Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Google emails demanded in U.S. House panel probe

[rooster59]

Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Google emails demanded in U.S. House panel probe

By David Shepardson and Bryan Pietsch

 

FILE PHOTO: The logos of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google in a combination photo from Reuters files./File Photo

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. House of Representatives panel on Friday demanded internal emails, detailed financial information and other company records from top executives of Amazon.com Inc. <AMZN.O>, Facebook Inc <FB.O>, Apple Inc <AAPL.O>, and Alphabet Inc's Google <GOOGL.O>, widening the antitrust probe of Big Tech.

 

The letters seek by Oct. 14 internal emails over the last decade from Apple CEO Tim Cook, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Alphabet CEO Larry Page, among others, about acquisitions.

 

Apple shares fell about 1.8% after the market opened. While Apple had been mentioned as a potential target, the House letter offered the first concrete evidence of a wide-ranging antitrust investigation.

 

Apple has faced criticism that its App Store's policies and algorithms support its own products and stifle third-party applications.

 

On Monday, the Texas attorney general led a group of 50 attorneys general from U.S. states and territories in a probe of whether Google abuses its market power in advertising.

 

"There is growing evidence that a handful of corporations have come to capture an outsized share of online commerce and communications," said House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerrold Nadler, a Democrat, who signed the letters along with Ranking Republican Representative Doug Collins and Representative David Cicilline, who chairs the antitrust subcommittee and ranking Republican Jim Sensenbrenner.

 

"This information is key in helping determine whether anticompetitive behaviour is occurring, whether our antitrust enforcement agencies should investigate specific issues and whether or not our antitrust laws need improvement to better promote competition in the digital markets," Collins said in a statement.

 

The lawmakers seek emails from senior executives on topics including acquisitions like Amazon's purchase of AbeBooks, PillPack, Eero, Ring, Zappos and Whole Foods; and Google's acquisition of AdMob, YouTube, Android and DoubleClick.

 

They also seek information on various policies including Google's decision to automatically sign into Chrome any user to logs into any Google service.

 

Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment, while Amazon and Facebook declined to comment. Google referred to a blog post this week that said its services "create choice for consumers."

 

The committee requested information from the companies' executives on market share, competitors, their largest customers for specific products and documents from other investigations.

 

It asked Apple for information on App Store concerns such as the decision to remove some parental control apps and its policy regarding whether iPhone users can set non-Apple apps as defaults.

 

The committee seeks communications on Facebook's purchase of Instagram, WhatsApp and Onavo and its decisions to integrate Instagram, Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp and to cut off apps from its social graph.

 

The U.S. Justice Department said in July it is investigating "whether and how" large tech companies in "search, social media, and some retail services online" are engaging in anticompetitive behaviour. Google said it received a formal request for documents from the Justice Department in late August.

 

(Reporting by Jan Wolfe, David Shepardson and Bryan Pietsch; Editing by Kevin Liffey, Chizu Nomiyama, Dan Grebler and David Gregorio)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2019-09-14

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[Samui Bodoh]

I think that this is a fascinating topic, and one that will be with us for the next few years...

 

Why is it fascinating? I am old enough to remember NetScape and the 'Battle of the Browsers' where Microsoft brutally used its control of operating systems to drive NetScape into the dust; I wonder how often a similar thing occurs today, but that we don't really hear about it?

 

I would say that the Tech industry faces 2 main issues; Net Neutrality and too much growth/size.

 

I am really annoyed that the Trump administration is trying to get rid of Net Neutrality; this is a common sense factor which will require all to play fair. Or, perhaps you believe that the cable companies will actually treat everyone equally out of the goodness of their hearts?

 

I don't have any great complaint about Facebook, Google, Apple, etc; to me they provide reasonably good services and products, but they are simply too big and powerful. Could a competitor realistically arise for one of these companies? I don't think it is really possible anymore for someone to supplant Facebook (2 billion clients?); the more likely outcome of any challenge would be Facebook simply buying their competitors and throwing them out of business. Soooo, if they can't reasonably face serious competition, it is time to regulate them like utilities are regulated; we can only hope that the law-makers have the wisdom to find the balance between allowing for innovation and curbing the most egregious abuses.

 

I freely admit that this subject is not one of my specialties; any really knowledgeable people want to speculate a bit?

 

Cheers

[canuckamuck]

I could do without all four of them and not miss a thing. Except maybe an OS for my phone. But I used to get by without a smartphone.

[jingjai9]

Too little too late can describe the US Congress' tepid attempt at deregulationg the big techies. The tech companies are in a sense like the drug lords in South America a few decades ago: no country in their customer base (USA) critcally monitored their influence as they rapidly accumulated wealth and power. The druglords  used the production and distribution of drugs for wealth, whereas the techies use the collection of data for wealth and power. Even though drugs is a dirty business and technology a clean business, I think it is fair to say there are similarities in the accumulation and concentration of wealth; one kills their competition with violence while the other kills competition with lawyers (terms of agreement), lobbyists and PR (charities, celebrity).

 

I am expecting that if Mark and Tim and Jeff apologize humbly to Congress it will all go away. They can sic their lobbyists on Congress and dangle jobs in the faces of the State Govenors who can pressure their attorneys general to heel. How many US states are dependent upon jobs from Microsoft, Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook? If the government is extemely lucky, they may squeeze out a few bucks in tax revenue. Perhaps the drug lords could be compared to the techies in a loose sense: Facebook may rival cocaine as a substance of addiction.