Kyle andeer. Pint rest spotify lyft uber. The algorithms are opt newsed to predict what customers want to buy regardless of the seller. We equalize the taim same criteria. With respect to popularity, we provide the ranking of each product. I just want to give you an example of an entrepreneurial sells on sales source, great for her, great for amazon, more people become amazon prime customers, sensing her success. The next thing that happens is they discover amazon rolled out a direct replica and gives itself top billing, which turns people to page 3 results which no one would see, how would any entrepreneur invest from that environment with i that can happen, which there is no assurance that it wont . Our incentive is to see the client succeed. If we do that, we do not use their individual data when we are making digs to launch private brands. Thank you. Now turning to Google Search for a moment, mr. Cohen, similar results in amazon, every day people thinking they are getting the best, most accurate result for searches for the products or services theyre looking for. Instead what is happening is people are seeing results for googles own services. In 2004, googles fonder larry page is people come to google, quickly find out what you want and get to the right place as fast as possible. Would you agree google still claims thats your guides principles . Congressman, our goal is to provide users information as quickly and efficiently as possible. I want to turn your attention to a study by rand nicekin, his study reviewed desktops and found the traffic from google no longer goes to the broader web but instead stays on google products. The saecond is from capra products is google is sharinging trophic within googles ecosystem, a walled garden. Do you agree google is no longer showing the best products but giving them results to keep them on googles product, googles platform . Thank you for the question. I cant say im familiar with those studies. What i can say is we send a lot of collision to our own services we aimed to connect merchant, airline, a range of other services directly with consumers, making the Consumer Experience better and making the experience for advertisers and merchants better. I regret my time is expired. I would ask you to review these studies, innovators and entre pre in newer entrepreneurs dont have track. They keep them inside the walled garden, it ceases to be an opportunity. My time is long expired. I now recognize mr. Stube, the gentleman from florida. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Ive got a very important question for apple i believe is on the minds of all americans, why do you keep giving the aplert upon the the icloud and the. Fine cents constantly until you pay the. 99 for icloud but you are not using it . Thank you, congressman. Im afraid im not aware of the details around what you are talking about. Id be happy to get back to you with any information on that. But im honestly not familiar with that. Yeah, if you can give me some information on that ive seen it. A lot of people ask me about the fact that they get these alert, you dont want to use it. But the alerts wont go away until you pay the. 99 cents but you are not using it. Id like to go to amazon for a second and peggyback on the chairs questions. Whats the current market share of amazon in current u. S. Domestic retail sales . Namson is 1 of the Global Retail market and 4 of the Retail Market approximately. So only 1 of the domestic retail sales who is above amazon in total u. S. Market shares . In the u. S. , walmart is twotothree times larger than we are. Are there others or just walmart . I dont know anyone who are potentially larger . There are thousands of competitors across the retail landscape. Who is the total share that told domestic Online Retail sales . Online is not a separate market. Its on their channel. We know commerce shop both offline and online. With respect to online, amazon is one of the leading retailers. Oh, there are many ought retailers, including walmart and every other major retailer who has a large Online Presence as well as online players such as ebay. So you are 1 you stated, is that correct . 1 of the Global Retail mark. 4 of the u. S. Lets focus on u. S. 4 of the market. What itself largest share of any retailer in the total u. S. Retail mark . Amazon focuses on our customers. So im not sure of the exact market shares of all of our competitors. Thats not what we focus on as a company. I do know walmart is many times our sales in the u. S. Am sean Online Retail shares growing at a faster rate or along all levels, i know walmart put a lot of investment in their online platform, how do you compare to other Stores Online . Thank you for the question. The Third Party Reports walmart is growing at a faster report online. Competing sellers as a distributors and serves other sellers simply as an Online Marketplace platform in which they can reach their customers. Which you testified before. Explain to me how that does or doesnt translate into amazon is leveraging allegedly dominant Retail Market power into antibehaviors against other sellers . I think the clearest answer to that question is, from