Fortune Tech: Amazon alleged overcharging, Nissan-Honda software collab, EU ChatGPT designation
Fortune Andrew Nusca ● Covered by 4 sources
Amazon’s ad business just got hit with a lawsuit from 22 states and the FTC. EU regulators also pulled ChatGPT into the same bucket as search engines.
Based on reporting by Fortune, Andrew Nusca — read the original for the full story.
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Shein’s Hong Kong debut was rough. The stock fell as much as 10% on Tuesday, to about HK$44, after investor doubts about the company’s business model finally showed up in the price. That leaves the fast-fashion giant at about $24 billion in market value, only a little above Ralph Lauren, which is not the kind of comparison a newly public company wants to hear on day one.
The bigger Amazon story is stranger, and a lot more expensive. The FTC and 22 state attorneys general sued the company on Monday, saying Amazon “secretly and systematically” overcharged advertisers through its auction and pricing systems and pulled in more than $20 billion from the practice. Regulators say a 2019 change introduced an undisclosed “soft reserve price,” and the complaint cites internal messages about using an “invented auction participant” to push prices higher. Amazon says the agency misunderstands how advertisers work and argues buyers paid the same while getting better results as ad relevance improved.
This is not a side business anymore. Amazon’s ad operation is now the world’s third-largest digital advertising business, behind Google and Meta, and it was worth about $68 billion last year. Most of that comes from sponsored product ads, which means the fight goes right to the core of how Amazon monetizes the giant store it built.
Meanwhile, Nissan and Honda are taking the opposite tack: share more, build faster, and cut duplicate work. The two automakers said they will jointly develop core electronic control units and software for vehicles, with the first results planned for 2029. They’ve already been working together since 2024 on electric and autonomous tech, but this is about the software-defined car itself, as global sales stay near flat and cost pressure gets louder.
And in Europe, regulators are treating ChatGPT less like a novelty and more like infrastructure. The European Commission designated it a “very large online search engine” under the Digital Services Act, which means extra obligations and possible fines of up to 6% of worldwide annual sales for noncompliance. The message is simple: if an AI product searches the web, Brussels wants to regulate it like something that searches the web.
My take — AI-written commentary, not fact-checked reporting
Brussels is doing what Brussels does best: refusing to pretend a chatbot is magically outside the rules because it has a friendlier interface. That is annoying for the companies, but it’s healthier than letting AI firms play semantic dodgeball until the fines show up. The bigger pattern is obvious enough — once AI starts behaving like search, ads, and publishing, regulators will stop applauding the label and start inspecting the plumbing.
Read more about this at: Fortune
