Papers from the audience on “Online Platforms and Market Power: Examining the Domain of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google” pic.twitter.com/fF20JB0w9v
– Judicial Dems of the Chamber (@HouseJudiciary) July 29, 2020
Zuckerberg expanded on the idea in another email. “It is likely that we can always buy any competitive startup. But it will be a while before we can buy Google, “he wrote. Later, when asked about the quote, Zuckerberg said he did not remember writing the note, but said” it seems like a joke. “
It was not the only incident that Zuckerberg claimed not to remember.
Some of the most intense questions on the subject come from Washington Democrat Pramila Jayapal, who repeatedly asked Zuckerberg about Facebook’s strategy of trying to copy competing applications. It led to a pretty incredible exchange, in which Jayapal asked about Zuckerberg’s interactions with former Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom and Snapchat founder Evan Spiegel, which Zuckerberg said she didn’t recall.
“Has Facebook ever threatened to clone another company’s products while trying to acquire that company,” Jayapal asked. “Not that I remember,” Zuckerberg said, prompting Jayapal to remind the CEO that he was under oath.
He then asked Zuckerberg if he had used the Facebook camera to “threaten” Systrom to accept an acquisition.
“I’m not sure what you mean by ‘threaten’,” said Zuckeberg.
“Were there other companies you used this same tactic with,” he asked, pointing to Snapchat and Zuckerberg’s well-documented Snapchat search.
“I don’t remember those specific conversations,” he said.
Jayapal ended the interrogation by calling Facebook “a monopoly-held case study.”
“His company harvests and monetizes our data, and then his company uses that data to spy on competitors and copy, acquire and kill rivals,” he said. “You used the power of Facebook to threaten smaller competitors and to make sure you always get away with it. These tactics strengthen Facebook’s dominance, which it then uses in increasingly destructive ways. Therefore, the very model of Facebook makes it impossible for new companies to prosper separately and that damages our democracy. ”
Zuckerberg was not the only CEO to attend questions about his company’s acquisitions. Google CEO Sundar Pichai also received tough questions about the Google acquisition and the subsequent merger with DoubleClick.
And Jeff Bezos of Amazon was asked about Amazon’s search for diapers.com, and his “plan to win” against the competing online retailer, which ultimately resulted in Amazon’s purchase of the company. Bezos, like Zuckerberg, cited a faulty memory.
“You are asking for a lot of my memory,” he said.
