Jeff Bezos testifies in a virtual hearing on antitrust laws

[whohit]Jeff Bezos testifies in a virtual hearing on antitrust laws[/whohit]The CEOs of the four biggest tech firms faced Congress on Wednesday, being accused of running monopolies, trampling small businesses and would-be competitors.

For more than five hours Jeff Bezos, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai of Google and Tim Cook of Apple testified before the Antitrust, Commercial, and Administrative Law Subcommittee. 

Jeff Bezos escaped questioning for about an hour in what may have been the result of a tech glitch – and then got caught trying to answer while on mute.

He also sneaked in a snack which was caught on camera. 

Bezos, in his first ever appearance before a congressional committee, defended Amazon’s dealings with third-party sellers after a blistering attack from Cicilline.

Regulators in the U.S. and Europe have scrutinized Amazon’s relationship with the businesses that sell on its site and whether the online shopping giant has been using data from the sellers to create its own private-label products. 

‘Isn’t it true that small businesses have no real option but rely on Amazon to connect with customers to make online sales?’ the committee chair asked.

‘We’ve heard from third party sellers again and again during the course of our investigation that Amazon is the only game in town.’

But then Bezos said that he couldn’t guarantee that Amazon had not accessed seller data to make competing products, an allegation that the company and its executives have previously denied. 

Cicilline told how a one seller did well as a third-party on Amazon – but then the company launched its own version of their product but at a lower price.

He read the account of the seller who said: ‘We called it Amazon heroin. Amazon strings you along for a while, because it feels so good to get that paycheck every week.’  

Democrat Pramila Jayapal pressed Amazon’s Bezos on whether the company used data from third-party sellers in making sales decisions. In a previous hearing, an Amazon executive denied this under oath and was contradicted by a later news report.

Bezos answered cautiously that the company had a policy against such actions. ‘If we found that somebody violated it, we would take action against them,’ he said. 

‘We have a policy against using seller specific data to aid our private label business,’ Bezos said in a response to a question from Jayapal. ‘But I can´t guarantee to you that that policy hasn’t been violated.’ 

 But he came under sustained assault on what happened between his company and one-time competitor Diapers.com, with emails revealing how executives said it had to be beaten on price ‘at any cost.’

Diapers.com and Soap.com were run by Quidsi, before the online retailer made a $545 million deal in late 2010 to buy the startup.

Amazon shut down its Quidsi unit, which runs websites Diapers.com and Soap.com, due to a persistent lack of profitability there in 2017.

At the time an Amazon spokesperson: ‘Quidsi has great brand expertise and they will continue to offer selection on Amazon.com; the software development team will focus on building technology for AmazonFresh.’

AmazonFresh lets people shop online for grocery store goods, including pet, baby and beauty supplies.

Quidsi co-founder Marc Lore went on to create another online commerce company, Jet.com, which was bought last year by Walmart for about $3 billion in a move aimed at competing with Amazon.