Highlights: Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai & Tim Cook testify before US Congress

The CEOs of four of America's largest tech firms gave their virtual testimony before the US Congress in a hearing that promised a healthy dose of political theatre, while also offering a window into the thinking of lawmakers trying to rein in Big Tech. Facebook Inc's Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon.com Inc's Jeff Bezos, Alphabet Inc-owned Google's Sundar Pichai and Apple Inc's Tim Cook - who together represent about $5 trillion of the US economy addressed the Congressmen's quetions via videoconference before the House Judiciary Committee's antitrust panel.

Big tech CEO US Congressional hearing ends after more than five hours

WATCH | CEOs of four of America's largest tech firms will give virtual testimony before the US Congress

Amazon's Jeff Bezos admits that there may be stolen items sold in the platform, as a million sellers utilise the platform and that he was not aware of the tracking methods used by the company.

Zuckerberg says that FB does not use cookies to collect info. He said that it is used for security and log in purposes.

Meanwhile, Wikipedia now requests for donations to view their content. the minimum is $150 to $5000

Pichai, calling back on the Chinese attempting to steal info, he corrected his statement that there was cyber attack by few entities from the Asian country over the platform in 2010

Social media is nuance destruction machine, that is not helpful for democracy, says Bezos, taking a dig at Google and Facebook's information censorship.

Congressman Raskin sides Facebook's removal of Trump and Trump Jr's posts on 'false messages' regarding Covid-19.

Armstrong says that monetising Youtube has restricted small and new competitors to sell ads on the platform. Pichai said that there is a robust opportunity for the competitors, rather.

Bezos said that he had heard of reports but had not seen it 'personally'. He said that the product info may have been taken by Chinese companies for creating counterfeit products, but he had not dealt with it personally.

Zuckerberg said that the Chinese do steal technology information from US companies, while Cook and Pichai said that they had no first hand info regarding their respective tech firms.

Johnson questions Facebook on its purchase of Whatsapp. Zuckerberg says that the purchase was not necessary and that he knew the founder of the messaging app previously.

Congressman Cicilline raps Zuckerberg on 'false information' especially over Covid-19 and political advertising. He said Facebook must be responsible for these business decisions.

In a direct question to Apple's Tim Cook, she asked if the company was very selective and allowed only limited apps, mostly owned by powerful government to function in its devices and that rules differ with each app.

Demings accuses Facebook, she says that the platform does weaponise its company policy to undermine competitors, sighting examples and documents.

Facebook, Google absorb US lawmakers' jabs in rare Big Tech hearing

Google and Facebook took the sharpest jabs for alleged abuse of their market power from Democrats and Republicans on Wednesday in a much-anticipated congressional hearing with four of America's most prominent tech CEOs in the hot seat.

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Zukerberg replied to the allegations of playing a partial role to influence political agendas over people, saying that there is no bias and the platform would not encourage such activities, after the Facebook CEO grabbed a quick snack bite mid proceedings

"I wouldn't be surprised if Alexa promotes our own products," says Amazon's Jeff Bezos. That is common business practice, he said.

Rep. Ken Buck's asked if the 4 CEOs would agree to take actions against 'slave labour'. All the CEOs pledge to take immediate actions against the inappropriate labour method.

"We are still investigating matters of data manipulation for anti-competitive practices," says Bezos on allegations of putting too many small businesses out of business.

'Amazon operates in a manner similar to that of a drug dealer'

Cicilline says around 800,000 people's livelihoods are directly dependant on Amazon, and this brings in a major allegation – Amazon regards its "partners" as "internal competitors", in-house.

He said thatAmazon operates in a manner similar to that of a "drug dealer".

Dem. Lucy McBath raises the issue of monopolising, she implied in her argument that Amazon flourishes by creating a line of growing based on targetting small vendors

That sounds like a joke: Zukerberg dubs one of Dem. Joe Neguse's accusations

Dem. Joe Neguse raps Mark Zuckerberg, on how Facebook's competition in the social media space has decreased gradually recently.

He pointed out at an email which implied that the Facebook CEO would want to acquire every competition that comes their way.

To this,Zukerberg replied that it sounds like 'a joke'.

Dem. Mary Scanlon alleges Amazon's direct competition against Diapers.com, acquiring the company and raising prices

Dem. Mary Scanlon alleges Amazon's direct competition against Diapers.com, acquiring the company and raising prices.

Using atiger-gazelle hunt analogy, she accused the e-commerce platform of attemptinga clear anti-competitive practice against the US diaper company.

WHO obviously is lying to US, obviously siding China, says Rep. Jim Jordan

Rep. Jim Jordan, asks Google's Sundar Pichai if the platform will not side US Democratic presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden in the upcoming elections.

Pichai assures Jordan that no such activities will be encouraged.

Google's activities today do not reflect with the philosophies of its founders, says Dem. Val Demings

Nothing in the algorith to do with political to do with political ideology, says Google's Sundar Pichai

Rep. Greg Steube alleged that electoral campaign emails from conservatives are being deliberately marked as spam by Google on the basisif it is being done to a particular group of individuals with a certain political ideology.

Nothing in the algorith to do with political to do with political ideology, says Google's Sundar Pichai

Amazon collects with reference to users as well as third party sellers on the platform, both of which can be supremely detrimental towards other brands, said Dem. Jayapal

"I cannot guarantee you that we have never breached our policy on using other brand data to improve our own products," says Amazon's Jeff Bezos.

Dem. Pramila Jayapal directly targets Amazon's approach towards how non-public brand data can be accessed by anyone in the company, which can majorly stifle competition.

"You may allow sellers on your platform, but if you control the amount of data, that can stifle innovation in small businesses," she says.

