Amazon has declined to make Jeff Bezos available for testimony in the US Congress with regard to its use of sensitive data, the company said on Friday, and will instead provide an "appropriate executive" to address the issue.
"We disagree strongly with any suggestion that we have attempted to mislead the Committee or not been cooperative with the investigation", Amazon's vice president of public policy Brian Huseman said in a response to a House Judiciary Committee letter. "We have been working with the Committee in good faith for nearly a year to provide answers and information, and we remain prepared to make the appropriate Amazon executive available to the Committee to address these issues."
In a letter to Bezos on 1 May, House Judiciary Chairman Jerry Nadler, Ranking Member James Sensenbrenner, and five other lawmakers called on him to testify before the House Judiciary Committee to address misleading information on its use of individual seller data. The lawmakers cited a Wall Street Journal article that said Amazon employees used sensitive business data from third-party sellers in order to develop competing products on its platform.
The lawmakers also threatened to subpoena Bezos if he did not comply with the request.
