Big Tech's giants set to testify at congressional hearing on their power, influence - CBC.ca | Canada News Media
Connect with us

Business

Big Tech's giants set to testify at congressional hearing on their power, influence – CBC.ca

Published

 on


Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Google’s Sundar Pichai and Apple’s Tim Cook are all set to answer for their companies’ practices before Congress Wednesday as a House panel caps its year-long investigation of market dominance in the tech industry.

Critics question whether the companies — which have grown increasingly powerful after gobbling up scores of rivals — stifle competition and innovation, raise prices for consumers and pose a danger to society.

The four CEOs are testifying remotely for a hearing Wednesday at 12 p.m. ET by the House’s judiciary subcommittee on antitrust.

In its bipartisan investigation, the panel collected testimony from mid-level executives of the four firms, competitors and legal experts, and pored over more than a million internal documents from the companies.

A key question is whether existing competition policies and century-old antitrust laws are adequate for oversight of the tech giants, or if new legislation and enforcement funding is needed.

Subcommittee chairman Rep. David Cicilline, a Rhode Island Democrat, has called the four companies monopolies, although he said breaking them up should be a last resort. While forced breakups may appear unlikely, the wide scrutiny of Big Tech points toward possible new restrictions on its power.

Bezos has never testified to Congress

The companies face legal and political offensives on multiplying fronts, from Congress, the Trump administration, federal and state regulators and European watchdogs. The Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission have been investigating the four companies’ practices.

For Bezos, who presides over an e-commerce empire and ventures in cloud computing, personal “smart” tech and beyond, it will be his first-ever appearance before Congress.

WATCH l Former Amazon VP: Pandemic plays to company’s advantages:

Former Amazon VP Tim Bray spoke to Wendy Mesley about his decision to quit in support of the COVID-19 ‘whistleblowers’ concerned about safety at Amazon warehouses, and why he thinks “this isn’t just an Amazon problem”. 2:08

Previewing his written testimony in a blog post Tuesday, Bezos traces his origins as a “garage inventor” who came up with the concept of an online bookstore in 1994.

He addresses the issue of Amazon’s power in what he describes as a huge and competitive global retail market. The company accounts for less than four per cent of retail in the U.S., Bezos maintains. He affirms his rebuff to critics who call for the company to be broken up: Walmart is more than twice Amazon’s size, he says.

Bezos initially declined to testify unless he could appear with the other CEOs. He’ll likely face questioning over a Wall Street Journal report that found Amazon employees used confidential data collected from sellers on its online marketplace to develop competing products. At a previous hearing, an Amazon executive denied such an accusation.

In the wake of George Floyd’s death and protests against racial injustice, Facebook’s handling of hate speech has recently drawn more fire than issues of competition and privacy, especially after Facebook’s refusal to take action on inflammatory posts by Donald Trump that spread misinformation about voting by mail and, critics said, encouraged violence against protesters.

Zuckerberg has said the company aims to allow as much free expression as possible unless it causes imminent risk of specific harms or damage. “We believe in values — democracy, competition, inclusion and free expression — that the American economy was built on,” he says in his testimony prepared for the hearing.

“I understand that people have concerns about the size and perceived power that tech companies have,” Zuckerberg’s statement says. “Ultimately, I believe companies shouldn’t be making so many judgments about important issues like harmful content, privacy and election integrity on their own. That’s why I’ve called for a more active role for governments and regulators, and updated rules for the internet.”

Google ad dominance questioned

Looking at Google, European regulators have concluded that the company manipulated its search engine to gain an unfair advantage over other online shopping sites in the e-commerce market, and fined Google, whose parent is Alphabet Inc., a record $2.7 billion US. Google has disputed the findings and is appealing.

Attorneys general in 50 states and territories, led by Texas, launched an antitrust investigation of Google in September, focused on its online advertising business.

“Google operates in highly competitive and dynamic global markets, in which prices are free or falling, and products are constantly improving,” Pichai says in his written testimony. “Competition in ads — from Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Comcast and others — has helped lower online advertising costs by 40 per cent over the last 10 years, with these savings passed down to consumers through lower prices.”

Apple, whose iPhone is the third-largest-selling phone in the world, faces EU investigations over the fees charged by its App Store and technical limitations that allegedly shut out competitors to Apple Pay.

