Amazon.com, Inc.

This company appears on 2 of the Federal Trade Commission’s published Notice of Penalty Offenses recipient lists.

The fact that a company is on this list is NOT an indication that it has done anything wrong. A Notice of Penalty Offenses is not a complaint, a finding, a settlement, or an allegation against the recipient. The Commission sent these notices broadly across whole industries so that civil penalties would become available in future against any company that went on to break the law.

The record

Company, as printed by the FTCAmazon.com, Inc.

Notices receivedSubstantiation of product claimsEndorsements and testimonials

SourceFTC — Penalty Offenses (FTC April 2023 Notice of Penalty Offenses)

Appearing on more than one list is uncommon: 50 of the 2,527 recipients do. It means the Commission wrote to this company about more than one category of conduct. It still is not a finding about any of them.

What these notices cover

In the Commission’s own terms. A notice puts a company on formal notice that the described conduct has been found unlawful in earlier administrative cases, which is what makes civil penalties of up to $50,120 per violation available under 15 U.S.C. § 45(m)(1)(B) if that company later engages in it.

Substantiation of product claims665 recipients: Failing to have competent and reliable evidence for product claims, failing to have competent and reliable scientific evidence for health or safety claims, failing to have at least one well-controlled human clinical trial for claims that a product treats a serious disease, and misrepresenting the level or type of substantiation for a claim.
Endorsements and testimonials705 recipients: Using endorsements to deceive consumers — including fake reviews, misrepresenting an endorser's experience, and failing to disclose a material connection between an endorser and the seller.

What this record does not say

It does not say Amazon.com, Inc. did anything wrong.
It does not say any claim this company has made is unsupported.
It is not an enforcement action, a complaint, a consent order or a penalty.
It does not mean the Commission investigated this company.
It means one thing only: the FTC included this name on a published list of businesses it put on notice about the conduct described above.

What does Amazon.com, Inc. currently claim on its own site?

Being on a list is a fact about a letter. The question it raises is a different one: what do your published pages assert today, and what evidence sits beside each assertion?

We read public pages and return an inventory — every claim found, and which of them would face a substantiation question if somebody asked. It is a reading, not a verdict. It does not determine whether any claim is adequate, and it is not legal advice. A reading is private to the company that requests it.

Read my pages — free How the reading works

Also on the substantiation of product claims list

The rest of the same public list. Named here because that is the only relationship this record establishes — not as a comparison, and not as a judgement about any of them.

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Compiled from the Federal Trade Commission’s published Notice of Penalty Offenses recipient lists, which are public record. We link to the Commission rather than rehost its documents. If you believe this record is inaccurate, the authoritative source is ftc.gov.