Most of Canada to receive emergency alert test today
The federal government will test its capacity to issue emergency alerts today, with the exception of Ontario, where the test will take place on May 15.
Amazon has complained to federal regulators that they are hounding company founder Jeff Bezos and senior executives, making "impossible-to-satisfy demands" in their investigation of Amazon Prime, the popular streaming and shopping service with free delivery and an estimated 200 million members around the globe.
The Federal Trade Commission has been investigating the sign-up and cancellation practices of Amazon Prime starting in March 2021 with the issuance of civil subpoenas, the biggest online retailer and tech giant disclosed in a petition to the agency filed earlier this month.
The petition asks the FTC to cancel, or extend the deadline for answering, subpoenas sent last June to Bezos, Amazon's former CEO, and current CEO Andy Jassy. It says the FTC "has identified no legitimate reason for needing their testimony when it can obtain the same information, and more, from other witnesses and documents."
Jassy took over the top position at Amazon from Bezos, one of the world's richest individuals, in July 2021. Bezos became executive chairman.
The FTC investigation has widened to include at least five other subscription programs, according to Amazon: Audible, Amazon Music, Kindle Unlimited, Subscribe & Save, and an unidentified third-party program not offered by Amazon. The regulators are asking the company to identify the number of consumers who were enrolled in the programs without giving their consent, among other customer information. In June, agency staff sought to serve subpoenas on nearly 20 current and former Amazon employees, at their homes, with dates for them to give testimony in coming weeks, the petition says.
Amazon says in the petition it has worked "diligently and cooperatively" with FTC staff for more than a year to provide information relevant to the probe, offering up some 37,000 pages of documents. It calls the information demanded in the subpoenas "overly broad and burdensome."
Amazon blames the standoff on "unexplained pressure placed on staff to complete the investigation hastily, by an arbitrarily chosen deadline."
FTC spokespeople didn't immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.
With an estimated 150 million U.S. subscribers, Amazon Prime is a key source of revenue, as well as a wealth of customer data, for the Seattle-based company, which runs an e-commerce empire and ventures in cloud computing, personal "smart" tech and beyond. Amazon Prime costs $139 a year. The service added a coveted feature this year by obtaining exclusive video rights to the NFL's "Thursday Night Football."
Last year, Amazon asked unsuccessfully that FTC Chair Lina Khan step aside from separate antitrust investigations into its business, contending that her public criticism of the company's market power before she joined the government makes it impossible for her to be impartial. Khan was a fierce critic of tech giants Facebook (now Meta), Google and Apple, as well as Amazon. She arrived on the antitrust scene in 2017, writing an influential study titled "Amazon's Antitrust Paradox" when she was a Yale law student.
Amazon's latest petition to the FTC was first reported Monday by Business Insider.
This story has been corrected to show that Amazon's petition to the FTC was first reported Monday by Business Insider.
The federal government will test its capacity to issue emergency alerts today, with the exception of Ontario, where the test will take place on May 15.
An Ontario woman said it would have been impossible to buy a house without her mother – an anecdote that animates the fact that over 17 per cent of Canadian homeowners born in the ‘90s own their property with their parents, according to a new report.
Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, has made headlines with his recent arrival in the U.K., this time to celebrate all things Invictus. But upon the prince landing in the U.K., we have already had confirmation that King Charles III won't have time to see his youngest son during his brief visit.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
A long-simmering feud between hip-hop superstars Drake and Kendrick Lamar reached a boiling point in recent days as the pair traded increasingly personal insults on a succession of diss tracks. Here’s a quick overview of what’s behind the ongoing beef.
Canadian immigrants threatened by hostile regimes are urging parliamentarians to quickly pass the 'Countering Foreign Interference Act' so they can feel safe living in their adopted home.
An Ontario man found out that a line of credit he thought was insured actually isn't after his wife of 50 years died.
Spanish state prosecutors recommended Wednesday that an investigating judge shelve a probe into another alleged case of tax fraud by pop star Shakira.
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.