The Federal Trade Commission makes it official.

It's taking on the everything store and what could be one of its biggest cases yet.

From American Public Media, this is Marketplace Tech.

I'm Lily Dremale.

Amazon is a monopolist.

Those words are from the opening paragraphs of a lawsuit filed yesterday against the

e-commerce giant by the FTC and 17 states.

They say Amazon uses strategies that prevent sellers on its online marketplace from lowering

prices elsewhere and compels them to use Amazon's logistics service in order to be eligible

for Amazon Prime.

That is the abridged version of the FTC's 170-plus page filing, parts of which are heavily

redacted.

An algorithm allegedly fueling much of this, referred to as Project Nessie, also makes

an appearance.

In a statement, Amazon called the case wrong on the facts and the law, adding it looks

forward to making that case in court.

Neil Chilson, the former chief technologist at the FTC and a research fellow with the

Center for Growth and Opportunity, says Amazon's argument will likely hinge on the amount

of value they've created.

Others may or may not remember that Amazon did not offer third party services or third

party sellers as part of its initial product, creating that online store has brought a ton

of variety and it's created business opportunities for hundreds of thousands, if not millions,

...