more than 20 former employees of the company's private-label business and accessed documents outlining the practice.Â
Examples of the practice reportedly include Amazon employees accessing data about a top selling trunk organizer from a third-party vendor, including total sales and the amount Amazon made on every sale. The company's private-label business then rolled out its own trunk organizers.Â
An Amazon representative denied the assertions made in the Journal report but said the company "take[s] these allegations very seriously" and has launched an internal investigation.Â
"We strictly prohibit employees from using non-public, seller-specific data to determine which private label products to launch," the representative said in a statement.