A congressional hearing with the chief executives of Facebook, Google, Amazon, and Apple has been rescheduled for noon Eastern time on Wednesday. Originally scheduled for Monday, the hearing was bumped back a few days to allow members of Congress to pay respects to the late Rep. John Lewis, who died July 17th. Lewis will lie in state at the US Capitol next week.
The House Judiciary Committee hearing with Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, and Sundar Pichai will focus on the various antitrust issues each CEO’s company is dealing with. It’s part of a yearlong investigation into the tech sector’s anti-competitive behavior. The hearing will be conducted remotely to adhere to coronavirus social distancing guidelines. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey is not expected to testify despite a push late last week from some Republicans on the committee.
The House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee is investigating different alleged abuses by each of the four companies: Google’s control of its ad market, Facebook’s acquisitions of WhatsApp and Instagram, Apple’s App Store policies, and Amazon’s treatment of third-party sellers.
“Since last June, the Subcommittee has been investigating the dominance of a small number of digital platforms and the adequacy of existing antitrust laws and enforcement,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler and Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman David Cicilline said in a statement Saturday. “Given the central role these corporations play in the lives of the American people, it is critical that their CEOs are forthcoming. As we have said from the start, their testimony is essential for us to complete this investigation.”
The committee is expected to issue a full report on the investigation either later this summer or early in the fall.
Wednesday’s hearing will stream live here.
