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The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) renewed its effort on Thursday to compel Amazon to produce documents regarding the company's communication preservation practices. The FTC challenged Amazon's assertion that its executives never used the encrypted app Signal to discuss business practices pertinent to the ongoing antitrust case, deeming it "unbelievable."

"Amazon asks the court to believe the unbelievable," the FTC stated in a filing supporting its earlier motion to compel discovery of privileged documents. The FTC and state attorneys general allege that Amazon illegally maintained monopolies over the market for "online superstores" used by consumers and the market for online marketplace services used by third-party sellers on its platform.

The plaintiffs claim that Amazon's founder Jeff Bezos and other executives used Signal to destroy evidence during the legal battle. Amazon countered earlier this month, stating there is no evidence its top executives used Signal in such a manner, arguing that their use of the app is legitimate and that the plaintiffs' motion is misleading.

The FTC and attorneys general, however, asserted that Amazon's top executives — "including its ultimate decisionmakers and the architects of the conduct at issue" — indeed used disappearing messages on the app as a "side channel" to discuss business during the regulators' pre-complaint investigation.

"When Amazon eventually imaged select Signal users' phones, it took over 2,900 screenshots showing more than 300 instances where disappearing messages were enabled or the timer setting was changed after Amazon was on notice of plaintiffs' investigation," according to the filing.

The FTC and the states presented two possible explanations for the record before the court: either Amazon's leadership used disappearing messages relevant to the litigation, continued this practice after the investigation began, and failed to preserve the evidence, or senior leadership discussed work-related matters on Signal for over two and a half years without using disappearing messages for anything relevant to the case. The plaintiffs argue that only the former explanation is plausible.

The FTC and states have criticized Amazon policies they claim discourage third-party sellers from offering lower prices on other platforms by penalizing them through degraded search results on Amazon. They also allege that third-party sellers are required to use Amazon's costly logistics services to obtain "prime" eligibility, crucial for success but more expensive than selling on other platforms.