House Antitrust Panel Sets Hearing on Privacy and Competition

(Bloomberg) -- The House panel probing Big Tech over antitrust concerns will hold a hearing Sept. 12 on the impact of data and privacy on competition in the digital marketplace.

The committee will hear from Australian Competition and Consumer Commission Chairman Rod Sims, Rohit Chopra of the Federal Trade Commission, former Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Jason Furman and Roslyn Layton of the libertarian American Enterprise Institute, according to a statement Thursday by the panel’s chairman, Democrat David Cicilline of Rhode Island.

The hearing on data and privacy marks the third of Cicilline’s broad antitrust inquiry. He has already held a hearing on the effect of digital platforms such as Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Facebook Inc. on the news industry, and a session on innovation and entrepreneurship in July that featured appearances by executives from Google, Facebook, Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc.

During the July hearing, Cicilline focused on Amazon’s relationship with third-party merchants that sell on its site. He later suggested the lawyer from the company hadn’t been fully truthful in his testimony.

The House probe comes as federal and state antitrust enforcers also increase scrutiny of tech companies. The Justice Department is examining Google’s digital advertising and search operations, Bloomberg has reported, and Facebook has disclosed it is the subject of a Federal Trade Commission antitrust probe.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ben Brody in Washington at btenerellabr@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Sara Forden at sforden@bloomberg.net, Steve Geimann

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