May 14 (Reuters) - Amazon.com ( AMZN ) has urged a U.S. judge to

bar the Federal Trade Commission from probing the company's data

preservation efforts, arguing in a court filing that the agency

had not shown any relevant evidence in its antitrust lawsuit has

been lost.

Amazon's ( AMZN ) Monday night filing in Seattle federal court came

after the FTC claimed last month that the company had failed to

stop the "widespread deletion" of senior executives' messages on

the communications platform Signal.

The FTC sued Amazon ( AMZN ) last year, accusing the company of

abusing its retail market power to reduce competition and keep

prices artificially high. Amazon ( AMZN ) has denied the allegations and

asked a judge to dismiss the case.

Amazon ( AMZN ) and the FTC declined to comment.

The FTC asked the court to force Amazon ( AMZN ) to reveal more

information about its preservation practices. Amazon ( AMZN ) executives,

the agency said, used Signal's "disappearing message" feature to

destroy records of their internal communications despite being

on notice to preserve such data.

Signal is a popular, secure messaging service that allows

users to set how long they want their messages to remain

available.

Amazon ( AMZN ) countered in its Monday filing that the FTC was

seeking legally protected information. It said its founder and

former CEO Jeff Bezos started using Signal on his personal phone

after his phone was hacked in 2018.

The company said it has been "cooperative and transparent

about Signal" with the FTC, providing screenshots and other data

to the agency as part of its request for information.

The FTC took testimony from Amazon ( AMZN ) executives including

Bezos and current CEO Andrew Jassy, among others, about their

Signal use, court records show.

Amazon ( AMZN ) said there was no evidence "despite the FTC's best

efforts to suggest otherwise" that company officials used Signal

to discuss business practices that are at the heart of the case.

The case is Federal Trade Commission v. Amazon.com Inc ( AMZN ), U.S.

District Court, Western District of Washington, No.

2:23-cv-01495-JHC.

For FTC: Susan Musser, Edward Takashima and Emily Bolles of

FTC

For Amazon ( AMZN ): Patty Eakes and Molly Terwilliger of Morgan,

Lewis & Bockius; Heidi Hubbard and John Schmidtlein of Williams

& Connolly; Thomas Barnett and Katharine Mitchell-Tombras of

Covington & Burling; and Kosta Stojilkovic of Wilkinson Stekloff

Read more:

US judge sets October 2026 trial for FTC antitrust suit

against Amazon ( AMZN )

Amazon ( AMZN ) asks court to dismiss antitrust lawsuit over web

traffic sharing

FTC's Amazon ( AMZN ) antitrust lawsuit faces high bar in US court -

experts

US court sanctions Google for deleting evidence in antitrust

cases