Amazon gets caught setting up a company to spy on its rivals

Amazon has another scandal after reports surfaced about its secret operation called "Project Curiosity."

• Apparently, Amazon set up a shell company named Big River Services International to spy on its competitors for almost decade.

Big River (the company created to spy) had warehouses in 5 different countries across the globe. Stealthily, it sold products on different ecommerce platforms like Walmart, Shopify and eBay.

Originally, Project Curiosity started in 2015 and its goal was to analyze the experiences of third-party sellers on Amazon compared to those on other ecommerce platforms, according to the Wall Street Journal.

• However, it quickly transformed into a full-fledged spying mission on these competitors

Since Big River's tactics involved buying merchandise and then reselling it on competitor platforms:

• This allowed them to collect data including pricing strategies, product catalogs, and advertising systems used by their rivals.

• Employees even took screenshots and pictures and attended competitor conferences in disguise.

Amazon defended itself claiming that Project Curiosity was merely a "benchmarking" exercise, a standard practice of comparing products and services.

However, the lengths to which they went to conceal their identities paint a different picture.

• Big River employees were instructed to use non-Amazon email addresses, minimize digital footprints, and even received special training to deflect suspicion.