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Amazon’s Project Kuiper is developing a broadband satellite network to rival SpaceX Starlink. In this 2023 photo, United Launch Alliance’s Atlas V rocket lifts off with two prototype Amazon satellites. (ULA Photo)
The company that Jeff Bezos founded has gone to court to keep the newspaper he owns from finding out too much about the inner workings of its business.
Amazon is suing Washington state to limit the release of public records to The Washington Post from a series of state Department of Labor and Industries investigations of an Amazon Project Kuiper satellite facility in the Seattle area.
The lawsuit, filed this week in King County Superior Court in Seattle, says the newspaper on Nov. 26 requested “copies of inspection records, investigation notes, interview notes, complaints,” and other documents related to four investigations at the Redmond, Wash., facility between August and October 2024.
It’s not an unusual move by the company, and in some ways it’s a legal technicality. Amazon says it’s not seeking to block the records release entirely, but rather seeking to protect from public disclosure certain records that contain proprietary information and trade secrets about the company’s satellite internet operations.
The lawsuit cites a prior situation in which Amazon and the Department of Labor and Industries similarly worked through the court to respond to a Seattle Times public records request without disclosing proprietary information.
The twist in this latest complaint is the common thread between the entity requesting the records and the one seeking to limit their release. Bezos, the Amazon founder, has owned The Washington Post since 2013.
The Washington Post isn’t named as a defendant in the lawsuit. But the public records request further underscores the independence of the publication’s reporters in covering the business dealings of its owner.
In this case, Amazon says in the suit, the state provided Amazon with a link to the records that it proposed releasing to the newspaper to give the company a chance to review them and go to court as it deemed necessary.
“Amazon does not seek to prevent disclosure of all of the requested records,” the suit says. “Rather, Amazon seeks to protect a subset of records that contain trade secrets,” as defined by law. “The release of this proprietary information would irreparably harm Amazon in such a way that monetary damages would be inadequate to make Amazon whole.”
The lawsuit does not provide details about the specific nature or outcome of the state investigations. Amazon and Washington state have been involved in a series of past disputes related to inspections of the company’s warehouses.
Amazon’s Project Kuiper is a broadband satellite network under development by the company, aiming to provide high-speed internet service in competition with SpaceX’s Starlink. Under the terms of Amazon’s Federal Communications Commission license, half of its 3,232 satellites are to be launched by mid-2026.
GeekWire has contacted Amazon and the Post for comment on the lawsuit.
Read the full text of the complaint below.
Amazon v. WA state L&I re: Washington Post request by GeekWire on Scribd
