Five takeaways from the Amazon, Facebook, Google and Apple antitrust hearing

Both Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Google-parent Alphabet’s Sundar Pichai faced a flood of questions on whether their platforms are biased against conservatives. Apple’s Tim Cook, who received the fewest questions, was confronted with the company’s App Store policies. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos was quizzed on how the e-commerce site uses competitive data from third-party sellers, with real-life examples of people who said they were hurt by the company’s tactics. (Bezos owns The Washington Post.)

Lawmakers didn’t let up on the intensity just because the subjects were beaming in over video connections and in-person attendees were in masks. The hearing was peppered with interruptions of the CEOs, even as they tried to keep sharing their talking points.

Here are some of the biggest takeaways from tech’s big day on Capitol Hill.

Not everyone stuck to the topic of the hearing, but the lawmakers who focused on antitrust questions had clearly absorbed the specifics from the House panel’s year-long investigation. They also displayed a better understanding of the technology itself than in previous tech hearings.

This was clearly out of the gate, as David N. Cicilline (D-R.I.), chairman of the House Judiciary antitrust subcommittee, asked detailed questions about how Google has developed its business.

“The evidence seems very clear to me: As Google became the gateway to the Internet, it began to abuse its power,” Cicilline said. “It used its surveillance over Web traffic to begin to identify competitive threats and crush them. It has dampened innovation and new business growth, and it has dramatically increased the price of accessing users on the Internet, virtually ensuring that any business that wants to be found on the Web must pay Google a tax.”

A detailed report on the panel’s investigation into the companies is expected to be released in August.

There were quite a few off-topic moments during the hearing, from complaining about emails going straight to spam, to asking each CEO to commit to not working with suppliers who use “slave labor.” But it was complaints of anti-conservative bias that popped up again and again throughout the hearing, often with a dramatic flair that seemed directed more at people outside the hearing than lawmakers or executives.

In his opening remarks, F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.), the top Republican on the subcommittee, signaled it would be a line of questioning for many members.

“Conservatives are consumers, too, and they need the protection of antitrust laws,” he said.

The CEOs batted away most of the questions with pat answers.

Bezos, when questioned at one point about “cancel culture,” described social media as a “nuance-destruction machine.”

Over the course of the more than five-hour hearing, the executives were interrupted and cut off repeatedly by lawmakers on all sides. While Republicans’ and Democrats’ main issues with the companies varied, their unhappiness with the companies was consistent.

The CEOs have been carefully trained to not give away too much and fill in the blanks with stock phrases, but with just five minutes on the clock for each question, lawmakers quickly cut them off when it was clear they weren’t being direct.

It was probably a change of pace for the wealthy and powerful CEOs, who are used to calling the shots at their own companies. The aggressive questioning often used the executives’ own past words against them, as lawmakers read lines from old emails.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) unearthed an email in which Zuckerberg told the founder of Instagram, in the process of negotiations to acquire the photo-sharing service in 2012, that he was building a copycat camera service. The Instagram founder confided in an investor at the time that he feared Zuckerberg would “go into destroy mode” if he didn’t sell Instagram to him.

“Facebook’s very model makes it hard for new companies to flourish,” Jayapal said.

Zuckerberg said he didn’t recall some of the exchanges she was referring to.

While most lawmakers were present in person for the hearing, the CEOs all appeared over video chat because of the coronavirus pandemic. Classic teleconferencing high jinks ensued.

At one point, Bezos tried speaking without unmuting. Earlier in the day, a slow connection delayed Zuckerberg’s voice so his words were not in sync with his lips. The hearing had to take a break early on to fix issues with Bezos’s video. And like any regular participants in a marathon video call, Zuckerberg and Bezos had to grab a few snacks while on camera.

Overall, the distance didn’t alter the intensity of the process. Each executive seemed the proper amount of serious and under pressure during questioning, and lawmakers didn’t hold back when it came to interrupting or talking over them to make a point or force the CEOs to get to the point.

The lawmakers took their time getting to questions for Bezos but ended the day spending much of the time on the head of Amazon. Meanwhile, Cook received the fewest questions from the 15-member panel.

In one notable moment, Bezos said he could not guarantee that data collected from third-party sellers weren’t used to launch its own private-label options. The company’s relationship with — and power over — its third-party sellers was a frequent topic.

Jayapal, who represents the Seattle area where many Amazon employees work, pressed Bezos on whether Amazon ever used third-party seller data to make business decisions.

“What I can tell you is we have a policy against using seller-specific data to aid our private-label business,” Bezos replied. “But I can’t guarantee you that policy has never been violated.”

At one point, Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) asked all four CEOs to pledge to avoid using “slave labor.”

“We would terminate a supplier relationship if it were found,” Cook said.