The Federal Trade Commission and 22 states sued Amazon yesterday, alleging that it has conducted a secret scheme to overcharge advertisers for seven years.
"Since 2019, Amazon.com, Inc. has secretly and systematically overcharged its approximately 1.2 million advertising customers by manipulating the 'auctions' that it uses to set the price of ads on its platform," the lawsuit said. "Amazon represents, and advertisers believe, that competitive auctions set the prices for advertising on its leading e-commerce website. But, in reality, Amazon overrides and replaces the actual auction results with higher prices set by Amazon to increase its profits."
The FTC said it obtained internal documents and messages that reveal how Amazon secretly inflated auction prices for Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Sponsored Display advertisements that appear alongside results seen by consumers when they search for a product. The FTC investigation began in 2024.
Some Americans worry that the Federal Trade Commission's rush to limit personalized pricing in the name of consumer protection could end up killing discounts they depend on or, counterintuitively, raising prices.
The FTC has no power to ban personalized pricing, in which a business uses a customer’s personal data to determine the highest price that person might be willing to pay for a product or service. But the agency believes it could set limits on the practice, including potential penalties for businesses that fail to disclose when customers may be paying more because data suggests they won't balk at the price.
In a request for public comment on a proposed policy statement, the FTC acknowledged that personalized pricing is common in some industries. But FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson said new industries are increasingly tracking customers to set individualized prices, blindsiding consumers who expect a listed price in markets like retail “to be the same price that everyone else sees,” Ferguson said.
Washington AG Nick Brown filed the lawsuit against Kalshi in March. (Photo courtesy of the Washington Attorney General’s Office)
A judge in Seattle ordered Kalshi to shut down large parts of its prediction market in Washington state by Sept. 2 — less than three weeks from now — and denied the New York-based company’s attempt to pause the order while it appeals the ruling.
The order by King County Superior Court Judge John McHale, issued Wednesday, requires Kalshi to geofence Washington users out of markets for sports, elections, politics, entertainment, culture, tech and science, and “mentions,” contracts on whether public figures will say specific words.
Kalshi can continue offering markets on commodities, climate, economics, and finance in the state. Users will also be allowed to close out positions they already hold in the prohibited categories.
The order sets a $120,000-a-day penalty if Kalshi misses the Sept. 2 deadline, although Kalshi can also submit an affidavit explaining any delay and let the court determine the final penalty.
That penalty would match what Nevada regulators are separately seeking from Kalshi in a June contempt motion for allegedly failing to comply with a similar injunction there.
In his ruling, McHale wrote that Kalshi “willfully ignored” a Washington State Gambling Commission notice from December 2025 stating that event-based contracts are not authorized in the state. He also concluded that “the public interests at stake and potential harm to consumers” outweigh harm to Kalshi from the injunction.
Kalshi disputed the premise of the ruling on Thursday, reiterating its position that the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission “has exclusive jurisdiction” over the exchange.
“We respectfully disagree with the court’s decision and are considering all legal options,” spokesperson Jacki McGavick said in a statement responding to the ruling.
Attorney General Nick Brown, who brought the suit, said in a statement that Kalshi “has gotten rich promoting wagers on sports, elections, natural disasters, events related to the Iran War, and more.”
However, Kalshi said its platform does not offer markets on wildfires, war, death, or terrorism. Kalshi has disputed reporting that has grouped its platform with rival Polymarket, which has drawn scrutiny for wildfire and other markets Kalshi says it doesn’t allow.
Kalshi had asked both McHale and the state Court of Appeals to pause the injunction pending appeal, and lost at both levels: a Court of Appeals commissioner denied an emergency stay request Monday, and McHale entered his own denial Wednesday with his larger order.
Kalshi’s remaining state-court options include asking a full Court of Appeals panel to review the commissioner’s ruling, or seeking emergency review at the Washington Supreme Court.
Neal Katyal, a former U.S. acting solicitor general who leads Milbank’s U.S. Supreme Court practice, is representing Kalshi in state cases across the country. (Milbank Photo)
Washington state is emerging as a key battleground in the national fight over whether federal commodities oversight allows prediction markets like Kalshi to override state gambling laws.
King County Superior Court Judge John McHale in Seattle sided with Washington Attorney General Nick Brown on July 20, granting a preliminary injunction and rejecting Kalshi’s core defense: that oversight by the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission preempts state gambling law.
A check of the docket shows the case has escalated significantly since then. Kalshi has appealed to the Washington Court of Appeals, and asked McHale to pause his injunction pending that appeal.
Court records also indicate that former U.S. Acting Solicitor General Neal Katyal, Kalshi’s lead national counsel in similar state cases, is now representing the company in the Washington state case. The involvement of a lawyer with years of experience arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court signals that Kalshi is preparing for a serious appellate fight over federal preemption rules.