the evidence showing how much weve invested to help those Third Party Sellers, since we invited them into our store grow. Theyre the majority of our sales. Theyre growing twice as fast. We think its great for smallened medium size businesses and our examiners. Are you aware that Consumer Choices in the outlet u. S. Market is declining or theyre failing to keep Retail Consumer prices down . Im only aware of data showing increasing choices for consumers today. Man. Were going to get back to icloud. What is amazons share of the Storage Market for the online cloud . For your cloud . We offer aws for enterprises, which is a different than a personal online storage. Okay. Were any other comment on that . With respect to enterprises, the vast majority of that space is still operating on premise servers and cloud is a few and developing space. We are unu one of the innovators. We are a leader. But the competition primarily exists with longstanding on premise, i. T. Competitors. When did amazon get into the Cloud Services market . A number of years ago. I dont remember the exact year. And how fast has its market share grown on the cloud . Amazon innovated and veiateing cloud options for storage and compute enterprises. So as one of the early innovators, we had a lead. But major competitors have entered and are closing that gap, such as microsoft, google and many others, although, cloud is in its early days and i. T. Is serviced through on premise servers. Okay. Thank you. My time is expired. Thank you the chair now recognizes the gentleman from georgia, mr. Johnson for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. And thank you for holding this very important and timely Committee Hearing and also i want to thank the witnesses for your appearance today. Sit perpr perrow or perrow. Thank you, sir. When was the last time that facebook changed its terms and condition conditions . Thank you, congressman, we you dont need to thank me. We evaluate our terms and conditions on a regular basis. When is the last team you changed them . We are constantly changing ours so people have the best product. Over the last year, how many times have you changed the terms and conditions . Congressman, i dont have the spec data on that id be happy to get back to you . And times . Congressman, i dont have the data. But i do know that we certainly face significant concerns about various different asuspects of our products, including privacy. Thats one of the reasons we have called for regulation in that area. Okay. Well, i just wanted to know approximately how many times terms and conditions have changed . A recent report from the stickler center observed one way in which digital platforms exploit their market share or power is by requiring consumers to agree to terms and conditions that are unclear, difficult to understand, and constantly changing. Do you adpee with that assessment agree we that assessment . Congressman, we take privacy very seriously. Its important to us that we provide users with significant transparency and control. I understand. I go es the point im trying to understand is the users dont have much buyin to the situation. They have to check the box agreeing to the terms and conditions, oftentimes having not read it in order to get the service or maintain the stfrso service or they go without the service. So a user may is sign up with one set of terms and conditions and best valuable time in building a social network on facebook and then a month later be faced with a different set of terms and conditions. And because there is no real alternative to facebook, the user has no choice but to accept those changes. Isnt that correct . New york congressman, that is not correct. We certainly is there various competition to facebook . Yes, congressman, there is. We face fierce competition for all the products and services we offer. Who would be the competition, if i might . So many of our competitors. Is that secret . Many of our competitors are sitting here at this table with me. I think youre in a unique chair, in a unique position among those who are seated at the table. Each one of you occupy a unique and dominant position, but facebook stand alone in terms of certainly media. Own other social media platform that can compete with facebook . Congressman, we certainly hope in many ways we are unique. There may no be an identical competitor to facebook. We try to differentiate our services. In advertising offline, id like to get a list from you, sir, that i can do some shopping around, mail. And thats not to disparage facebooks offering. I just would like to know who your competition is. Its not readily apparent. Facebooks terms of service maintain that users quote own end quote their data, yet, nice e facebook has repeatedly prevented users from transferring their data to certain rival platforms, including twitter, find, boxer, and message me. How do you reconcile facebooks stated policy that users own their data with facebooks repeated refusal to allow users to transfer their data to rival platforms . Congressman, we do offer a data portability product. Weve offered that product for a long period of time. Its called download your