Bezos and Amazon executives are under FTC scrutiny for deleting Signal messages

Amazon.com Inc. executives, including founder Jeff Bezos and Chief Executive Officer Andy Jassy, have come under fire for allegedly destroying text messages discussing business. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has accused the top executives of using the encrypted communications platform Signal between April 2019 and May 2022 in a way that ensured messages were not retained, potentially erasing crucial evidence that could have been used in the agency’s antitrust case against the retail giant.

In addition to Bezos and Jassy, other executives implicated in the court filing include David Zapolsky, Amazon’s top lawyer; Jeff Wilke, the former retail czar of Amazon; and Dave Clark, a longtime logistics executive who left the company in 2022. The FTC’s allegations expand on their antitrust complaint filed last fall against Amazon.

Amazon’s spokesman, Tim Doyle, has dismissed the FTC’s claims as “baseless.” He stated that Amazon had voluntarily disclosed the limited use of Signal by employees to the FTC years ago, collected Signal conversations from employees’ phones, and allowed agency staff to inspect these conversations even if they were unrelated to the investigation.

The use of Signal by executives reportedly began after Bezos revealed in 2019 that his phone had been hacked, leading to concerns about privacy and security. The court filing is seeking information on Amazon’s guidelines for when to use Signal for communication and instructions on retaining messages.

The FTC argues that by using Signal’s disappearing messages feature, Amazon executives hindered the agency’s ability to investigate the company’s business practices and potential antitrust violations. The agency claims that this action interfered with Amazon’s mandate to retain and provide documents for the investigation that opened in 2019.

This is not the first time a major tech company has been accused of destroying evidence. Alphabet Inc.’s Google has faced similar allegations for failing to retain internal communications despite being under investigation by multiple agencies. The Justice Department accused Google of encouraging employees to have sensitive conversations with chat history turned off, leading to automatic deletion after 24 hours.

A California federal judge reprimanded Google’s top lawyer over the data preservation protocol, stating that the company had adopted a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy for chat preservation. The Justice Department has sought sanctions against Google for the issue and is awaiting a ruling from a federal judge.

The FTC could potentially refer any wrongdoing uncovered in their investigation to the Justice Department. The outcome of this case could have significant implications for how tech companies handle and retain communication.