Mike Peterson
The U.S. House Judiciary Committee has officially postponed an antitrust hearing that was set to feature major tech executives like Apple CEO Tim Cook.
The hearing was originally slated for 12 p.m. on Monday, July 27. A new date for the meeting has not yet been announced by the House Judiciary Committee.
The House reportedly delayed the meeting due to memorial services for late Rep. John Lewis, which are scheduled to take in Washington, D.C., on the same day, according to CNBC.
Cook, Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos were all prepared to testify before the House Antitrust Subcommittee on Monday.
The meeting is meant to cap off a months-long bipartisan investigation of the four major technology companies. It sought to determine whether those companies were leveraging their power to stifle competition in the market.
Apple is under scrutiny for its App Store business, "Sherlocking" of third-party apps and management of parental control apps, among other issues.
Following the testimonies of the tech executives, lawmakers are expected to release a report of the probe's findings, as well as proposals for new antitrust regulations. Although the report was originally planned for April, the COVID-19 pandemic has pushed back that timeline to sometime in the fall.
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7 Comments
It’s a ridiculous meeting. Delay it indefinitely.
The whole thing is populist attempt at vote buying.
All of these companies have monopolistic tendencies, but for each they manifest themselves VERY differently, and for each totally different measures would be appropriate.
Apple is the least worrisome of the bunch, but even with Apple, there are things legislation should be made to stop certain practices, or allow alternatives such as to wrestle away from Apple complete control over what owners can do with the devices they own.
Maybe the authorities have figured out that bringing down Apple would basically bring down our economy.
OK, I must admit to being totally wrong in my prediction in the prior piece on this topic, where I said that it would be impossibe to get all four CEOs in the same room any time soon: Looks like it's happening Wednesday.
https://twitter.com/ceciliakang/status/1287040851223478277?s=20