information. Weve improved that product in the wake of the gdpr in europe. Were actually a member of the you can actually transfer the facebook data to another platform . Congressman, you are able to take your data out of facebook to another platform, yes. We are also members of the Data Transfer project, along with several other companies to try to look for ways to facilitate better data portability and our ceo, mark zuckerberg, has actually called for regulation in this area because of many of the difficult technical and privacy issues at stake. Its one were hoping to look to work with congress on to improve the offerings for our users. All right. Thank you, sir. And i yield back. We now recognize the woman from florida, miss demings. Thank you to congress and witnesses for being with us today. Mr. Sutton, bear with us. In repeat years, amazon has started selling digital advertisement placements. Analysts estimate that digital ads brought in around 11 billion in business last year. Because businesses are increasingly dependent on amazon, some of them are concerned that amazon is using its ad business to squeeze more money. As a plume berg reporter recently wrote, amazons advertising better understood as an additional attack the company imposes on the millions of businesses that sell through its sastt digital vast digital malls. Its one more toll extracted from sellers according to the reporter. Given how dependent businesses are on amazons platforms for online sales, what, if anything, prevents amazon from using ads for charging a toll for using its platforms . Thank you for the question. We do offer advertising as a service to our sellers as an Optional Service thats not necessary but that they can use to help getter that production discovered. The large majority of products sold in our store are fought sold through advertisements. Again, there are many ways in which sillers have many options. We provide that as an additional one. We know they have many other online. What was your response to the reporters statement that amazons advertising is better understood as an additional tax the company imposes on the multis of businesses it sells through its vast digital mall. Respectfully, i disagree, that statement is not correct. Its not a tax. Its like Many Services that are option allege. Again there are many ways sellers can advertise through general purpose search, which still remains the most popular way for customers to find products online. In fact, its one of the reasons we are the largest customer of goog. You sa i the number is correct, you brought in about 11 billion in advertising last year, does that sound about right . I dont know that exact figure. Im happy to follow up with it. Okay. Mr. Sutton, who do you view as amazons competitors with regard to Third Party Sellers and if youve already covered this, i do apologize, but who do you view as amazons competitors as it pertains to Third Party Sellers . Thank you for the question. Third Party Sellers have a wide variety of ways to sell. They can sell directly through brick and Mortar Retail stores, through their own website. There are dozens of Online Market places available for them as well from walmart to ebay. Lets say if im a Third Party Seller what other platforms can i list my production on that will allow them to be seen by a xacompetin number of buyers . Thank you. Again they could list on walmart, they could list on ebay, target now has launched a marketplace. There are new other marketplaces, including the ones from combine eads companies, ali baba, raka the tan, there are increasing numbers and so many mark places that is a billion there are industry that has grown up to use to list across all marketplaces at the same time. You believe that those other platforms are competitive, allow for Competitive Services . Yes, absolutely. Okay. Mr. Chairman, i yield back. Thank you. Thank you. I now recognize the gentleman from colorado for five minutes mr. Nagus. Thank you for your testimony, i agree with my distinguished colleagues from noor. Com. Its case specific and industry specific and so forth. I want to talk a little today about facebook. Mr. Perallt. Is facebook in your view a monopoly . New york congressman, it is not. Okay so i assume the reason is because, in your view, facebook has a number of competitors as you said and a number of products that the company offers, would that be a fair characterization of your view . Yes, congressman, thats correct. What is the largest social Media NetworkPlatform Company by active users in the world, do you know . Congressman, i dont. I do know we have 2. 