Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google Come Under Congressional Scrutiny, House Wants Emails And Financial Records In Anti-Trust Probe

As part of an ongoing anti-trust probe aimed at major tech giants, a House panel has demanded emails, financial information, and other records from executives at Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google in a recent letter. The deadline for the request is Oct. 14, by which time the panel seeks to acquire internal emails from the past decade from company CEO’s Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook, Mark Zuckerberg, and Larry Page, respectively.

“There is growing evidence that a handful of corporations have come to capture an outsized share of online commerce and communications,” House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler said in the letter. Nadler, a Democrat from New York, signed the letter alongside Ranking Republican Rep. Doug Collins; Rep. David Cicilline, who chairs the antitrust subcommittee; and ranking Republican Jim Sensenbrenner.

“This information is key in helping determine whether anticompetitive behavior is occurring, whether our antitrust enforcement agencies should investigate specific issues and whether or not our antitrust laws need improvement to better promote competition in the digital markets,” Rep. Collins said in a statement.

These lawmakers are specifically seeking correspondences between senior executives regarding several major acquisitions. These include Amazon’s AbeBooks, Eero, PillPack, Whole Foods, and Zappos, as well as Google’s AdMob, Android, DoubleClick, and YouTube. They are also seeking information regarding things like Google’s policy of automatically signing users into Chrome on any Google device they use, and Apple’s policy about setting non-Apple apps as defaults.

The committee also seeks insight into Facebook’s purchases of Instagram, WhatsApp, and Onavo, as well as its integration of the former two apps with Facebook Messenger and its decision to cut other apps from its network of services.

The Department of Justice in July first announced plans to investigate whether and how much these massive companies engage in anti-competitive practices.