TOPLINE
CEOs of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google will testify together before the House of Representatives antitrust subcommittee, intensifying scrutiny by lawmakers as tech giants also face antitrust investigations from federal and state officials.
As Chairman of the Subcommittee on Antimonopoly, Commercial and Administrative Law, the representative David Cicilline … [+]
KEY FACTS
A date has not been set and it has not yet been decided whether the hearing will be virtual due to the pandemic, according to the New York Times.
In the middle of June, Political reported Sundar Pichai of Google, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook and Jeff Bezos of Amazon, all agreed to testify in a panel of four CEOs, but Cook was the only one resisting at the time. Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Forbes.
The hearing will be the first time that Bezos appears before Congress to testify.
As the Big Four (Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Apple) grow in size, revenue, and prominence, lawmakers have asked if these companies have made too many acquisitions, unfairly block smaller companies in favor of their own services, and, ultimately, they harm consumers. .
The Chamber has been investigating the power and influence of the big tech giants since 2019, and the results of the investigation may inform changes in antitrust laws that would facilitate the breakup of these companies.
Tech companies have also faced backlash outside of antitrust issues, including handling misinformation and hate speech on Facebook and Amazon’s response to the pandemic within their warehouses.
Key background
Both Pichai and Zuckerberg previously testified before Congress in 2018 when lawmakers questioned both CEOs about privacy, misinformation, and bias. Zuckerberg was pressured about Russian meddling in the 2016 election and the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Cook, meanwhile, has not appeared in Congress since a 2013 hearing in which a bipartisan group of senators criticized him about Apple’s tax strategy, accusing the company of keeping cash abroad to avoid paying billions of dollars in US taxes.
News pin
The Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission are conducting separate antitrust investigations on Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google. Although each probe is still ongoing, the Wall street journal It reported in May that the Justice Department and a group of state attorneys general are seeking to file antitrust lawsuits against Google as early as this year, focusing on the company’s advertising business.
Further reading
The Big Tech calculation: behind the probes of Apple, Amazon, Facebook and Google (Forbes)
