On Wednesday, July 29, the CEOs of the four largest and richest Internet and technology companies in the world, with a combined value of around $ 5 trillion, attended a hearing in the United States Congress, answering questions and criticism of their companies' dominant position on the market and accusations of actually operating under a monopoly regime. The session before the Chamber Commission that deals with free competition on the market (antitrust) lasted almost five hours and was widely followed by the US media, especially for its symbolic significance considering that the hearing alone cannot lead to changes substantial.
Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Apple's Tim Cook, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Google's Sundar Pichai participated remotely via video conference from their company headquarters due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. They answered questions soberly, sometimes disagreeing with their interlocutors, but avoiding confrontation in a direct or aggressive way, despite being abruptly interrupted while trying to answer and some questions were quite pressing.
The hearing was one of the rare occasions that Republicans and Democrats have shown their willingness to cooperate, albeit for different purposes. The former have shown that they are primarily interested in understanding whether these large companies influence public debate, penalizing the diffusion of conservative ideas. The Democrats have instead dedicated themselves more specifically to the issues of free competition, accusing Facebook and other companies of not allowing competitors to compete on equal terms, preventing them from emerging and growing.
The president of the Commission, Democrat David Cicilline, began the hearing accusing the platforms of having become “the guardians of the digital economy”, and of using their power to “choose the winners and losers, blackmail the smaller companies and get rich while stifling competition “. Cicilline then added: “Our founding fathers did not bow before a king. We should do the same in front of the emperors of the online economy “.
Over the past decade, Google, Amazon, Apple, and Facebook have actually amassed tremendous power. Much of the data on the lives of billions of people passes through their services, and they also get information by accessing the social networks and news services offered by the platforms. Amazon is one of the largest online sales sites in the world, so large and powerful that it makes it very difficult for competitors to coexist, which could offer more advantageous terms for independent sellers.
Antitrust laws do not prohibit companies from becoming so large to the point of operating under a monopoly regime, but they do require that there be no abuse of dominant position that would harm competition or consumers, for example with higher than normal prices. The problem is that the general implementation of these rules in the United States dates back to about a century ago and is rather dated, to the point of being inadequate to apply to Internet companies and more generally to the digital economy. Democrats would like to intervene more forcefully to change them, while Republicans believe they are still adequate, but that there must be more controls and better self-regulation by companies.
Most of the questions in yesterday's hearing were put to Zuckerberg, who alone has control over the largest social networks and instant messaging services in the world: Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp. For example, he was asked to comment on the emails sent internally in the company around 2012, in which it was said that the acquisition of Instagram would have allowed to eliminate the risk of having a potential competitor in the social network sector. Zuckerberg responded by saying that at the time Instagram was not comparable in size to the current ones, and that there were no elements to support it at the time that it could become so big, among other things thanks to investments by Facebook.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal today asked Mark Zuckerberg whether he “threatened” Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom and Snap CEO Evan Spiegel by saying he would clone their products if they didn't sell to Facebook https://t.co/hgIJ8dbiLj pic.twitter. com / SxYSDnNDlo
– POLITICAL (@political) July 30, 2020
Zuckerberg then received several other questions about content moderation on Facebook, a topic that has been discussed for several years and at the basis of the debate on “fake news” and on the interference by the Russian government in the 2016 US presidential election. Zuckerberg argued that the company in recent years has made great progress in control and moderation, both thanks to a greater number of moderators and by exploiting automatic systems.
Google's Pichai has been asked several times to explain whether the dominant position in the online search sector is hurting the competition, with questions about the services offered by the company that are in fact designed to ensure that users stay as long as possible. within the same digital ecosystem, without perceiving the need to use other services. Pichai has replied several times that Google has many competitors and in different sectors, starting with the one for online shopping. It also dismissed Cicilline's allegation that the company stole ideas and content from others.
'Why does Google steal content from honest businesses?' Representative David Cicilline asked Google CEO Sundar Pichai https://t.co/fUHplC5a5o pic.twitter.com/Jr2heVcTi5
– Reuters (@Reuters) July 30, 2020
Bezos, of Amazon, answered several questions about his company's policies for sellers who use the platform to sell their products, and which according to various journalistic inquiries and analyzes by the same Commission would face discriminatory treatment by the company, aimed at favoring the products it sells directly versus those of independent vendors. Bezos denied these circumstances, but on several occasions he avoided giving clear-cut answers by vowing to consult internally with his collaborators to offer further information.
Jeff Bezos rejects accusations Amazon was “bullying” small suppliers
“That is not how we operate the business”
Congresswoman Lucy McBath plays a clip to Bezos from a bookseller who says “please help us in earning a livelihood”
Follow the hearing live: https://t.co/sIJCl7SlWy pic.twitter.com/sk3UvsojjZ
– BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) July 29, 2020
Apple's Cook was questioned less frequently than the other three CEOs, with questions mostly related to the App Store and Apple's policies to make developer apps available and downloadable on iPhones, iPads and Macs. Cook rejected the accusations of having adopted systems to favor Apple's apps over those of the competition, for example by placing them more prominently on the App Store, and has also rejected accusations of having copied ideas from competitors for the production of their own apps.
According to several observers, yesterday's hearing helped to make the possible abuses of dominant position by Facebook, Amazon, Google and Apple more evident, but alone it cannot lead to significant changes. The Commission has limited powers and effective measures will require the intervention of the Department of Justice, which in any case launched an investigation against Google last year, to verify whether it is abusing its dominant position in the online advertising sector.
The Federal Trade Commission, a government agency that also deals with antitrust matters, is preparing to hear under oath Zuckerberg, as part of the activities of its companies to keep competition under control with targeted acquisitions of the most promising emerging companies in the sector. social networks and more. Other legal initiatives against the platforms have been initiated by some state prosecutors and are being defined.
Although for different reasons, Republicans and Democrats are showing that they are interested in a review of the big tech companies, which have grown enormously in a few years and with a power that in some areas far exceeds those of national governments. However, this year's presidential elections could change some dynamics of the political confrontation on these issues, making collaboration between the representatives of the two parties more difficult.
However, Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple are the focus of unprecedented attention from institutions, and not just in the United States. In recent years, the European Commission has established fines and launched investigations against them both for the protection of free competition and to verify that the privacy rules are respected.
The big platforms have so far got away with paying multi-billion dollar fines, however, equal to a fraction of their annual revenues, while for now there do not seem to be concrete plans for new rules that could result in their division into smaller companies, dedicated to individual sectors in which other companies could compete more easily.
