Tech giants Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google joined forces yesterday, to collectively face questions from the House Antitrust Committee about their outsize dominance of the tech marketplace. CEOs Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, Mark Zuckerberg, and Sundar Pichai were grilled for more than 5-hours by a bipartisan panel of Representatives, on topics ranging from the impact of coronavirus on their companies, to whether they operate as monopolies, to political bias in their operations. The firms stood united in their message that they were not defying antitrust rules and instead pointed to China as an imminent threat if further regulation is imposed on U.S. tech companies.
In his opening statement, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg warned that Chinese tech firms can operate without restrictive regulation and that gives them a global advantage. “China is building its own version of the internet focused on very different ideas, and they are exporting their vision to other countries,” said Zuckerberg. He juxtaposed China’s approach to technology with the company he founded in a Harvard dorm room, noting that Facebook was a homegrown success story aligned with the ideals of the U.S. “We believe in values — democracy, competition, inclusion, and free expression — that the American economy was built on,” said Zuckerberg.
The 36-year old did concede during the hearings, however, that new regulation for the internet was necessary, and that he doesn’t believe private companies should be “making so many decisions about these issues by themselves.”
Jeff Bezos, the founder and CEO of Amazon, expressed a similar sentiment, stating that he believes his company should be scrutinized. “We should scrutinize all large institutions, whether they’re companies, government agencies, or nonprofits,” said Bezos. “Our responsibility is to make sure we pass such scrutiny with flying colors.”
Tim Cook agreed, noting that scrutiny of tech behemoth Apple is both reasonable and appropriate. He resisted the assertion that the company has kept competitors off its app marketplace or acted inappropriately. “If Apple is the gatekeeper, what we’ve done is open the gate wider,” said Cook. “We want to get every app we can on the store, not keep them off.”
House Antitrust Committee Chairman David Cicilline (D, RI) cautioned that Big Tech is already powerful, and believes that the significant market share of Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Google will continue to grow stronger throughout the coronavirus pandemic. “As American families shift more of their work, shopping, and communication online, these giants stand to profit,” said Cicilline. “Locally owned businesses, meanwhile — mom and pop stores on Main Street — face an economic crisis unlike any in recent history.”
Cicilline conducted has investigated Big Tech for a year. concluding that the tech giants are operating as monopolies. The congressman likens the dominance of tech companies today, to the railroads that had too much power concentrated in a small number of hands in the late 1800s. “This investigation also goes to the heart of whether we, as a people, govern ourselves, or whether we let ourselves be governed by private monopolies,” said Cicilline. “Our founders would not bow before a king. Nor should we bow before the emperors of the online economy.”
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