Postponed anti-trust hearing of tech giant CEOs to be placed on Wednesday
An extremely anticipated congressional hearing in anti-competitive practices, bringing together the heads of 4 US technology giants, has been rescheduled for noon (1600 GMT) Wednesday, the home Judiciary Committee has announced.
The heads of Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple-the world’s biggest technology companies-will be testifying at the same time of growing complaints about their dominance and amid calls by some politicians and activists to break them up.
The hearing, at first set for Monday, was rescheduled. The committee didn't provide a reason, but civil rights icon and long-period congressman John Lewis will end up being lying in state in the US Capitol on Monday and Tuesday.
Due to coronavirus pandemic, the four tech leaders-Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Tim Cook (Apple), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) and Sundar Pichai (Alphabet, the parent enterprise of Google and YouTube) -- will be permitted to appear virtually if indeed they wish.
It will be an initial congressional appearance for Bezos, who as well owns The Washington Post.
Pressure has been growing both from the right and the left-and sometimes internally-to do something positive about the overwhelming dominance of the web platforms.
The Judiciary Committee has spent greater than a year conducting a sweeping investigation in to the four companies to identify if they are guilty of any antitrust abuses and, if so, to consider possible remedies.
Source: www.deccanchronicle.com