McHale has yet to rule on Kalshi’s stay motion or enter the operational terms of his injunction, which means the platform is still operational in the state nearly three weeks after his ruling.
Both sides have been pushing to shape McHale’s decision, submitting federal court rulings from other states for his consideration.
McHale’s next ruling, expected in the coming days, should determine whether Kalshi will have to stop operating in Washington state while its appeal plays out.
Zillow Group’s revenue rose 18% to $772 million in the second quarter, beating its own forecast, but a $36 million restructuring charge from severance and other costs stemming from this week’s layoffs pushed it to a $4 million net loss.
The Seattle-based online real estate company, which on Tuesday laid off more than 500 people, or 7% of its workforce, expects the restructuring to cost $59 million to $64 million in total, with the rest recorded in the third quarter, according to the company’s 10-Q regulatory filing.
Zillow also announced a series of executive changes, including expanding CFO Jeremy Hofmann‘s role to include chief operating officer. Jun Choo, who became COO in 2024, is stepping down to focus on his health, serving as an advisor through the end of the year.
The company created a chief legal and policy officer role and hired Cassandra “Sandi” Knight, a Google vice president of litigation and discovery, who was previously PayPal chief litigation counsel. Knight starts next week.
Zillow and Redfin are set to go to trial Aug. 24 as defendants in an antitrust case brought by the FTC and five state attorneys general over the $100 million rental listings deal between the two companies. Zillow has spent $26 million on the case so far this year, including $10 million in the second quarter.
In addition, Zillow promoted Kathleen Berroth to senior vice president of strategy and operations, and Eric Wilson to senior vice president and GM of mortgages.
For the second quarter, Zillow said the residential real estate industry grew 6%, while industry-wide lending for home purchases was roughly flat compared with a year ago. The number of people visiting real estate sites and apps declined overall as mortgage rates rose, the company said, citing Comscore. Zillow’s own traffic fell 2%, to an average of 239 million monthly users.
Most of the revenue growth came from Zillow’s newer businesses. Mortgage revenue rose 75% to $84 million as Zillow directed buyers on its site to its own lending arm, and rentals revenue rose 31% to $209 million. Residential revenue, from advertising sold to real estate agents, grew 7% to $465 million.
Seattle-based online real estate company Zillow Group laid off more than 500 employees Tuesday, about 7% of its global workforce, its second and largest round of cuts this year.
The layoffs are about “ensuring we have a disciplined cost structure and getting more efficient, with the right people in the right positions,” Zillow Group CEO Jeremy Wacksman said in a company blog post announcing the cuts. He said the decision reflects “both the strides we’re making in our strategy and the reality of what is required of us to grow at scale.”
He added, “Continuing to grow at scale requires us to work differently than we do today.”
Wacksman told real estate executives at the T3 Leadership Summit in April that Zillow employees were being retrained to use AI in their jobs, with gains that “are small, but they’re compounding,” as reported by Real Estate News.
Zillow told GeekWire the cuts were not driven by AI. “Today’s changes are about better positioning Zillow for the path ahead, which includes having the right people in the right roles and being able to move faster,” a company spokesperson said.
The company didn’t disclose which teams were affected, how many of the cuts will hit its Seattle headquarters, or what severance employees will receive.
Zillow Group will report second-quarter earnings Wednesday afternoon. The company’s business has been growing, defying a sluggish housing market. Its first-quarter revenue rose 18% year-over-year to $708 million, while the residential real estate industry grew 2%, according to NAR. Net income climbed to $46 million from $8 million a year earlier.
Wacksman indicated Tuesday that the company is still bucking the trend: “We continue to outperform the category, despite a housing market that has been essentially flat,” he wrote.
However, the company has been spending nearly as fast as it has been growing, on rental listings, loan officers for Zillow Home Loans, advertising and legal bills. Execs told investors in May that the spending would ease up in the second half of the year. Cutting payroll is one way to make that happen, and Zillow’s earnings guidance tomorrow could reflect that.
As for those legal bills: Zillow is headed to trial later this month in an FTC antitrust case over the $100 million deal the company struck in early 2025 to become the exclusive provider of multifamily rental listings on Redfin’s websites.
Zillow cut about 200 jobs in January, but characterized those as performance-related and part of its annual review cycle. It had 7,058 employees as of March 31, down just 10 positions from the end of 2025, meaning it had largely backfilled January’s cuts before Tuesday.
It’s part of a wave of cuts and consolidation in real estate portals and property tech. CoStar has cut its Homes.com inside-sales team by nearly 40% in recent months. Better founder Vishal Garg stepped down as CEO Monday as the mortgage company pushed to cut costs.
Along with its flagship Zillow portal, Zillow Group’s brands include Trulia, StreetEasy, HotPads and Out East, plus agent software products Follow Up Boss, ShowingTime and dotloop.
Updated after publication with additional details from Zillow.
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