Google, Facebook, Apple and Amazon have been criticized for the power they wield in digital markets.
The CEOs of four US tech giants have endured more than five hours of sneaky and swift questioning from lawmakers who accused their companies of using their power to crush rivals and crush competition.
Google, Facebook Inc., Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. of Alphabet Inc. have been criticized for their power in digital markets: Google’s control over Internet search and online advertising; Apple’s tight grip on applications; The acquisition of rivals by Facebook; and Amazon’s influence on third-party sellers.
“These companies as they exist today have monopoly power,” said Rep. David Cicilline of Rhode Island, who is leading a year-long House investigation into these companies. “Some need to be separated, all need to be heavily regulated,” Cicillin said as she adjourned the hearing after she stretched into the evening.
Executives from all four companies – Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Apple’s Tim Cook, and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos – have testified before the House antitrust committee from remote locations. They were unfailingly polite, though lawmakers often cut them off due to a tightly enforced rule of five minutes per member. Lawmakers have questioned executives with questions about specific examples intended to show that companies have foiled competitive threats.
The hearing marked an escalation of antitrust scrutiny in the industry, with internet platforms worth a combined nearly $ 5 trillion, already under investigation by the United States Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice. States nationwide are also polling Facebook and Google. The testimony and documents produced by the commission could be used to inform these investigations. Lawmakers have uncovered several potentially damning examples of anti-competitive behavior.
“This could be a watershed moment,” said Alex Petros, policy adviser to the left-wing think tank Public Knowledge, which calls for tighter enforcement of antitrust laws. “It could put pressure on the DOJ and the FTC to actually conduct full investigations.”
Cicillin, who said he expected the committee to complete its report within a month, attacked Pichai over his Google unit’s search engine practices, accusing him of stealing content in an attempt to keep users on. their site, rather than directing them to other sources. on the Web.
“The evidence seems very clear to me as Google has become the gateway to the Internet, it has started to abuse its power,” he said. “He used his web traffic monitoring to identify competitive threats and crush them.” Any business that wants to be found on the web, he added, “has to pay a tax to Google.”
Wednesday’s session marked the first time Bezos has testified before Congress, and the hearing marks the first time the four tech leaders have come together.
Democrats divided their questions to focus on the market power of Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple, while Republicans complained widely about the anti-conservative bias of Google and Facebook.
Republican Jim Jordan of Ohio cited numerous examples that he said showed tech companies, including Twitter Inc., silencing conservative views.
“I’m just going to get right to the point: big tech is trying to attract conservatives,” he said. “It’s not a hint, it’s not a hunch, it’s a fact.”
Jerrold Nadler of New York, the Democrat who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, said documents obtained by the committee showed Facebook bought Instagram in 2012 to “neutralize” an emerging competitor. He asked why Instagram shouldn’t be separated from Facebook.
“Facebook saw Instagram as a threat that could potentially hijack Facebook business,” Nadler said. “And so, rather than compete with it, Facebook bought it. This is exactly the type of anti-competitive acquisition that antitrust laws were designed to prevent.”
Zuckerberg said Instagram was facing a lot of competition at the time and Instagram was successful thanks to investments from Facebook.
Cicillin also targeted Facebook on content on its platform, saying the company has an incentive to spread disinformation, hate speech and violent content because it gets the most engagement and therefore is more profitable. Zuckerberg took issue with this claim, arguing that it’s not what users want to see.
“Facebook gets away with it because you’re the only game in town,” he said. “There is no competition that requires you to control your own platform. Allowing this misinformation to spread can lead to violence, and frankly, I believe it goes to the very heart of American democracy.”
Washington Democrat Pramila Jayapal asked Bezos about Amazon’s use of third-party sales data to compete with these vendors. Bezos said the company had a policy against using vendor-specific data to aid its private label activities, but “cannot guarantee that the policy has never been violated.”
“You have access to data that far exceeds the sellers on your platform that you compete with,” Jayapal said. “You can set the rules of the game for your competition but not really follow those same rules for yourself.” Media reports revealed that the policy had been violated.
Representative Lucy McBath, a Democrat from Georgia, played the recording of an Amazon bookseller who said that as the company grew and took market share from Amazon, it fought back and prevented the business of selling textbooks. Amazon has so much power that sellers have nowhere else to go, McBath said.
“If Amazon didn’t have monopoly power over these sellers, do you think they would choose to stay in a relationship characterized by intimidation, fear, and panic?” she says.
Bezos said he was not familiar with the bookseller’s case and wanted to know more about it. He insisted that Amazon has been good to third-party sellers.
In written testimony released Tuesday night, CEOs told Congress that competition is flourishing in the tech industry and consumers benefit.
“The global retail market in which we compete is surprisingly large and extremely competitive,” Bezos said in his statement. “Unlike the industries that are all winners, there is room in retail for many winners.”
They’ve touted the different ways they help small businesses grow, whether it’s third-party sellers on Amazon or independent developers building apps for Apple’s App Store. They also described their businesses as epitomizing American entrepreneurship.
Cicillin said after the hearing that numerous CEO responses confirmed things the committee learned during its investigation. He said it was important to hear from some of the CEOs “an acknowledgment of some of the anti-competitive practices that are really at the heart of this investigation.”
(Except for the title, this story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is posted from a syndicated feed.)
