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Tech giants face hearing before Congress that will ask whether they violate antitrust and monopoly laws in the U.S.
Facing rising accusations of running monopolies, the CEOs of four of the worldās biggest tech firms are testifying before the Judiciary Committeeās Antitrust Subcommittee today, July 29.
The hearing was originally scheduled for July 27 and was moved to 12PM EST today. It is seeing further delays today and as of 12:25 had not been called to order.
Global monopolies
The hearing is entitled āOnline Platforms and Market Power, Part 6: Examining the Dominance of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google.ā It continues a lengthy series of investigations into the role these giant companies play.
All of these firms except for Facebook have market caps of over a trillion dollars. They also have faced long-standing accusations of muscling out competing businesses and misuse of customer data, prompting the question of whether they make their money by violating Googleās one-time credo of āDonāt be evil.ā
Origin stories and plan to play patriotism
Per opening remarks released in advance of the hearing, the leaders of Facebook, Apple, Amazon and Alphabet seem to be convening around a narrative of U.S. tech giants making the internet more American.
Sundar Pichai, CEO of Googleās parent company Alphabet, told the story of coming to the U.S. from India for graduate school to be amazed at how many computers were available. He continued to list U.S. achievements in emerging technologies, but cautioned:
āJust as American leadership in these areas is not inevitable, we know Googleās continued success is not guaranteed. Google operates in highly competitive and dynamic global markets, in which prices are free or falling, and products are constantly improving.ā
The richest person in the world, Amazonās Jeff Bezos, began his testimony by describing his motherās struggle to finish high school as a single mother, before transitioning into portraying Amazon as an underdog success story. āUnlike many other countries around the world, this great nation we live in supports and does not stigmatize entrepreneurial risk-taking,ā Bezos said.
Facebookās Mark Zuckerberg, who appeared before a different and extremely hostile congressional committee last Fall over the planned Libra stablecoin, also warned of foreign competition:
āAlthough people around the world use our products, Facebook is a proudly American company. We believe in values ā democracy, competition, inclusion and free expression ā that the American economy was built on. Many other tech companies share these values, but thereās no guarantee our values will win out. For example, China is building its own version of the internet focused on very different ideas, and they are exporting their vision to other countries.ā
Tim Cook was overall less poetic and briefer than his fellow witnesses, but did describe Apple as āa uniquely American company whose success is only possible in this country.ā
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