“Apple does not have a dominant market share in any market where we do business,” Cook says.

He is making the case that the fees Apple charges apps to sell services and other goods are reasonable, especially compared with what other tech companies collect. In over a decade since the App Store launched, “we have never raised the commission or added a single fee,” Cook says in his testimony.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)



Source link

Business

Netflix’s subscriber growth slows as gains from password-sharing crackdown subside

Published

 on

 

Netflix on Thursday reported that its subscriber growth slowed dramatically during the summer, a sign the huge gains from the video-streaming service’s crackdown on freeloading viewers is tapering off.

The 5.1 million subscribers that Netflix added during the July-September period represented a 42% decline from the total gained during the same time last year. Even so, the company’s revenue and profit rose at a faster pace than analysts had projected, according to FactSet Research.

Netflix ended September with 282.7 million worldwide subscribers — far more than any other streaming service.

The Los Gatos, California, company earned $2.36 billion, or $5.40 per share, a 41% increase from the same time last year. Revenue climbed 15% from a year ago to $9.82 billion. Netflix management predicted the company’s revenue will rise at the same 15% year-over-year pace during the October-December period, slightly than better than analysts have been expecting.

The strong financial performance in the past quarter coupled with the upbeat forecast eclipsed any worries about slowing subscriber growth. Netflix’s stock price surged nearly 4% in extended trading after the numbers came out, building upon a more than 40% increase in the company’s shares so far this year.

The past quarter’s subscriber gains were the lowest posted in any three-month period since the beginning of last year. That drop-off indicates Netflix is shifting to a new phase after reaping the benefits from a ban on the once-rampant practice of sharing account passwords that enabled an estimated 100 million people watch its popular service without paying for it.

The crackdown, triggered by a rare loss of subscribers coming out of the pandemic in 2022, helped Netflix add 57 million subscribers from June 2022 through this June — an average of more than 7 million per quarter, while many of its industry rivals have been struggling as households curbed their discretionary spending.

Netflix’s gains also were propelled by a low-priced version of its service that included commercials for the first time in its history. The company still is only getting a small fraction of its revenue from the 2-year-old advertising push, but Netflix is intensifying its focus on that segment of its business to help boost its profits.

In a letter to shareholder, Netflix reiterated previous cautionary notes about its expansion into advertising, though the low-priced option including commercials has become its fastest growing segment.

“We have much more work to do improving our offering for advertisers, which will be a priority over the next few years,” Netflix management wrote in the letter.

As part of its evolution, Netflix has been increasingly supplementing its lineup of scripted TV series and movies with live programming, such as a Labor Day spectacle featuring renowned glutton Joey Chestnut setting a world record for gorging on hot dogs in a showdown with his longtime nemesis Takeru Kobayashi.

Netflix will be trying to attract more viewer during the current quarter with a Nov. 15 fight pitting former heavyweight champion Mike Tyson against Jake Paul, a YouTube sensation turned boxer, and two National Football League games on Christmas Day.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

Source link

Continue Reading

Business

All Magic Spells (TM) : Top Converting Magic Spell eCommerce Store

Published

 on

Product Name: All Magic Spells (TM) : Top Converting Magic Spell eCommerce Store

Click here to get All Magic Spells (TM) : Top Converting Magic Spell eCommerce Store at discounted price while it’s still available…

All orders are protected by SSL encryption – the highest industry standard for online security from trusted vendors.

All Magic Spells (TM) : Top Converting Magic Spell eCommerce Store is backed with a 60 Day No Questions Asked Money Back Guarantee. If within the first 60 days of receipt you are not satisfied with Wake Up Lean™, you can request a refund by sending an email to the address given inside the product and we will immediately refund your entire purchase price, with no questions asked.

(more…)

Continue Reading

Business

CPC Practice Exam

Published

 on

Product Name: CPC Practice Exam

Click here to get CPC Practice Exam at discounted price while it’s still available…

All orders are protected by SSL encryption – the highest industry standard for online security from trusted vendors.

CPC Practice Exam is backed with a 60 Day No Questions Asked Money Back Guarantee. If within the first 60 days of receipt you are not satisfied with Wake Up Lean™, you can request a refund by sending an email to the address given inside the product and we will immediately refund your entire purchase price, with no questions asked.

(more…)

Continue Reading

Trending

Exit mobile version