When the heads of top U.S. technology firms head down to Washington for an appearance before the House Judiciary Committee’s antitrust panel July 27, the list is going to read like a Who’s Who of public pariahs in an age where people are starting to question the monolithic reach of dominant businesses in our digital lives. Ok, so that’s a bit hyperbolic. But people will be paying attention.
Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, Jeff Bezos of Amazon, Sundar Pichai of Google and Tim Cook of Apple have all been tapped on the shoulder to attend and talk about concerns that legislators may have about company business models.
Reuters reports that Apple’s issues will largely centered around the use of its App Store, where Cook is likely to argue that the company has less of a strict control on marketed apps than legislators might otherwise believe.
Bezos and Zuckerberg are expected to plead not guilty, in a figurative sense, to having virtual monopolies in their sectors. Bezos can talk about how other big retailers like Walmart are also selling online, and Zuckerberg can talk about the rise of social media platforms like TikTok.
However, none of this may be enough to challenge the reigning notion that these companies, which have built vast digital empires with billions of dollars of activity and a significant share of the U.S. economy, have become too big for their own good.
“On one hand, it’s worth keeping in mind that all of the above accusations are still just that — accusations — and ones made from business leaders whose businesses might prosper more easily in a world where these giants were less powerful,” writes Jason Del Rey at Vox. “On the other hand, these allegations, made under oath and in front of members of Congress, mark an extraordinary turn of events for the tech giants who just a few years ago seemed invincible and unstoppable. And perhaps most importantly, it appears that Congress will continue to take the claims seriously as they decide what recommendations to make to antitrust regulators and whether to attempt to remake antitrust law.”
The government has also been working on these cases for quite a while. This legislative process is definitely something to keep an eye on if you have tech stocks, or are thinking about diversifying into this sector. Companies like Facebook and Google have a lot of secondary influence on other firms in terms of advertising models. Amazon, for its part, has its tendrils all of the way through the e-commerce community, and as for Apple, the idea that you can purchase an Android phone instead does not begin to really address how many people are walking around with iPhones and what that means for the technology industry as a whole.
Microsoft, meanwhile, has somehow avoided a lot of this scrutiny, even though it is continually suspected of anti-competitive behavior. We reported recently on Slack taking Microsoft to task for tying MS Teams to MS Office, and that’s only one of many controversies, for example, end-of-life for obsolete operating systems that continue to dog Microsoft in the tech community..
In any case, take a look at how this shakes out…