You are currently viewing A Summary Of Everything That Happened At The Tech CEOs’ Antitrust Hearing

A Summary Of Everything That Happened At The Tech CEOs’ Antitrust Hearing

The tech CEOs faced long hours of antitrust scrutiny from members of the congress on Wednesday 29th July 2020, here are some of the biggest takeaways. We break them into parts to make it more concise.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg vs the Antitrust Committee

As expected, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg got the most attention, however, it was not on what we expect. While the Reps. questioned Zuckerberg on content moderation that had caused several boycotts, it was the company’s aggressive acquisition tactic that became the main focus.

 

 

Facebook’s boss had to answer questions concerning buying Instagram. Several mails and correspondence came to light during the questioning. One was even a conversation where Instagram’s original co-founder, Kevin Systrom had felt threatened to either sell the company to Facebook or lose been put out of business by the giant’s might.

 

Zuckerberg had denied intending to sound threatening. He also tried to dodge the question of whether he had bought Instagram because it was a competitor; only agreeing that he had seen the potential of it being big but not as big as it is now.

 

Again, he used the same tactic when he answered the antitrust committee’s question about buying WhatsApp as well. The House asked him if he believed Facebook should be split up but the CEO said that at the time of acquisition, these companies were not direct competitors.

 

Thus, alluding to the fact that the competition that now seems to exist is because of how far they have come.

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos vs the Antitrust Committee

The Biggest Takeaways From The Tech CEOs Antitrust Hearing
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos at the tech antitrust hearing. Photo: TechCrunch.

 

Amazon also had its fair share of evenly distributed scrutiny at the antitrust hearing and its CEO, Jeff Bezos used the ‘innocence’ tactic a lot.

 

When quizzed about practices concerning anti-competitive policies and behavior among its employees, Bezos always admits not having the full details. Then he would say it would be looked into.

 

Most of the questions that the committee threw at Bezos involved how it monopolised the shopping industry. He denied this by mentioning that it faced competition from the likes of Target, Costco and Walmart.

 

He also denied that they used individual third-party sellers’ data to give themselves an edge saying that they used aggregated data instead. But when he conceded that the aggregate data could be as low as from just two sellers; he admitted to the accusation already.

 

Other offenses that the committee laid at the feet of Amazon involved selling their smart home devices at prices below cost and also stocking up non-essentials during the pandemic when it had claimed to be focusing on only essentials. There was no denying these accusations for Jeff Bezos.

Also read:
– Why Is Tim Cook, Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai And Bezos Appearing Before Congress?
– Konami Will Launch A New Gaming PC Lineup, Arespear, In September
– Qualcomm Announces 100W+ Charging Solution With New Quick Charge 5 Tech

Apple CEO Tim Cook vs the Antitrust Committee

 

While Apple CEO Tim Cook did not face as many questions as the others, he did not get off lightly. He was questioned on how the App Store discriminates against developers and the charges that it requires them to pay.

 

Also, Cook denied that his company had a monopoly in the smartphone business pointing to the fact that it faces fierce competition in this area.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai vs the Antitrust Committee

Like Facebook, Google has faced lots of antitrust probing even before this committee was set up. Surprisingly, there were not many questions on its privacy issues, instead, the focus was on how it treats competitors.

 

The Biggest Takeaways From The Tech CEOs Antitrust Hearing
Google CEO Sundar Pichai at the tech antitrust hearing.

 

Yelp was mentioned during the questioning. The House asked Pichai if Google felt threatened by Yelp and intentionally directed searches away from it. The tech CEO denied this.

 

Also, there were questions on how Google went from being an internet space that leads users to other websites to how it started directing searches to web pages that it owns.

 

Pichai only explained that Google worked to satisfy its customers and was not doing anything to actively block competitors. He also used the same answer when he was asked about accusations of stealing content from other websites.

Concluding statement of the tech antitrust hearing

Speaking about cancel culture, the four tech CEOs condemned the mob mentality. While Bezos was more vocal in condemning its popularity on social media, others claimed that it is not what social media is all about.

 

There were also Republican Reps. who mentioned that it seems the social media platforms target them by restricting their reach. However, Pichai defended Gmail by saying that it is not just emails from Republicans that are directed to spam folders. It seems to be more of a technical problem than a vendetta against some people.

 

To watch the hearing, you can see the video in this article: Why Is Tim Cook, Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai And Bezos Appearing Before Congress?

 

U.S. House Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law Subcommittee Chairman David N. Cicilline closed the hearing. He compared the four tech CEOs to historical monopolists like John Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie.

 

His statement reads in part; “This hearing has made one fact clear to me — these companies as they exist today have monopoly power. Some need to be broken up. All need to be properly regulated and held accountable.”

 

For your daily dose of tech, lifestyle, and trending content, make sure to follow Plat4om on Twitter @Plat4omLive, on Instagram @Plat4om, on LinkedIn at Plat4om, and on Facebook at Plat4om. You can also email us at info@plat4om.com and join our channel on Telegram at Plat4om. Finally, don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel HERE.

Onwuasoanya Obinna

A reader of books and stringer of words. Passionate about Science and Tech. When not writing or reading he is surfing the web and Tweeting.

Leave a Reply