Amazon.com, Inc.,[1] doing business as Amazon (/ˈæməzɒn/ ⓘ, AM-ə-zon; UK also /ˈæməzən/, AM-ə-zən), is an American multinational technology company engaged in e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence.

[5] Founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos in Bellevue, Washington,[6] the company originally started as an online marketplace for books but gradually expanded its offerings to include a wide range of product categories, referred to as "The Everything Store".

[15] In 2021, it surpassed Walmart as the world's largest retailer outside of China, driven in large part by its paid subscription plan, Amazon Prime, which has close to 200 million subscribers worldwide.

Amazon was founded on July 5, 1994, by Jeff Bezos after he relocated from New York City to Bellevue, Washington, near Seattle, to operate an online bookstore.

Bezos chose the Seattle area for its abundance of technical talent from Microsoft and the University of Washington, as well as its smaller population for sales tax purposes and the proximity to a major book distribution warehouse in Roseburg, Oregon.

[23] The company, originally named Cadabra, was founded in the converted garage of Bezos's house for symbolic reasons and was renamed to Amazon in November 1994.

[24] The Amazon website launched for public sales on July 16, 1995, and initially sourced its books directly from wholesalers and publishers.

[36] Some Amazon workers in the US, France, and Italy protested the company's decision to "run normal shifts" due to COVID-19's ease of spread in warehouses.

[37][38] In Spain, the company faced legal complaints over its policies,[39] while a group of US Senators wrote an open letter to Bezos expressing concerns about workplace safety.

In 2006, a court ruled in favor of Toys "R" Us, giving it the right to unwind its agreement with Amazon and establish its independent e-commerce website.

[71] In November 2013, Amazon announced a partnership with the United States Postal Service to begin delivering orders on Sundays.

The service, included in Amazon's standard shipping rates, initiated in metropolitan areas of Greater Los Angeles and New York because of the high-volume and inability to deliver in a timely way, with plans to expand into Dallas, Houston, New Orleans and Phoenix by 2014.

[74][75] Companies including IKEA and Birkenstock also stopped selling through Amazon around the same time, citing similar frustrations over business practices and counterfeit goods.

[76] In September 2017, Amazon ventured with one of its sellers JV Appario Retail owned by Patni Group which has recorded a total income of US$104.44 million (₹759 crore) in financial year 2017–2018.

[77] As of October 11, 2017[update], Amazon Fresh sold a range of Booths branded products for home delivery in selected areas.

[81] Amazon sells many products under its own brand names, including phone chargers, batteries, and diaper wipes.

The AmazonBasics brand was introduced in 2009, and now features hundreds of product lines, including smartphone cases, computer mice, batteries, dumbbells, and dog crates.

[95] While the ASR has been the source of much speculation by publishers, manufacturers, and marketers, Amazon itself does not release the details of its sales rank calculation algorithm.

[100] In July 2016, the company announced that it was opening a 1,100,000 ft (335,280.0 m) square foot facility in Palmer Township in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania.

[101][102] In August 2019, Amazon applied to have a liquor store in San Francisco, as a means to ship beer and alcohol within the city.

[111] Goodreads is a "social cataloging" website founded in December 2006 and launched in January 2007 by Otis Chandler, a software engineer, and entrepreneur, and Elizabeth Khuri.

[118][119][8] Since acquiring Whole Foods, the company has launched its own chain of Fresh supermarkets and taken steps to integrate its online and physical grocery operations.

[155] In April 2021, Amazon reported to investors it had increased its in-house delivery capacity by 50% in the last 12 months (which included the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States).

[184] These annual letters gave an "invaluable window" into the famously "secretive" company, and revealed Bezos's perspectives and strategic focus.

[186] One of Bezos's most well-known internal memos was his mandate for "all teams" to "expose their data and functionality" through service interfaces "designed from the ground up to be externalizable".

This process, commonly known as a service-oriented architecture (SOA), resulted in mandatory dogfooding of services that would later be commercialized as part of AWS.

[192] Amazon has attracted criticism for its actions, including: supplying law enforcement with facial recognition surveillance tools;[193] forming cloud computing partnerships with the CIA;[194] leading customers away from bookshops;[195] adversely impacting the environment;[196] placing a low priority on warehouse conditions for workers;[197][198] actively opposing unionization efforts;[199] remotely deleting content purchased by Amazon Kindle users; taking public subsidies; seeking to patent its 1-Click technology; engaging in anti-competitive actions and price discrimination;[200][201] and reclassifying LGBTQ books as adult content.

[202][203] Criticism has also concerned various decisions over whether to censor or publish content such as the WikiLeaks website, works containing libel, anti-LGBT merchandise, and material facilitating dog fighting, cockfighting, or pedophile activities.

[204] In December 2011, Amazon faced a backlash from small businesses for running a one-day deal to promote its new Price Check app.

"[55] In July 2014, the Federal Trade Commission launched a lawsuit against the company alleging it was promoting in-app purchases to children, which were being transacted without parental consent.