7 being useers ki tell you that its facebook is number one. Do you know the Third Largest company is whatsapp. Who owns whatsapp or who owns it . We do. Facebook, correct. Yes, congressman. The fourth largest social Media Networking platform in the world by active users is Facebook Messenger. I wont make you answer the question. Suffice to say that that company is, that service also owned by facebook. This sixth largest is instagram. What company owns instagram . Congressman, facebook does. Okay. So you can understand skepticism because when a company owns four of the largest six entities measured by active users in the world in that industry, we have a word for that. Thats monopoly or at least monopoly power. Now, with respect to my colleague the distinguished gentleman from wisconsin, he is right, that under thesterman antitrust act a measure of whether or not a company has engaged in monopolistic activities is whether or not there is conduct at play. But i suspect you and i may have some disagreements on that front. Just to give you a sense of the way in which the number of us are evaluating the facts before us, if you could turn exhibit 1. 5 Committee Staff would just put that up on the screen. This is a document, my understanding is there are a number of documents published about eight months ago as a result of a parliamentary inquiry conducted bety Uk Parliament with respect to facebook and various activities of the company. This is a platform policy, platform policy number 4. And you will see under there, highlighted subparagraph 1. The language, add something unique to the community. Dont replicate core functionality that facebook already provides. This was a policy maintained by facebook, is that correct . The that is correct. Although, unfortunately, im having trouble seeing the exhibit as ive gotten older, my eye versus gotten worse. Mine as well. Well be sure to provide you a copy. This is no longer a policy maintained by facebook. Is that correct . Congressman, thats correct. And i presume that is because this policy facially would be construed as an anticompetitive one. Correct . Congressman, we have thank you very much, the facebook platform was designed to enable third partys to engage in complimentary innovation that would benefit the people who use our services. When we launched the facebook platform, we did have rules of the road. We continue to have rules of the road that balance a variety of consideration, including protecting the users experience, protecting privacy and protecting our investment in our products. We have reevaluated those policies overtime and have changed them to fit the evolving nature of the industry in which we exist. I appreciate that and i understand that industries change, industries evolve and your business has to evolve to comport with that. I would say from my Vantage Point is my understand secretary facebook had a policy early in its tenure, its exhibit 1, in which the company welcomed developers with competing application, including developers whose applications might compete with facebookbuilt applications. That was a policy that was then repealed in favor of policy 4. 1. The prior document that i just showed. So this notion that facebook has been opened to competition as you described in your opening testimony. This notion that its a core value of the company is not borne out by the documentary evidence that weve seen. I think thats in part why we are having this hearing today i see my time is expired. I yield back. I now recognize the woman from georgia. Thank you, gentleman, for your testimony today. I am truly deeply concerned about the success of businesses in my district. I represent georgias sixth Congressional District and owned businesses are the Economic Life blood of our communities and they should have access to markets and consumers without safety anticompetitive constraint. I also believe that congress and action versus a serious responsibility to make sure that their real competition in the market so that startups, small businesses, and local retailers are able to compete on the merits and give people the best options they can find. Mr. Sutton, this morning i met with sellers that have had a very positive experience growing their business through amazon. But some sellers have had a completely different kind of experience. Some sellers report that amazon uses a variety of tactics to funnel merchants into using fulfillment by amazon, International Antitrust authorities are investigating whether they privilege third party ventedors that use fulfillment by amazon. Does amazon privileged vendors who use the Fulfillment Service over those who choose not to . Thank you for the question. Amazons very proud of all weve done to invest and help sellers succeed and one of those ways is we built a very Successful Operation and Delivery System and we open that up and made that available for sellers to use, fulfillment by amazon. Its an opening allege Service Sellers can use if they want to. We continue to invest and provide tools for them to ship directly as well. We apply the same. We do not favor products that use fba over others. Obviously, fba is one way to provide quick delivery amongst many and we know our customers do appreciate quick delivery. Thats why we gave that as on option to use as monkst the various shipping elements they have. On the second panel today, Miss Mitchell in her testimony highlights how amazon abruptly and arbitrarily suspends merchants account, freezing the accounts. According to her statement, amazon frequently makes these decisions without explanation leaving merchants to navigate a black box while their livelihoods are hanging in the balance. According to other report in the verge, quote, sellers are more