GAFA Ceos Have Been Heard By The US Congress In An Antitrust Investigation,
GAFA bosses Sundar Pichai (Alphabet, Google’s parent company), Tim Cook (Apple), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) and Jeff Bezoz (Amazon) were heard yesterday by the Judiciary Committee of the US House of Representatives.
A session marked by tense exchanges between participants
The Commission has been investigating for more than a year the possible abuse of dominance by these digital giants and the adequacy of existing antitrust laws and their enforcement. The hearing was marked by tense exchanges between the participants and a threat from the US President to force the Big Tech to be “fair” with executive orders.
“They have too much power”
“What we heard from witnesses at the hearing confirmed the evidence we have gathered over the past year,” said David Cicilline, Chair of the Competition Panel. Moreover, the sub-committee believes that the GAFAs have “too much power” and that they will “certainly emerge [from the pandemic] even stronger and more powerful than before.
Sundar Pichai was the first to be interviewed.
Cicillin began by accusing Google of theft. He claimed, among other things, that Google had stolen notices from Yelp Inc. while threatening to remove Yelp from search results if the company objected. He asked, “Why is Google stealing content from legitimate businesses? “he asked.
Alphabet’s CEO replied that he would like to know the details of the accusation. “We conduct ourselves to the highest standards,” he said.
David Cicilline also asked him if Google was using its Internet traffic monitoring to see what the competition was doing. Pichai was vague on this point and did not seem to challenge that assertion. “We try to understand trends from the data we can see,” he said.
Republican Congressman Jim Jordan then asked Pichai whether Google would help former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumed Democratic presidential candidate, win the next election. “We support both campaigns. We approach our work in a nonpartisan way,” Pichai said.
Mark Zuckerberg has been particularly criticized
Members of Congress took a hard line on the Facebook CEO by unveiling numerous screenshots of email exchanges between Zuckerberg and other Facebook executives. According to the legislators, Mark Zuckerberg considered Instagram and WhatsApp as competitors when Facebook acquired them. “The companies are fledgling, but … if they grow on a large scale, they could be very disruptive to us,” Zuckerberg said two months before buying Instagram in 2012.
In another e-mail, the social network’s CEO admitted that Instagram was a “threat” to Facebook, adding: “One thing about startups is that you can often acquire them.
In response to his accusations, Mark Zuckerberg indicated that Instagram was a small photo-sharing application at the time.
Read more: Zuck Off: Doctors, Nurses And Scientists Are All Speaking Out Against Zuckerberg,
Democratic MP Joe Neguse then unveiled a 2014 email showing that Facebook’s CFO called the company’s acquisition strategy a “land grab”. “We have a name for it; it’s a monopoly,” Neguse said.
For her part, Representative Pramila Jayapal, a Democrat, asked Zuckerberg whether Facebook had ever copied competitors like Snapchat for anti-competitive reasons. “We’ve certainly adapted features that others have introduced,” Zuckerberg replied.
Pramila Jayapal went so far as to ask how many companies Facebook ended up copying. “I don’t know,” Zuckerberg replied.
Jeff Bezos unavailable for about an hour due to a technical problem.
The Amazon boss was unable to speak for about an hour due to a technical problem. He was able to answer questions later. In particular, Jeff Bezos was questioned by Pramila Jayapal about whether Amazon uses third-party vendor data to make sales decisions. Jeff Bezos replied that the company had a policy against such actions. “I can’t guarantee that this policy has never been violated,” he acknowledged. “If we find that someone has violated it, we will take action against them,” Bezos said.
For Apple, the accusations are mainly about the App Store
The Apple App Store is the only way for owners of Apple products to purchase and install software. The company has faced a lot of criticism on this point. Indeed, legislators have indicated that nothing prevents his company from increasing the commissions it charges in the App Store. “Apple’s commissions are comparable to or lower than the commissions charged by the majority of our competitors,” said Tim Cook. “And they are well below the 50 to 70 percent that software developers paid to distribute their work prior to the launch of the App Store,” he added. Cook said Apple has not increased App Store commission rates since 2008, and about a quarter of developers are affected by fee increases because their applications require capabilities provided by Apple devices to function properly.
According to him, developers can write their applications for Android or Windows or Xbox or PlayStation. “We have fierce competition on the developer side and on the customer side, which is essentially so competitive that I would call it a street fight,” he added.
In addition, “Apple does not have a dominant market share in any of the markets in which we operate,” Cook said. “The smartphone market is extremely competitive and companies like Samsung, LG, Huawei and Google have built very successful smartphone companies with different approaches,” Cook said.
Trump threatens to impose “fairness”.
If Congress doesn’t bring fairness to Big Tech, which they should have done years ago, I will do it myself with Executive Orders. In Washington, it has been ALL TALK and NO ACTION for years, and the people of our Country are sick and tired of it!
US President Donald Trump has threatened to impose “fairness” on the digital giants through executive orders. “If Congress doesn’t bring fairness to Big Tech, which it should have done years ago, I will do it myself through executive orders. In Washington, it has been all talk and no action for years, and the people of this country have had enough! “ Donald Trump warned on Twitter.
Read more: Here’s Donald Trump’s Plan For Regulating Social Media
In addition, senior committee officials have stated that a detailed report containing antitrust allegations against the GAFA and recommendations is expected to be released by late summer or early fall.
