Big Tech's Antitrust Hearing - Lawmakers Grill CEOs from Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google

CEO's of Amazon, Facebook, Apple, and Google finally appeared before the Congress to testify for the on-going antitrust investigation. The six-hour-long hearing was interesting due to many reasons - its historical value, the authorisation of the companies nowadays, and the brutality of the grilling by lawmakers. Of course, as expected, it also included many moments where lawmakers came out misinformed and misdirected their questions to the wrong companies.

All the CEOs were questioned regarding the scale of their businesses and their domination positions through which they can dictate the marketplace. Many of the questions were too related to censorship, buying out the contest, relationship with China, and more. The lawmakers had based their questions on interviews and 1.iii million documents related to these companies.

Facebook

Mark Zuckerburg, CEO of Facebook, was questioned on its digital 'land grab' strategy, using which information technology has acquired companies like Instagram, which were once its competitors. An old email from 2012 highlighted Mark'southward fear that Instagram could hurt his company as it continued to grow at an unprecedented scale. Nonetheless, Mark claimed that his company competes fairly.

Facebook was too defendant of censoring conservative views, fifty-fifty though the summit-performing content on the social network is from conservative sources and public figures. Mark was fifty-fifty asked a question related to Twitter's censorship but he answered with his own company's policies and what Facebook would do in case of moderation for content that spreads misinformation.

Mark also said that Facebook cared about the advertiser boycott but the company cannot let advertisers dictate its policies.

Apple

Tim Cook was asked the least number of questions out of all the CEOs simply they were however brutal. He was grilled regarding App Store'southward policies. One of the questions was regarding the removal of parental control apps that were removed from the App Store in 2018, later Apple tree launched Screen Fourth dimension. Cook said that the removal was due to privacy concerns and that there is still a healthy competitive market place in the App Store for parental control tools.

Apple recently tried to become a 30% commission from virtual classes sold past Airbnb and ClassPass. The company is withal negotiating the terms with these companies, simply equally of writing, ClassPass had removed its virtual classes from its iPhone app due to App Store's limitations. Cook did not provide whatsoever satisfactory answer but claimed that App Store policies employ to all developers and provide them a level playing field, including Apple's own apps.

Regarding Amazon's 15% committee bargain, and an email which shows Eddy Cue laying out the terms, Tim Melt said that any company could get the same bargain with Apple tree. Melt explained the competitive marketplace mural as:

Information technology's and then competitive, I would describe information technology as a street fight for market share in the smartphone business.

Cook was also asked about fast-tracking Baidu's app review. Major companies oftentimes go fast-tracked and are provided dedicated account managers to provide support. This was also the case with Baidu's app blessing and integration within iOS as a search engine alternative to Google and Bing.

Documents from the Hearing on "Online Platforms and Market Ability: Examining the Authorization of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google" motion-picture show.twitter.com/E8auYYSeMn

— House Judiciary Dems (@HouseJudiciary) July 29, 2020

Amazon

Jeff Bezos was asked to explain Amazon'southward use of buyer'southward data to create its won products and its relationship with 3rd-party sellers. Bezos explained that the company has a policy against such usage of data but did non guarantee that it could not exist misused by its employees.

Amazon's dominating condition was repeatedly questioned by various lawmakers and they brought up the opinion of many third-party sellers to scrutinize the company. Even AWS was brought up to question whether data from the service is used in creating its own competitors to services that are hosting on its cloud platform.

Regarding the delay in shipments for nonessential items earlier this year, Bezos was asked if he prioritized Burn Tv, Repeat, and Ring, Amazon'southward own products, as essential items to profit off them. He claimed that there was no such policy and turn a profit was non part of the business conclusion.

Google

Sundar Pichai was questioned over Google's search engine and its condition equally the gatekeeper of the Cyberspace. The visitor was accused of using web traffic through its search engine to crush competitors such as Yelp. Sundar Pichai provided a detailed response that its search engine has a lot of competition in various categories. He gave examples of Amazon in shopping, and other social websites, and also claimed that a majority of its search results do not bear witness any ads. The company is likewise accused of showing more search results from its own spider web properties and pushing down the competition from its kickoff page of search results.

Google was accused of pulling out of a Pentagon project and working with the Chinese military. Sundar denied these allegations and explained that Google nonetheless works with Pentagon on many projects.

Pichai also said that Google supports 1.4 million small businesses supporting over $385 billion in commerce.

Ane common thread between the answers from all these CEOs was that they are not as huge as it'due south been claimed, despite numbers showing otherwise, such every bit Google Search'south 92% market share. They also claimed that they are adept American success stories and ofttimes shifted the blame to Communist china as a threat.