Burner emails, a shell company, undercover conference attendees: It’s a setup that would usually involve Ethan Hunt busting through a skylight or free-soloing an office building, but it’s actually just a business story.

The Wall Street Journal reported the tale of alleged espionage, saying that in 2015, Amazon created a secret operation— first called “Project Curiosity” and then changed to the less ominous “Small Business Insights”—to gather intel on its rivals in the online retail and logistics industries. Amazon, meanwhile, denies claims that it was spying, saying it stayed aboveboard and was just conducting good old-fashioned competitor research.

• Amazon created a shell company, Big River Services International, to sell products on its own marketplace and those of rivals in the US and abroad, like Overstock, Etsy, Alibaba, Wish, Rakuten, Best Buy, eBay, and Walmart, according to the WSJ.
• It also used rival fulfillment, logistics, and shipping companies.
• Amazon claims Big River’s goal was to make money like a regular brand, but in 2019 the company projected it would bring in $169,000 in India and have expected operating costs of $463,000.

It was definitely hush-hush

Per the WSJ: Employees on the team were instructed not to tell the outside companies they worked with about their Amazon ties and not to use Amazon email addresses when communicating with them, even though they still used Amazon emails internally. They were also told to keep their work on the DL around other Amazon employees not involved in the project. Employees even attended an exclusive sellers conference hosted by eBay as representatives of Big River.

Amazon claims it kept the program a secret to make sure their team would be treated normally.

Don’t act so surprised: It’s not a huge shock that Big Tech companies will do just about anything to snag more user data and rivals’ blueprints. Last month, court documents showed Meta was able to peek into users’ supposedly encrypted traffic to and from Snapchat to gain a competitive edge in a program it called “Project Ghostbusters.”—MM

Can’t travel to New York on May 2? We have good news! We’re bringing CFO Brew’s event to you via livestream so you can tune in wherever you are (well, wherever you have Wi-Fi). You’ll hear from Mastercard, Headspace, CFO Leadership Council, and many more on AI integration, toolkit strategies, and finance operations.

You don’t want to miss it! Grab your virtual ticket now.

Volkswagen workers in Tennessee vote to join UAW. The union secured a historic victory at Volkswagen’s Chattanooga plant as it works to expand in the wake of securing favorable contracts following this summer’s strikes against Detroit’s Big Three manufacturers. The vote, at a plant where two previous organizing drives had ended in the union’s defeat, was closely watched as a key test of the power of the United Auto Workers and its ability to succeed in the South, where fierce opposition from employers and politicians has created a hostile climate for unions.

Democrats helped Mike Johnson get his foreign aid package to a vote. In a rare moment of bipartisanship in the deeply divided House, 165 Democrats voted alongside 151 Republicans to advance a $95 billion proposal that includes aid for Ukraine and Israel, and provisions that could effectively ban TikTok, despite opposition from the GOP’s right flank. The package, which includes several separate bills, is expected to pass the House in a final vote today and be sent to the Senate as one piece of legislation.

With a full jury seated, Trump hush money trial poised to start Monday. Opening statements and testimony can begin in the criminal trial over Donald Trump’s alleged hush money payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels after jury selection ended yesterday with 12 jurors and six alternates empanelled. While the selection was taking place, a man set himself on fire outside the courthouse after tossing leaflets with anti-government conspiracy theories into the air. Authorities say he was taken to a hospital and is in critical condition.

You might start swapping scroll time for Game Boy time: TikTok has been dethroned as No. 1 on the Apple App Store’s free entertainment chart by a viscerally nostalgic app that runs classic Nintendo console games in their original format…on regular iPhones.

Delta, built years ago by app developer Riley Testut, is an emulator—software that, in this case, supports retro game files on modern technology and mimics (or emulates) authentic gameplay, including the buttons and other controls each game was designed for.

This was a big 180 for Apple. The tech giant quietly changed the App Store’s long-standing ban on emulator apps earlier this month, likely in response to the US DOJ’s antitrust lawsuit accusing Apple of monopolizing the app marketplace. Another reason for the shift may be that Apple recently had to bend to regulators in the EU and unban non-Apple app stores, which already allowed emulators on their marketplaces, so it may be trying to prevent losing downloads to third-party stores.

What can you do with Delta? You can AirPlay to a big screen, go multiplayer with friends for some games, and link a controller. It doesn’t come with any games ready to play—you upload the files yourself (TechCrunch explains how here).—ML

Rare unlimited cash-back match turns heads. If you have outstanding credit card debt, getting a new 0% intro APR credit card could help ease the pressure while you pay down your balances. On top of that, this top credit card offers a whopping up to 5% cash-back perk that gets matched after your first year. That’s up to 10% back on qualifying purchases in your first 12 months! Take advantage of this offer—learn how to apply now.

Green license plates have dampened Gangnam glitz and hurt luxury car sales in South Korea. The government there recently required all corporate cars that cost over $58,000 to be distinguished with green plates, which is meant as a speed bump for tax dodging.

The brightly colored plates are intended to curb the practice of using swanky company cars for personal engagements and writing them off as a business expense. Given the societal distaste for rented or leased vehicles that one automotive executive described to the Korea Times, the green plates make company cars look as uncool as green texts in a Gen Z group chat.

Stalling sales

The lost luster of showing up at a high-school reunion in a company convertible has hurt chic car brands that rely on corporate fleets for most of their business in the country.

• Compared to Q1 2023, sales of Bentleys plunged 77%, Porsche’s sales dropped 23%, and Rolls-Royce’s went down 35% in the same period this year.
• Overall, imported luxury car registrations for business use dropped 27% since plates turned green in January, per Korea Automobile Importers & Distributors Association data analyzed by the Financial Times.

Big picture: Some local auto dealers lamented to the Korea Times that the green plates come alongside a slowdown in Korea’s economy, which is never good news for pricey rides.—SK

Stat: France is securing the bag because the rest of the world wants to secure its bags. The country’s leading exports are not from the agricultural sector—they’re the handbags and other items from the luxury conglomerate LVMH. The ~$25 billion worth of goods from the Paris-based company that also produces perfumes, jewelry, and watches accounted for 4% of French exports last year, per a study by consultancy Asterès for LVMH. Meanwhile, France’s entire agricultural sector accounted for 3.2%. The reason for this is obvious—the rest of the world is not consuming enough wine and cheese, and it really shows.

Quote: “We deeply and sincerely apologize to the world and to every part of society, that we did not discover and correct the mistakes in time at this race.”

Star Chinese runner He Jie and the other top finishers at last weekend’s Beijing Half Marathon had their medals and prize money revoked because three African runners slowed down just before the finish line to let He cross first. A committee convened to investigate the suspicious finish blamed the debacle on sponsor Xtep, a major sporting goods company, for bringing the other runners in as pacemakers for He but registering them as competitors. The appearance of corruption in the race scandalized fans, and both the investigation committee and the company apologized.

Read: How product recommendations broke Google. And ate the internet in the process. (Intelligencer)