FBI Says Amazon Sellers Used Algorithm in Price-Fixing Scheme

The U.S. Justice Department's Antitrust division lauded the result of its e-commerce investigation into price fixing on Amazon Marketplace. The agency alleges that online seller David Topkins and other co-conspirators fixed pricing on certain posters sold through the Marketplace from September 2013 through January 2014. Topkins, along with Jonathan Garriss and Adam Hersh, was a principal of Gotham City Online and employee of Art.com at that time. Topkins and Garriss were also co-founders of an eBay seller association called PESA. The three business partners sold Gotham City Online's poster business (Poster Revolution) to Art.com in 2012.