Amazon, Google Confronted by House Committee on Small Business
Big technology companies faced another congressional inquiry on Thursday.
(Bloomberg) -- Big technology companies faced another congressional inquiry on Thursday, as the House Small Business Committee questioned executives from Amazon.com Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google about whether their market dominance unfairly hinders upstart companies.
The hearing was the latest salvo against tech giants, which are facing a litany of investigations by Congress, the Federal Trade Commission, the Justice Department and state attorneys general.
Some lawmakers have expressed concerns that companies such as Amazon have the ability to glean customer trends from third-party sales and take steps to compete with those companies. Google’s dominance in internet search means that small firms sometimes have little choice but to buy advertising from the company to promote themselves, lawmakers said.
Chairwoman Nydia Velázquez, a Democrat from New York, said in her opening remarks Thursday that big tech firms’ selling and advertising platforms can increase entrepreneurs’ reach but that their size “raises questions that should concern anyone who cares about market access, data privacy, small business development, entrepreneurship, and innovation.”
The Small Business Committee had also invited Apple Inc. and Facebook Inc. to participate, but Velázquez said executives from those companies declined to attend. The witness table included two empty chairs, which Velázquez said represented those companies’ absence.
Apple’s and Facebook’s “failure to appear not only impedes Congress’ mission, but also speaks volumes about the companies’ commitment to transparency and their very own customers,” Velázquez said in her opening remarks.
“While we regret that we could not participate in this week’s hearing, we are firmly committed to the 140 million businesses that use Facebook apps every month as well as to anyone looking to launch and grow a business and to gain the digital skills they need to compete in today’s economy,” Facebook said in a statement.
Apple did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In his testimony, Amazon Vice President Dharmesh Mehta pointed to the rapid growth of sales by third parties on the companies’ platforms and told anecdotes about small businesses that have succeeded through the company.
Erica Swanson, Google’s head of community engagement, highlighted a company initiative called “Grow with Google,” which in part helps train people who run small businesses using the company’s tools.
Even before the hearing, Google has been pressing its case in Congress.
At a breakfast presentation in a House office building in October, the company’s global policy chief, Karan Bhatia, and the powerful U.S. Chamber of Commerce lobbying group spoke to congressional staffers about opportunities for small businesses to export their products around the world using Google’s tools.
--With assistance from Mark Gurman and Ben Brody.
To contact the reporter on this story: Joe Light in Washington at jlight8@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Sara Forden at sforden@bloomberg.net, Mark Niquette, Paula Dwyer
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