Apple CEO Tim Cook Testifies in U.S. Antitrust Hearing

[I7guy]

Good luck? Apple have been buying every start up and wipe them out so they do not have competitors. Every emerging new technology they buy and is never release. Like the oil companies that have been buying every green technology like the hydrogen engines that only emit water. Same thing. Apple is keeping all those invention like liquid metal, so nobody else can use it.

Good luck?

As opposed to google and facebook...who do none of that and are pristine shining examples of corporations that can be trusted with our data.

 

[MauiPa]

Apple's Tim Cook, as well as other prominent tech CEOs, testified before the U.S. House Antitrust Subcommittee on Wednesday.

The hearing is a culmination of a monthslong investigation into whether or not Apple and other dominant technology juggernauts are leveraging their power to snuff out competition. Back in 2019, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee launched the bipartisan probe.

For Apple's part, much of the investigation's focus centers on the company's App Store policies. That includes its cut of in-app purchases, as well as allegations of a "copy-acquire-kill" strategy.

Cook, in a prepared statement, denied claims that Apple participates in anticompetitive behavior, saying that the Cupertino company does not "have a dominant market share in any market where we do business."

The findings of the House's investigation, backed by the CEO testimonies Wednesday, will be written into a report that the subcommittee may release later in 2020.

Although the House won't take any enforcement action itself, it could make recommendations for legislative or regulatory changes to the market. Additionally, it's likely that the report will be used as further evidence in the argument to break up big tech companies.

shame google and others charge so much of a cut of in-app purchases. makes the argument that apple charges too much moot. It was brilliant to create a report of all the competitors' charge structures. Maybe it is too much, but then they all charge too much. Or free market is free to set prices. Damn, which side am I on?

 

[mfm77]

I was waiting for Sensenbrenner to bring up Compuserve and Prodigy before yelling, "Get off my lawn!"

 

[macpro2000]

Listening to the Google CEO, he sure sounds trustworthy...NOT.

 

[johannnn]

I don't see Bezos/Cook/Pichai/Zuckerberg wearing AirPods or anything. How are they avoiding echo from the congress voices?

 

[theapplehead]

Someone needs to remind these Congress folks that this is an antitrust meeting. Not a meeting to complain about unfair political advantages these companies may or may not be giving one group or the other. Can’t believe the one representative who spent the majority of his time complaining to Pichai that his political emails were going to spam and not the regular inbox. And now we have Jim Jordan making this a political show and complaining about Google Search tailoring to Dems. Be that as it may, this hearing isn’t about political advantages. This is an antitrust hearing people. This is getting ridiculous. If you want to talk about companies giving politicians or political parties unfair advantages, have a separate hearing dedicated to it. Don’t do it during this antitrust hearing.

 

[Kabeyun]

Jim Jordan is a s̶t̶u̶d̶ notoriety-seeking schmuck.

Fixed. Wouldn’t want there to be lapses in accuracy around here.

 

[rp2011]

It’s great that they are being scrutinized. Nobody wants unfair competitive practices, but these specific companies are as big and ubiquitous as they are because of innovation and the value to consumers and society they have created and under the same exact principles of every business operating today. Every business today strives to dominate their market. That’s the way it is.
Having said that, any monopolistic and anti-competitive behaviors have to be called out and eliminated wherever possible.

 

[aandre]

This Subcommittee is frying the CEOs.

I highly recommend this collection of articles from the Wall Street Journal:

Big Tech: Everything You Need to Know

Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Google face scrutiny over their market dominance and how they operate

www.wsj.com

 

[Rogifan]

Tim Cook has received one question so far.

 

[rp2011]

Amazon and Google are getting slammed. Their practices getting the most scrutiny. Amazon of course is getting the brunt of it and rightly so.
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With so many valid reasons for this investigation, it’s sad to see the usual partisan shysters take attention from the important issues only to promote the worst politics has to offer.

 

[california_kid]

Things I was expecting these politicians to ask:

1) Is it true your website gives cookies to peoples' computers? Then why don't you offer vegan or sugar free cookies?
2) Do your computers use cache? Where did you get all this cache from without reporting it to the IRS? Where are the bank records?
3) Why does your website keep asking for my password every time I go there? You must have some bad computers that keep forgetting what my password is. How hard is to remember "12345"?
4) I heard something about your computers byte, don't you think you should protect your customers from getting bitten?
5) Why don't your website servers get full health insurance and benefits?

 

[powerless]

Was Tim just asked about Aperture and he replied that "he's not familiar with that app"?

 

[bobmans]

Was Tim just asked about Aperture and he replied that "he's not familiar with that app"?

He was asked about Absher. It's an application developped by the Saudi Arabian government used to manage over 170 government related things (registering drivers license, birth, insurances, etc..) but often criticized because it's also used by Saudi Arabian men to grant (and more often revoke) travelling permission to their wive(s), tracking their wives, etc.. There's a lot wrong with this application that would violate human rights in the majority of countries in the world.

Tim Cook definitely heard about this application before tho.

 

[Rogifan]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1288567281396711426

 

[nfl_brah]

That was another great example of why we need term limits for Penguin, I mean Nadler, and the rest of these cronies.

 

[superlawyer15]

Google is a far better candidate for the Sherman hammer.

They need to be broken up into 4 different companies. YouTube, android and two search engines.

 

[Brookzy]

I thought our "Select Committees" in the UK were bad in terms of poorly-researched questions and tolerance for low quality answers.

This was something else.

What is the point in testifying if the answers are limited to three seconds before being interrupted.

There is a balance to be struck between not letting them go on a rehearsed PR stunt, and letting them answer with some detail. This is not it.

 

[jonblatho]

Jim Jordan is a stud.

Ah, yes, when I see Gym Jordan, the first thing I think is “You may not like it, but this is what peak male performance looks like.”

 

[Ar40]

I'm surprised the congresspeople didn't constantly "reclaim their time" to talk over the interviewees. It seems like that's the usual order of the day in Congress.

 

[tgara]

They have a limited time to get points across.

Yes, but then why invite Cook, Pichai, et al. to testify in the first place if they are not interested in what they have to say? If the Members are just going to bloviate, they can do that on floor speeches by themselves and save the witnesses the trouble. This is part of the reason why Congress has such high disapproval ratings.

 

[apple_unreal]

you do know that all big companies buy small companies with small pieces of technological expertise, right? Nothing to see here. That is one way that small companies monetize their owner's ideas. It would be almost impossible to create a small idea in a big market and compete solely on the benefit of the idea. Besides, no one forces a small company to sell, they sell because the like the terms of the deal.

Watch a few episodes of silicon valley.

Ok... let me give you one example... Nvidia. Another example: Flash.

You see, you see? I won, I was right and you won't. You see?

 

[ggibson913]

Their take is that the App Store is a monopoly. However, from my personal point of view, people have options of not buying into the App Store by selecting a different phone from a different manufacturer. Cook did explicitly state so, that Apple has Chinese manufacturers and Samsung to compete against.

As well as the Android and Amazon App store.

 

[wakeupworld]

Political theater. NOTHING will come out of this. Both parties don't give a damn for the people and are bought by huge corporations like Apple, Amazon, Google and Facebook that are on display today.

yep, pretty digusting. The one person that absolutely needs to be there is the piece of sh*t Dorsey. They censor, they should be held accountable. As far as I'm concerned our world was much better place with out the useless social media corps.

 

[I7guy]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1288567281396711426

Don't for profit and even some non-profit companies discuss ways of increasing their margins in a way that customers won't mass exit from the company's products. edited for clarity