"I cannot guarantee you that we have never breached our policy on using other brand data to improve our own products," says Amazon's Bezos.

Google in full compliance with GDPR, says Sundar Pichai

Rep. Kelly Armstrong targets Google's data dealings and its compliance with GDPR, with reference to its advertisement-related user data.

"We deeply care about privacy and security of users," says Alphabet Inc and Google CEO Sundar Pichai.

Google in full compliance with GDPR, says Sundar Pichai

Pichai says Google's ad earnings from search results are over $100 billion.

He refers to Google's new feature thatwipes users' location, web history after 18 months.

Big Tech to tangle with Washington lawmakers in antitrust showdown

The CEOs of four of America's largest tech firms will give virtual testimony before the U.S. Congress on Wednesday in a hearing that promises a healthy dose of political theater, while also offering a window into the thinking of lawmakers trying to rein in Big Tech.

Read more

Customer obsession has made us what we are: Statement by Amazon's Jeff Bezos to US Congress on antitrust law

Facebook Inc's Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon.com Inc's Jeff Bezos, Alphabet Inc-owned Google's Sundar Pichai and Apple Inc's Tim Cook - who together represent about $5 trillion of the USeconomy - are set to speak via videoconference before the House Judiciary Committee's antitrust panel.

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Right now, we take down 89% of hate speech before it is identified, says Zuckerberg

We take down billions of fake accounts a year, says Zuckerberg.

Having fake and harmful content on our platforms, hurts our business, says Zuckerberg.

We did take employees inputs into account, says Pichai

Will you take the pledge that you will not the bigoted anti-police policies that is requested in a recent letter that Googlers have sent you, asks Rep Gaetz

The proliferation of fake Facebook accounts played a major role of Russian interference in 2016 elections, says Rep Raskin

Google has a AI China centre, you collaborate with Chinese universities, says Gaetz

Why would an American company with American values aid the Chinese military but refuse to work with US military, asks Gaetz

We are not working with Chinese military, says Pichai. Our AI work in China is limited to a handful of open source projects, says Pichai.

We treat all developers the same, says Zuckerberg

Representative Johnson questions Tim Cook on anti-trust law violations in the App Store

What does Google and CCP have in common? asks Rep Buck

Capitalism has lifted millions out of poverty, says Representative Buck

M&A that intend to crush competition is illegal, why shouldn't Instagram be a separate company? asks Nadler

In Feb 2012, you told the CFO that you wanted to buy Instagram. What did you mean the purpose of the deal was to neutralise a competitor? asks Nadler

What did not mean when you said Instagram was a threat, disruptive? asks Rep Nadler

The acquisition of Instagram has been widely successful, says Zuckerberg

Facebook saw Instagram as a threat to it's business, rather than compete with it, Facebook bought it, says Representative Nadler

We do not want to become the arbiters of truth, says Zuckerberg

I think we've developed as one of the companies that respect free speech the most, says Zuckerberg

Everybody should be able to speak their mind, says ranking member Sensenbrenner

I've been trying make the net universal and accessible to everybody, says ranking member Sensenbrenner

Google is increasingly a walled-garden, says the sub-committee chair

Google threatened to take Yelp offline, says the chair, isn't that anti-competitive? asks the chair

Were you involved in the threat of vertical search, the chair asks Pichai

In the few categories that are commercial in nature, it is highly competitive, says Pichai.

What is the value of the part you use for commercial business, asks subcommittee chair

Sundar Pichai: It's more in the range of 100 billion dollars

Google shows what is more profitable for Google in search results, says subcommittee chair

Why does Google steal content from honest businesses, subcommittee chair questions Google CEO Sundar Pichai

We compete hard, we compete fairly, we compete to be the best, says Zuckerberg

I personally believe private companies shouldn't be making such high stake-decisions, says Zuckerberg

New companies are created all the time all over the world. If we don't keep innovating, someone will replace the companies here today, says Zuckerberg.

Since Covid emerged, I'm proud that people have used Facebook to stay in touch with friends and family, says Zuckerberg

Facebook CEO Zuckerberg begins statement

The app ecosystem is responsible for 1.9 million jobs in 50 states of the US, says Apple CEO Cook

We're provide developers over 150,000 APIs, says Cook. Developers take 100% of the money they make.

Our goal is the best, not the most, says Cook

At Apple, we made a promise, a promise that we will only make things we are proud of, says Cook

Tim Cook begins statement

Google succeeds when others succeed, says Pichai

Our engineers are helping US remain a leader in technologies, says Pichai

Google's work would not possible without the American tradition of innovation, says Pichai

Proud that so many experience the internet through Chrome for free, says Pichai

A discussion about competition is a discussion of opportunity, says Pichai

Sundar Pichai begins his statement

Retail accounts for 80% of our total revenue

The company most of you know as Amazon is the one that sends you your online orders in the brown boxes with the smile on the side. That’s where we started, and retail remains our largest business by far, accounting for over 80% of our total revenue. The very nature of that business is getting products to customers.

Amazon accounts for less than 1% of the world's retail market, says Jeff Bezos

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos talks about his background

My dad’s name is Miguel. He adopted me when I was four years old. He was 16 when he came to the United States from Cuba as part of Operation Pedro Pan, shortly after Castro took over. My dad arrived in America alone. His parents felt he’d be safer here.

Jeff Bezos begins his statement

My mom, Jackie, had me when she was a 17-year-old high school student in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Being pregnant in high school was not popular in Albuquerque in 1964. It was difficult for her. When they tried to kick her out of school, my grandfather went to bat for her, says Jeff Bezos

Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust law chair introduces tech CEOs

Jeff Bezos to begin his statement