They'd have to sell the data to a third party, who would only be willing to pay market rates (they'd profit more from reselling that data to multiple parties).

They'd have to sell the data to a third party, who would only be willing to pay market rates (they'd profit more from reselling that data to multiple parties). Colluding to increase the base rate would be a kind of price fixing (i.e. illegal) and having the third party increase the margin wouldn't benefit Amazon at all. EDIT: remember if the data is actually valuable, then Amazon could sell it for MORE than it costs to buy it back, since the third party can recoup its costs from multiple purchasers. (So the market mechnism helps make the data more accessible and broadly useful.)