worried about a cake being opened on amazon than in actual end quote. Mr. Sutton, how many employees does amazon have addressing these kind of concerns . Thank you. Amazon again partners with sellers and were very proud of our success in helping them grow and theyll be growing twice as fast as amazon. And how many do you have, sir, that are we have thousands of employees dedicated to helping and address concerns from Third Party Sellers. We do we absolutely do not take arbitrary action. But we do have to take action on occasion. When necessary, there are a dedicated group of bad actors that sell counterfeit products or dangerous products. We have to take twist and immediate action to protect the legitimate sellers. We try to provide a transparent processing and provide an opportunity to appeal. In the vast number of situations, they do not take advantage of those opportunities. So how do you respond to the concern from merchants who have been abruptly suspended by amazon who they say have no way of ever reaching an amazon employee to maker that case. So what recourse do they actually have . We provide a variety of ways for them to reach out. Such as . I dont know of the full way, i know we have a dedicated examiner team. We provide a dashboard tool so they can see the status of their account. We have a theme thatly a firmtively follow up in the more serious cases. We may communicate via email and allow them to respond via email. There is a variety of ways in which we try to communicate and receive communications from our sellers. Id be happy to follow up and provide the full details of that for you as well. If you could, id appreciate it. Its important we keep good paying jobs. Too often, we hear retailers, manufacturers and suppliers have an uphill battle due to complaint yettive prices online. Numerous reports have identified instances when online platforms, priced goods significantly below cost over the long term, threatening main stream businesses and other retailers who cant compete on those terms. In ra letter im going to ask to replace the record for today, mr. Chairman. Without objection. Thank you, the Retail Industry leaders notes although the hallmark of americas Retail Industry, the absence of competition elsewhere in the retail ecosystem stifles the benefits that have historically resulted from the intense competition, through this intense competition. Mr. Sutton, once again, how do you respond to concerns that amazon has the ability to absorb losses in any market that it chooses . Thank you. Amazon faces fierce retail competition across many and many members amongst rela our biggest competitor such as walmart. Amazon has run pa profitable resell business. The business in the United States has been profitable. Thank you. Mr. Cohen. Given the extraordinary challenges. Our ladys time has expired. If you have to, okay. Thank you. Thank you. The chair recognizes a gentleman from maryland. Mr. Raskin. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I have a question for mr. Cohen, according to data produced by rand fishkin, google controls over 90 of the engine market in the United States, so congratulation on that. The although, this seems to fit the classical definition of monopoly, google has argued the companys monopoly in the Search Market is nothing to worry about because competition is just a click away. Is there, i just want to make sure if i have googles position right . Is that essentially the argument against viewing it as a monopoly . Thank you for the question, congressman. I would say that that definition of the market is quite narrow and that when consumers are searching for information online, a range of Different Services that they use, for example, when people are searching for products, the majority of americans start their product searches on amazon, theyre searching for places to travel, hole, airline they hotels, airline, they start with a dedicated specialist. I this city market is much broader than that. Well, let me follow up, then. I understand that google paidp ale 9 billion in 2018 and 12 billion in 2019 to have the right to be the default engine on safari. Is that right . Congressman, im not familiar with those big numbers. Billions of big numbers. Would google pay these sums if they were really ineffective Competitor Market in place . Congressman, im not familiar with those numbers. We do reach syndication aagreements with a rage of partners. Are you familiar with the deal . Im not close to the terms of the deal. I think, if anything, the prices probably reflect control or that the decisions made by platforms rather than somebody seeking to sipped indicate their services on those platforms. Okay. My sense is that if these numbers are. The default Search Engine recognizes the default matter and switching costs for users are high. But i appreciate your thoughts on that. Let me come to mr. Andeer. You are here. Apples ceo, mr. Cook, has argued that unlike your peers who run adbased business, apple is a company that fundamentally is privacy oriented. Do you believe that apple is a privacy oriented business . Yes, absolutely. We believe privacy is a fundamental human right. Well, then, why