Joke of the Month: “The Trump-Vance FTC will never back down from taking on Big Tech” – US Federal Trade Commission Chair Andrew Ferguson.

Set for a September 2025 trial, the FTC launched its law suit against Amazon in 2023, alleging the company used deceptive practices, including “dark patterns,” to enroll consumers into its Prime subscription without their consent and made it intentionally difficult for them to cancel.

These tactics are said to violate consumer protection laws, with the FTC accusing Amazon of prioritising profits over user transparency and fairness.

Then FTC Chair explained in 2023: “Amazon tricked and trapped people into recurring subscriptions without their consent, not only frustrating users but also costing them significant money.”

“Wrong On The Facts And The Law”

To be clear, Amazon denies any wrongdoing and asserts the FTC is “wrong on the facts and the law.“

Amazon is no stranger to law suits, of course, and has another FTC trial looming in October 2026 accusing it of wielding an illegal monopoly by preventing sellers from offering cheaper prices elsewhere.

The new FTC Chair, Ferguson is a Trump appointment, and given the way the tech moguls lined up at Trump’s inauguration, we can safely assume Ferguson’s claim that “the Trump-Vance FTC will never back down from taking on Big Tech” is not to be taken too seriously.

A Study In Hypocrisy And Dependency

What’s this got to do with the publishing industry? Aside from the many authors who have had their KDP accounts closed for violating Amazon’s rule on offering an ebook cheaper elsewhere, that is?

A reminder of the headline for this op-ed: The Publishing Industry’s Divergent Reactions to Amazon and AI Companies: A Study in Hypocrisy and Dependency.

In other words, this isn’t about whether Amazon has or has not committed crimes – that’s for a court of law to decide – but about the publishing industry’s contrasting responses to allegations against Amazon and AI companies, that underscore a complex interplay of dependency, self-interest, and perceived threats.

1. Amazon: A Partner Too Big to Criticise Despite Proven Misconduct

  • Dependency Dynamics: Amazon dominates book distribution, e-commerce, ebooks, audiobooks and self-publishing in the US. Publishers rely on its infrastructure for sales and visibility, creating a conflict of interest. Criticizing Amazon risks retaliation, such as reduced promotional support or even delisting.
  • Proven Misconduct vs. Silence: Amazon’s history includes antitrust violations, predatory pricing, and ethical concerns about labour abuses. Yet, publishers rarely vocalise concerns. The FTC’s current Prime trial – alleging deceptive subscription practices – has drawn muted industry reaction, reflecting fear of upsetting and destabilising a critical partner.

2. AI Companies: The New, Unproven Threat

  • Scrutiny of Unproven Allegations: AI firms face a constant barrage of accusations of copyright infringement (be-it training models on pirated books or simply scraping publicly available data on the internet) and ethical concerns (devaluing human creativity). Publishers, authors and other creatives, unshackled by dependency, aggressively challenge these potential harms.
  • Perceived Disruption: AI’s ability to generate content threatens traditional publishing roles (editing, writing, narration, translation). This existential fear fuels preemptive criticism, even as AI’s legal and economic impact remains speculative.

3. Hypocrisy and Historical Context

  • “Glass Houses” Reality: The publishing industry itself has a track record of illegal behavior. The 2012 price-fixing case resulted in $166 million fines for major publishers. Their reluctance to condemn Amazon’s proven misconduct mirrors their own culpability.
  • Strategic Silence vs. Strategic Outrage:

But all credit to the publishing industry: It knows when to keep its mouth shut. Do not bite the had that feeds you.

4. Power Asymmetry and Risk Calculation

  • Amazon’s Leverage: As a gatekeeper to readers, Amazon can dictate terms. Publishers prioritise survival over ethics, tolerating its actual (Court-proven) and alleged misconduct to avoid business disruption.
  • AI’s Lack of Entrenchment: AI lacks Amazon’s distribution stranglehold. Publishers exploit this vulnerability to shape regulatory outcomes, lobbying for strict IP protections and transparency.

Publishers Cast Themselves As Ethical Stewards

The publishing industry’s dichotomy for the 2020s – leniency toward Amazon and hostility toward AI – stems from pragmatism and self-preservation. Amazon’s entrenched role makes it indispensable, while AI’s novelty allows publishers to cast themselves as ethical stewards.

Yet, this duality reveals systemic hypocrisy: an industry quick to judge nascent technologies while excusing its own and its partners’ transgressions. Until publishers address their dependency on monopolistic platforms, their critiques of AI will ring hollow.

The Ex-Cons Club

And history shows that, even if AI companies are found in multiple law suits to be guilty of IP crimes as some are alleging, conviction is unlikely to make any difference to how the industry moves forward.

The industry will move forward based on pragmatism and self-preservation. And given AI is not an existential threat to publishing, but rather offers the industry untold new revenue streams own the road, we can expect more and more acceptance and embrace of AI, no matter the outcome of pending trials

AI is the new Amazon we cannot live without, and the sooner we acknowledge that fact and move on, the better.

This post first appeared in the TNPS LinkedIn newsletter.