The European Commission announced Thursday morning “a formal antitrust investigation into certain business practices by Amazon in the distribution of electronic books. Their focus is “certain clauses included in Amazon’s contracts with publishers. These clauses require publishers to inform Amazon about more favorable or alternative terms offered to Amazon’s competitors and/or offer Amazon similar terms and conditions than to its competitors, or through other means ensure that Amazon is offered terms at least as good as those for its competitors.” The EC’s scrutiny is on the two largest European markets for ebooks, the UK and Germany. The central question is whether Amazon’s most […]