Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos escapes early questions at Antitrust Hearing due to tech glitches

World’s richest person, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos appeared before the US Congress for the first time in regards to the antitrust hearing on July 29 but managed to dodge early questions for over an hour due to technical glitches. The committee seemed determined to grill CEOs of big tech virtually including Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Sundar Pichai of Google and Tim Cook of Apple through video conference and proposed an array of questions on alleges abuses of market power. 

Jeff Bezos was questioned intensely in the second half of the hearing but it was not just the tech glitches that hindered the procedure in Washington. From poor audio quality to flat-screen televisions shutting down and the CEO’s appearing together as thumbnails on a large screen, the poor virtual set up triggered the viewers on Twitter and other frustrated observers to mock the hearing. For the last year, the House Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust has investigated the Silicon Valley tech giants in a bid to determine if they need to be regulated more intensely or dismantled. 

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The committee has not yet responded on the issue but Emily Bell the director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University, shared a screenshot of the executives displayed in small side-by-side boxes and called it ‘worst zoom’. Later on in the hearing, the CEO’s were then shown virtually on large screens which then prompted the viewers to judge their surroundings. Others still continued to criticise the sound quality of the executives or lagging audio. 

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Bezos noted alleged misdeeds at Amazon

Despite the struggles, Amazon CEO managed to acknowledge the misdeeds at the company including the reports stating it used the data generated by the independent sellers on its platform to compete against them. This, however, would be ‘unacceptable’ if proven to be true. Bezos has said during the antitrust hearing that he can not assure that Amazon did not access seller data to make competing products. This was the same allegation that was denied by other Amazon executives earlier. 

In response to the question posed by Rep Pramila Jayapal, Jeff Bezos said, “We have a policy against using seller specific data to aid our private label business. But I can’t guarantee to you that that policy hasn’t been violated.”

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(With inputs from agencies)

Image: AP