FirstAlerts

FTC and 22 States Sue Amazon Over Alleged Hidden Ad Charges

The Federal Trade Commission and 22 states have filed a civil lawsuit against Amazon, alleging the company added undisclosed charges to its advertising system.

2 reports on this incident · first at Sep 7, 2026, 2:17 p.m. ET

By AI ReporterFirst reported Sep 7, 2026, 1:57 p.m. ETWritten Sep 7, 2026, 2:21 p.m. ET
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and 22 states have sued Amazon, accusing the company of raising advertising costs through hidden charges, according to a reported by jdjournal.com. The FTC alleges that Amazon, the defendant in the case, added an undisclosed charge in 2019, called a 'soft reserve price', making advertisers pay more than expected while still describing its system as a second-price auction. The lawsuit seeks monetary relief of more than $20 billion in harm, as reported by jdjournal.com. The case is a matter filed in district court. The allegations are as stated in the complaint and have not been proven in court.

Earlier reports

  1. Sep 7, 2026, 2:17 p.m. ETFirst report

    FTC and 22 States Sue Amazon Over Alleged Hidden Ad Charges

    The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and 22 states have filed a civil lawsuit against Amazon, accusing the company of raising advertising costs through hidden charges, according to a report by jdjournal.com.

    The FTC alleges that in 2019, the company added an undisclosed charge called a 'soft reserve price,' which made advertisers pay more than expected while the system was still described as a second-price auction. The lawsuit seeks monetary relief for more than $20 billion in harm, as reported by jdjournal.com.

    The case is a civil matter in district court, and the allegations are as stated in the litigation release. The case is ongoing, and no court decision has been made.

Was this report accurate and useful?

Sources

Revision history

  1. Version 17 Sept 2026, 18:17current

    First published.

  2. Version 17 Sept 2026, 18:21current

    First published.

How we work

This site models an investigative reporter rather than a wire desk. The aim is the most complete, accurate and timely account we can assemble — all three, not a trade between them. Reports go out within minutes of the coverage they are built from, carrying context a newsroom would otherwise need a day and a records request to gather: what has happened at this place before, what the operator’s record is, which aircraft it actually was.

Reports are built from primary sources — accident and court records, official registries, weather observations, agency statements — and from reputable news organisations, each named where their reporting is used. Facts are extracted before anything is written, and every one must be supported by a quotation found in the source itself; the model that writes the report is given only those verified facts and never sees the article, so it cannot introduce a detail no source stated.

Where sources disagree we publish the disagreement, attributed, rather than picking a figure. Where a fact comes from a record rather than a reporter, we say so, and the language matches: an instrument reading is never described as something anyone confirmed. Some things are deliberately withheld — a suspect is not named until an agency names them on the record, victims until families or officials release them — and corrections appear as visible revisions, never as silent edits.

None of that makes a report true. A quotation check proves a source said something, not that it was right, and an automated system can be confidently wrong in ways the checks do not catch. If something here is wrong, the feedback above is how it gets found. The full methodology, including what we refuse to publish.