Amazon Restricts Ads for Competing Electronic Devices

Amazon (NASDAQ: AMZN) is preventing some of its competitors from buying key advertising in its search results, limiting their ability to compete with the company's own products, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal. The e-commerce giant is keeping some rivals from buying "sponsored product" ads, which occupy premium real estate at the top of Amazon's online retail site. This gives the company's branded electronic devices -- like Fire TV, Echo smart speaker, and Ring Doorbell -- an edge over competing products like Roku's (NASDAQ: ROKU) streaming devices, the Google Home smart speaker by Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NASDAQ: GOOG), and video doorbells by Arlo Technologies (NYSE: ARLO).