20$ fine

No, they gamed owners of businesses. Probably megacorps with money, hence the lawsuit.

Tldr: this is about people who buy sponsored ads on Amazon. Those ads are placed by an auction, where the highest bidder gets their ad shown, for one cent more than the second highest bidder. There is a "hard reserve" price that must be met.

The allegation is that there's also been a secret "soft reserve" price that's higher than the hard reserve. So if the winning bidder was supposed to pay above the hard reserve but below the soft reserve,... They paid the higher soft reserve price anyway (not if it was above their max bid), and Amazon let them believe that it's how the actual bidding played out.

Since 2019, to the tune of $20B. It's on par with Richard Pryor in that early Superman film taking all the fraction of a cent off of every account in the bank. For years, and with a lot more "accounts".

Forgot to pay the protection money, Jeff?

200,000 $uperbux and a sternly written letter

I Increasingly feel like a sucker for being honest