David Topkins is no John D Rockefeller. But like the famed industrialist, the unheralded ecommerce executive has stirred fundamental concerns about the laws of economic competition in the digital age.
In the first criminal antitrust prosecution of its kind, Mr Topkins pleaded guilty in a San Francisco federal court in 2015 to rigging prices for classic cinema posters sold through Amazon’s online marketplace.
Even if the crime seems unremarkable, his method was revolutionary: Mr Topkins admitted to manipulating the market by programming customised algorithms to keep prices artificially high. Once his rivals agreed to the plan, the algorithm automatically maintained what prosecutors called “collusive, non-competitive prices” on printed wall art.