A highly anticipated Congressional hearing on anti-competitive practices, which brings together the heads of four U.S. tech giants, has been rescheduled for noon (1600 GMT) on Wednesday, the House Judiciary Committee announced.
The heads of Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple, the world’s largest technology companies, will testify at a time of mounting complaints about their dominance and amid calls from some politicians and activists to dismantle them.
The hearing, originally scheduled for Monday, was rescheduled. The committee did not offer a reason, but civil rights icon and veteran Congressman John Lewis will lie in state on the United States Capitol on Monday and Tuesday.
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the four technology leaders, Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Tim Cook (Apple), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) and Sundar Pichai (Alphabet, the parent company of Google and YouTube), will be able to appear virtually if they wish .
It will be a first appearance in Congress for Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post.
Pressure has increased from both right and left, and sometimes internally, to do something about the overwhelming dominance of internet platforms.
The Judicial Committee has spent more than a year conducting a thorough investigation of the four companies to determine if they are guilty of any antitrust abuse and, if so, to consider possible remedies.
[AFP]
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This is a serious matter