What happened on Wednesday
What's new: On Wednesday, the CEOs of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google testified before the House Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on antitrust.
Why this matters: Bipartisan concerns about "big tech" are driving a host of legislative, legal, and political actions and this week's hearing highlighted them all.
Key points:
Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, Mark Zuckerberg, and Sundar Pichai spent more than five hours answering questions.
Republicans, as anticipated, largely focused their questions around perceptions of anti-conservative bias.
Democrats largely focused on the companies' business models and perceptions of monopolistic practices.
Both sides of the aisle cast these companies as too big, too powerful, and too unaccountable.
The CEOs, while occasionally pushing back on some characterizations, largely just took it and exited the hearing without taking significant damage.
Go deeper:
Amazon was frequently asked about its reported use of internal metrics to unfairly advantage its products while constraining third-party sellers.
Apple was challenged on its control over its app store and over the fees it charges app developers.
Facebook was pressed on its acquisition of WhatsApp and Instagram, with Democrats using quotes from company emails to assert the social network clearly sought to head-off potential rivals.
Google had to explain its 2007 acquisition of the online marketing company DoubleClick as well as the company's ongoing use of user data for ad targeting.
All of them were accused of controlling information, surveilling users and competitors, and generally abusing their power.
What we're thinking: The companies appear to have avoided major mistakes, but some of the questions received surprising admissions that will undoubtedly be used by regulators currently conducting investigations.
Klon Kitchen is a managing director at Beacon Global Strategies and a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
