In an announcement, Washington State Attorney General Nick Brown said Washington has joined a lawsuit by the Federal Trade Commission and 22 other states alleging that Amazon has, for years, inflated the price to advertise on its site.
The coalition says that Amazon imposed undisclosed surcharges on more than 500,000 small and medium-sized businesses that buy ads on the site.
According to the statement, Amazon employees raised concerns, including in an internal memo in 2023 stating that this practice was not “doing the right thing for the advertisers,” according to the complaint.
Joining Washington in filing the lawsuit, which is being led by the FTC, are the attorneys general of Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Vermont.