Hard CEOs, whose corporations combined account for about $5 trillion in market value, adorned a series of accusations from lawmakers through a video conference at a hearing that marked the first time the four made the impression in combination with lawmakers. It is also Bezos’ first appearance before Congress.
Executives provided bursts of knowledge that showed how competitive their markets are and the price of their innovation and facilities essential for consumers. But they have struggled to answer prompt questions about their business practices. They also faced a number of other considerations about the supposed political bias, its effect on American democracy, and its role in China.
U.S. Rep. David Cicilline, a Democrat and chairman of the antitrust subcommittee, began accusing Google of theft.
“Why is Google stealing content from fair companies?” Asked.
Cicilline accused Google of stealing a complaint from Yelp Inc. and said Google was threatening to remove the company from search effects if objections were raised.
Pichai responded quietly that he would like to know the main points of the charge. “We behave by standards,” he added, at odds with the characterization that Google steals content from other corporations to force its search engine and keep users on its own services.
Knowledge-gathering accusations
Among the most sensitive problems for Google and Amazon were accusations that they were their dominant platforms to gather knowledge about their competition in a way that gave them an unfair advantage.
Bezos said in his first testimony to Congress that he may not ensure that the company did not access the seller’s knowledge to manufacture competing products, a claim that the company and its executives had denied in the past.
Regulators in the U.S. And Europe tested Amazon’s quotes with the corporations they sell on their and tested whether the online shopping giant had used the knowledge of sellers to create their own personally branded products.
“We have a policy that opposes the supplier’s specific knowledge to help our personal label company,” Bezos said in response to a consultation from US Rep. Pramila Jayapal, a Washington Democrat. “But I can’t say I can’t say for sure that this policy hasn’t been violated.”
Trump challenges lawmakers
Pichai’s keynote addressed the price promoted by Google for family corporations in Bristol, Rhode Island and Pewaukee, Wisconsin.
While Democrats strongly targeted festivals in the market, several Republicans have voiced long-standing complaints that generation corporations are censoring conservative voices and wondering about their business activities in China. “Big Tech is for conservatives,” Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan said.
In a tweet before the hearing, President Donald Trump challenged Congress to take strong action against the companies, which he accused, evidence, of prejudices that oppose him and conservatives in general.
“If Congress doesn’t bring fairness to great technologies, what they did years ago, I’ll do it myself with executive orders,” Trump tweeted.
Executive orders have a more limited scope than legislation passed in Congress, they also have force of law. But presidents can’t use executive orders to replace federal law. This requires action through Congress.
Trump’s Justice Department has suggested to Congress that it revoke long-standing legal protections for online platforms such as Facebook, Google and Twitter. The proposed amendments would eliminate some of the fundamental protections that companies sometimes have of legal responsibility for what others post on their platforms.
The four CEOs of the generation run corporations with gold-plated brands, millions, even billions of customers, and a greater sum than the German economy as a whole. One of them, Bezos, is the richest individual in the world; Zuckerberg is the fourth ranked billionaire.
Question of antitrust laws
Critics think about whether corporations suppress festivals and innovation, increase costs for consumers, and pose a danger to society.
As a component of its two-component research, the Judicial Subcommittee collected media reports from the 4 firms, competition and legal experts, and reviewed more than one million internal corporate documents. A key question: whether existing festival policies and centuries-old antitrust legislation are good enough to monitor the giants of the generation, or whether new laws and an investment in law enforcement are needed.
Cicilline called the 4 monopolies, although he said their breakup deserves to be a last resort. While forced ruptures might seem unlikely, Big Tech’s in-depth review indicates new imaginable restrictions on its power.
Cicilline also said that in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, “these giants are taking advantage of it and fitting it even harder as millions of other people move more of their paintings and online commerce.
Businesses face legal and fixed policy offensives on the front lines of Congress, the Trump administration, federal and state regulators, and European control agencies. The Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission investigated the practices of the 4 companies.
(FRANCE 24 with AP and REUTERS)