U.S. lawmakers call for privacy legislation after Reuters report on Amazon lobbying

FILE PHOTO: A sign hangs from a fence at Metropolitan Park, the first phase of new construction of Amazon's HQ2 development, in Arlington, Virginia, U.S., October 13, 2021. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

(Reuters) - Five members of Congress called for federal consumer-privacy legislation after a Reuters report published Friday revealed how Amazon.com Inc has led an under-the-radar campaign to gut privacy protections in 25 states while amassing a valuable trove of personal data on American consumers.

"Amazon shamefully launched a campaign to squash privacy legislation while its devices listen to and watch our lives," U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat who has been involved in bipartisan negotiations on privacy legislation, wrote Friday on Twitter. "This is now the classic Big Tech move: deploy money and armies of lobbyists to fight meaningful reforms in the shadows but claim to support them publicly."