Antitrust Probe: CEOs of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google testify in front of the US Congress

On Wednesday, four Big Tech CEOs- Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai of Google and Tim Cook of Apple answered for their companies' practices before the US Congress. The four CEOs testified remotely to lawmakers. The US Senators sought answers to questions on accusations that these tech giants used their dominant platforms to scoop up data about competitors in a way that gave them an unfair advantage.

The House panel had capped its yearlong investigation of market dominance in the industry. These Senators charged these companies with alleged malpractices that can potentially influence the outcome of the upcoming US Presidential Elections. Further, they grilled them for over four hours over questions of security, business practices, slave labours, plagiarism, self-promotions, etc.

So, what are the charges against these companies?

1. Amazon

World's richest man, Jeff Bezos was accused of promoting Amazon Basic products over other sellers. "We have a policy against using seller specific data to aid our private label business," Bezos said in a response to a question from US Rep. Pramila Jayapal. "But I can't guarantee to you that that policy hasn't been violated," he further added.

Later Hank Johnson cited the widespread availability of counterfeit products on Amazon’s e-commerce platform. Here, Bezos said that Congress should address this issue. He added that the company also takes measures to avoid counterfeit products. “I would encourage this body to pass stricter penalties for counterfeiters and to increase law enforcement resources to go after counterfeiters," he said.

2. Facebook

The US Senators questioned Mark Zukerberg on his constant acquisitions of social media platform over building them. The lawmakers alleged that Facebook is trying to create a monopoly and drive other social media developers out of business. Facebook currently owns the 4 most downloaded apps on all app stores. "It strikes me that over the last several years, Facebook has used its market power to either purchase or replicate the competition," a Senator said.

Mark Zuckerberg defended Facebook's acquisition of Instagram. He said, "At the time, almost no one thought of them as a general social network or competing with us in that space. In the space of mobile photos and camera apps, which was growing, they were a competitor."

Further, Pramila Jayapal cited an internal email where Zuckerberg told Instagram’s co-founder Kevin Systrom that Facebook would build a copycat camera app, during the negotiations with Instagram. She also showed emails Zuckerberg aspired to buy Google. He denied the charges and stated that it looks like a joke.

3. Google

Cicilline, the head representation, accused Google of leveraging its dominant search engine to steal ideas and information from other websites. He added that Google manipulated its results to drive people to its digital services to boost its profits. Pichai repeatedly deflected Cicilline's attacks. The former told the latter that Google tries to provide the most helpful and relevant information. On the accusation of hiding search results related to specific political parties and news publications, Sundar Pichai denied the charge.

"As Google became the gateway to the internet, it began to abuse its power. It used its surveillance over web traffic to identify competitive threats and crush them," the antitrust committee said. Pichai said he would "follow up" and "engage" with the Senator's office on the matter.

Next, the committee also criticised Google for Gmail's sorting algorithm. The rep said that it allegedly dumps political campaign mailers in spam folders. "This appears to be only happening to conservative Republicans. I don't see anything in the news, or anything in the press or other members on the other side of the aisle talking about their campaign emails getting thrown into junk folders in Gmail. So my question is: Why is this only happening to Republicans?" a Senator asked. Pichai, however, said that Gmail focuses on what users want and users have indicated they want to organise personal emails.

4. Apple

A Senator asked Tim Cook if they favour some developers over others. To this, Cook replied that they don't do that. He added, "We do a lot of things with developers, including looking at their beta test apps, regardless of whether they are small or large." The antitrust committed also enquired if the iPhone-maker is "the sole decision-maker on whether an app is made available to users or not". "We treat every developer the same. It is a rigorous process because we care so deeply about privacy and security and quality. We do look at every app that goes online. But those rules apply evenly to everyone," Cook explained.

Does China steal data? Asks the US Congress committee

The committee also asked the four CEOs whether they believe that the Chinese government steals tech from US companies. To this, both Pichai and Cook responded a no (to their first-hand knowledge). On the other hand, Zuckerberg said it’s “well documented" that China steals tech from the US. Further, Bezos said he heard reports of it but hasn’t personally seen it.

The powerful CEOs sought to defend their companies amid intense grilling by lawmakers on Wednesday. They also confronted a range of other concerns about alleged political bias, their effect on US democracy and their role in China.