Congress Grills CEOs of Major Tech Companies.
BALDWIN: Right now, four of the nation's most powerful CEOs are getting grilled on Capitol Hill. Congress is investigating Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google. Live pictures here you go, to determine if these companies have used their power in their online dominance. And so, two hours into this hearing, Amazon's Jeff Bezos got his first question pressed on reports that Amazon uses third-party seller data to its own advantage.</s>REP. PARIMILA JAYAPAL (D-WA): Let me ask you, Mr. Bezos, does Amazon ever access and use third-party seller data when making business decisions? And just a yes or no will suffice, sir.</s>JEFF BEZOS, CEO, AMAZON: I can't answer that question yes or no. What I can tell you is we have a policy against using seller-specific data to aid our private label business. But I can't guarantee you that that policy has never been violated.</s>JAYAPAL: You have access to the entirety of sellers' pricing and inventory information, past, present, and future. And you dictate the participation of third-party sellers on your platform. So, you can set the rules of the game for your competitors, but not actually follow those same rules for yourself. Do you think that's fair to the mom and pop third-party businesses who are trying to sell on your platform?</s>BEZOS: I'm very proud of what we have done for third-party sellers on this platform.</s>BALDWIN: Let's go straight to CNN's Donie O'Sullivan. He has been following every minute of this. What has really stood out for you so far?</s>DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN REPORTER: Yes, just to break down what you just heard there, Brooke, Amazon has third-party independent retailers that use their sites to sell their products. Amazon, of course, can see how those products are being sold, who's buying them. And so the questions that are being asked is how are these big companies like Amazon and Facebook and Apple that run their own stores for their independent retailers, how are they using that data to then potentially quash those retailers, those competitors? And it's been really interesting. I mean this committee has been gathering details, internal documents from these companies for many months and the Democrats really are using this as an opportunity to release those documents. Representative Jerry Nadler asking Mark Zuckerberg about some emails he sent in 2012 about Instagram. Facebook acquired Instagram in 2012 and some internal emails had Zuckerberg talking about, you know, maybe we should buy these because they are attracts. One more email that I want to point out is that in 2012 Zuckerberg wrote we can always likely just buy any competitive startups, but it would be a while before we can buy Google. When he was asked about that in the committee today, he said he didn't remember sending that email but that it sounded like a joke. But that very much gets to the heart of this anti-trust issue. Are these companies too big, are they just going to swallow up and trample on any competition -- Brooke.</s>BALDWIN: Zuckerberg, someone who's been used to testifying in front of Congress, I say in front of in the age of COVID, obviously they're doing it, you know, distanced. But this is the first time Jeff Bezos has been in this sort of hot seat in front of members of Congress. So, a lot of eyeballs on him I know. Donie O'Sullivan, thank you so much. Good to see you. And good to be with all of you, I'm Brooke Baldwin. "The Lead" with Jake Tapper starts right now.