Big Tech firms to testify Wednesday before U.S. Congress on antitrust

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Four of Silicon Valley’s most powerful executives are set to testify before a Congressional antitrust inquiry Wednesday in a political showdown that marks a major escalation of U.S. lawmakers’ scrutiny of technology giants.

Amazon.com Inc.‘s Jeff Bezos, Apple Inc.‘s Tim Cook, Facebook Inc.‘s Mark Zuckerberg and Alphabet Inc.‘s Sundar Pichai are all expected to appear in front of members of the Democrat-led House judiciary committee, capping off a year-long investigation into the growing dominance of major tech companies.

The hearing, which will be conducted virtually, is the first to bring the heads of some of the world’s largest online companies together to be publicly grilled about their growing market power. It will also be the first appearance in front of Congress by Mr. Bezos, the world’s richest man and owner of The Washington Post. Amazon had previously resisted committing Mr. Bezos to testify, forcing lawmakers to threaten to subpoena him.

While Republicans and Democrats have raised a litany of complaints against tech firms – from privacy abuses, to their treatment of workers, to whether they censor conservative speech – the hearing is expected to focus on the quartet’s control over the online economy. Critics have argued that Silicon Valley titans have become monopolies whose aggressive efforts to snap up competitors and control how others use their technology threatens the future of U.S. innovation.

The hearing is a chance for lawmakers to press executives under oath about how they use the data they collect on consumers, whether they discriminate against smaller rivals, and if they unfairly compete against companies that rely on their platforms to reach customers.

The chief executives are also likely to face pressure to acknowledge that they have simply become too large and too powerful to escape antitrust regulation. “I suspect [lawmakers] would like to extract from them some recognition of a larger social responsibility that comes from the central role they play in the modern economy,” said William Kovacic, a former chair of the Federal Trade Commission who directs the Competition Law Center at George Washington University in D.C. “That is, do you or do you not have a larger obligation to society?”

The executives’ testimony could also help regulators build a case for new antitrust legislation and bolster other tech investigations now under way by the Federal Trade Commission, the Trump administration’s Justice Department and dozens of state attorneys-general, as well by European regulators.

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However, U.S. lawmakers will have to contend with the fact that the Silicon Valley giants have vastly different business models – and each represent different antitrust threats.

Mr. Bezos is likely to face questions about how Amazon’s massive e-commerce operations affect bricks-and-mortar retailers, along with the company’s treatment of third-party merchants. Amazon has also been accused of using the data it collects about sales on its site to create its own competing products.

Apple has repeatedly clashed with software developers over the rules that govern its App Store, an increasingly important part of the smartphone giant’s growing services business. Developers have two broad complaints: Apple requires them to hand over an onerous cut of their revenues, and the company frequently creates free services that compete with their existing apps.

For Mr. Zuckerberg, the hearing will mark the third time he has appeared in front of Congress in as many years. Antitrust concerns about Facebook focus on whether its acquisitions of services such as WhatsApp and Instagram have given the social-media giant too much control over consumer data, threatening privacy and harming competitors to its digital advertising business.

Alphabet’s Google faces a myriad of antitrust investigations into whether it discriminates against rivals in online search results, its control of the global smartphone market through its Android operating system, and its massive digital ad operations. Mr. Pichai will also likely be grilled on acquisitions of companies like smartwatch maker Fitbit.

The tech CEOs are expected to rebut those criticisms by arguing that they face intense competition in their industries – and increasingly from each other.

In earlier written submission to the Congressional inquiry, Google, Apple and Amazon all argued their services have helped millions of small developers and merchants. Mr. Zuckerberg frequently warns that U.S. platforms are under threat from the growing popularity of social-media apps developed in China, such as TikTok, a popular video-sharing platform that the Trump administration has considered banning in the United States.

Lawmakers have previously said they hoped to finish their investigation and announce new legislation by the fall, though the COVID-19 pandemic has threatened to slow that timeline. Prof. Kovacic predicted the Congressional committee will likely release the findings of its antitrust investigation by October and U.S. regulators would file antitrust cases against one or more major tech firms before the November presidential election.

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