By Byron Kaye

SYDNEY, (Reuters:) Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ) declined to explain its product-search process to an Australian competition regulator. The Australian Competition Regulator has received complaints about large marketplaces giving preference to local wares.

This is the beginning of a potential repeat of Australia’s showdown in 2021. Facebook Inc (NASDAQ) and Alphabet, (NASDAQ) Inc’s Google. This resulted is those companies paying media content royalties.

In a Thursday report, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC), mentioned Amazon’s position in the five-year-long review of big tech regulation. This included Google and Facebook.

According to the ACCC, it had conducted a survey of 80 online retailers and found that almost half believe that marketplaces can bias searches and site presentation favoring in-house products.

Amazon told regulators that it didn’t give any advantage to products, but the ACCC requested details on inputs from Amazon’s algorithm. The report stated.

The report stated that the ACCC did not know how Amazon’s algorithm produces search results.

Amazon reps were unavailable for comment immediately.

A number of comments were made in response to the survey, which was published along with the report. They accused Amazon of favoritism towards its products. Unnamed respondents wrote that Amazon products were always first listed and second-hand products appear at the bottom.

ACCC pointed out that Australia was not overtaken by Amazon, as opposed to other major online retailers like the United States or Britain. It was not established in Australia until 2017.

The ACCC stated that its sales for the year ended June 2021 were only a quarter the A$5.3 billion (3.8 billion) of eBay Inc’s ($NASDAQ:).

However, regulators warned that giving large platforms preferential treatment for their own products could influence buying decisions and hurt competition. According to the report, platforms must be forced to reveal any favouriting of their own products.

“Hybrid marketplaces, like other vertically-integrated digital platforms, face conflicts of interest and may act in ways that advantage their own products with potentially adverse effects,” ACCC chairperson Gina Cass-Gottlieb said in a statement accompanying the report.

We are concerned about self-preferencing in hybrid markets within Australia. These concerns mirror those raised by regulators overseas.

($1 = 1.4053 Australian dollars)