Today we received an email from the Washington state's attorney general's office with the following text:
In order to properly process your complaint, we will need you to fill out the attached complaint form and provide us further information. I have also attached the link to our online form from our website which contains the same form for a speedier transmittal.
https://fortress.wa.gov/atg/formhandler/ago/AntitrustComplaint.aspx
So it looks like to "officially" submit a complaint, you have to use the form on their site. So now we ask that you please use the above URL to submit your compliant (although you can certainly feel free to continue using our email form as well). This issue seems to be dying down considerably, and no action has been taken. If you care about this, you need to continue to help us make noise. Otherwise, Amazon will win...and independent authors and publishing companies will lose.
2 comments:
The first I heard of this issue was with the Lightning Source email to its publishers on April 1, 2008. About the same time John Kremer's marketing newsletter commented on the issue. I googled and found your site. YES I thought, something is happening here.
I forwarded your site to Lightning Source, added the form to my blog and sent it out in my last newsletter. Like you, I received a request from the state of Washington to fill out their on-line form.
I also contacted Author House, as my earlier books are published with them, chiding them for not inlcuding news on this issue in their newsletters.
This morning I went to the Author House site and found their comment, or position, which doesn't really say a hill of beans:
http://www.authorhouse.com/getpublished/position.asp
Dear Jerry, Chris, Bobby, Jim and all,
Thank you for informing your readers of the sort of information we at the Washington Attorney General’s Office need to process public complaints. I wanted to also take this opportunity to update you of our office’s work regarding this issue.
The Washington Attorney General’s Antitrust Division has received several inquiries and concerns regarding the new “print on demand” or “POD” policy recently implemented by Amazon.com. Individuals who have contacted our office claim that Amazon is engaging in “monopolistic practices.”
As with all complaints regarding a business, we have advised Amazon.com of these concerns and have asked the company to respond to us. In the meantime, the Antitrust Division is conducting an initial review of the marketplace and will respond more fully once that review is complete.
In order for the Attorney General’s Office or another enforcement agency to take action on an antitrust law violation, a court must be convinced that a company has attempted to monopolize a relevant market or is attempting to exclude others from a market it has already monopolized. The relevant market is judged not only in terms of what products are in question, but the geographic service area in which competitors compete.
If it is determined that the markets involved are national in scope, it may be more appropriate to refer this matter to one of the federal antitrust agencies for review.
Consumer tips can help enforcement agencies identify unethical and suspicious corporate behavior when it occurs. Individuals who have unique information about the market that they would like to share are invited to complete a complaint form and submit it to the Antitrust Division. The complaint form can be found online at the link you provided or at http://www.atg.wa.gov/antitrust.aspx.
You may wish to direct your readers to our Web site at www.atg.wa.gov/amazonpod.aspx where this information is currently posted.
Kindest regards,
Kristin Alexander
Media Relations Manager
Washington Attorney General’s Office
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