has apple allowed google to be the default Search Engine on safari . Apple has with all of its products focused on what is the best Consumer Experience. So when it comes to search, we conducted an open competition to see what did we think would be the best for our consumers and consumers have always gone to google. And so we ultimately selected google and make options available to them. Its easy to change the defacility on your default including duck duck go and other solutions that perhaps have more privacy protections. Apple charges developaries 30 tax on in App Purchases in the first year and 50 every year thereafter. Spotify argus by charging the tax apple forces providers to make an impossible choice, either pass the costs on to consumers or refuse to pay the commission and face a litany of technical hurdles imposed by apple. These complaints have been echoed by other App Developers as you may know. Mr. Andeer, how did apple arrive at the amount of 30 fee and could they charge a 45 or 50 fee for in App Purchases . Thank you for the question. 84 of the apps, over 2 million apps are available on the app store pay nothing to apple. Its only a small percentage that pay a commission. When it comes to spotify, theyre one of our most successful developers. Yet they pay a commission of less than 1 to apple. They have been able to build a successful business thanks to the app store. Were proud of their investment. We continue to invest in tools and resources to make it easy for developers to make great applications. You asked how we came to the 30 . Ten years and its easy to forget, most softwares distributed through physical distribution lie comp usa or best buy. Typically a developer would share 60to70 with the distribution channel. So we set an aggressive price of 30 only applying to additional content in an effort to compete for those developers mind share and its been very successful. Do i have time, mr. Chairman, for one more question . Okay. A quick question for mr mr. Perault. Facebook announced in january it would be integrated whatsapp, instagram and messenger, announcement that coincided with growing calls in different places to brake up facebook. Specifically by undo i the buy app of whatsapp and instagram, Facebook Says integration will let it protect users by providing endtoend encryption. Is facebooks integration ploy an attempt to thwart or preempt these efforts to break up facebook . Thank you, congressman. No, it is not. We face fierce competition for the products and services that we offer. Its our understanding that there are many service in the market that offer more and more privacy protective service. So our pivot towards privacy with respect to interoperating our services was because of the competition we face in the market. Okay. Mr. Chairman, i yield back. Thank you. Thank you, gentleman. The Ranking Member agreed to do a second round of questions. So i appreciate that indulgence. Mr. Shuttop, i want to turn to you for a moment. In your testimony you have repeatedly emphasized amazon is a great party to third party mer chants. My reports suggests to you amazon has been steadily increasing the fee that charges merchants. According to a recent article in the washington monthly, in 2014, amazon fulfillment fees accounted for 17 of the sellers total costs. Today, amazon raised fees so they now amount to around 27 of sellers costs. Amazon increased storage fees by over 40 since 2015. Seller fees are extremely lucrative for amazon, earning the company over 42 billion in 2018, according to same article. So mr. Sutton, my question is given how dependent merchants are on amazons platform, around these steady fee hikes by amazon a pure exercise of its outsized buyer power . Thank you for the question. Its because sell verse so many options that we have to provide competitive options. And those fee estimates are fought accurate. The fees that are necessary to be paid in our store to sell items have actually been steady for a number of years and slightly declining. There are optional fees such as fulfillment, which are competitively priced to other fulfillment options. They reflect the costs of the product, sending items, storing them of that nature. Those are reflective and competitive with other options sellers would have with the many other third parties that offer Similar Services or doing it, themselves. Id be anxious to receive from you the data that disputes the numbers. Let me understand, you said because the seller has so many options, we should, therefore, thats the explanation for increased costs by amazon . Thats the exact opposite . I mean, the fact that sell verse other options would not cause amazon to charge more money. So i dont understand your argument. Im sorry, let me clarify. Please. Because we have so many options we partner with them and its the fees that have been steady which is the point i was trying to make. The fees for listing in our store have stayed steady or optionally declined him some are on option cost and competitive with other options in that space. Thank you. Over the years, various reporting has documented the aggressive and predatory Business Practices amazon employs. In 2013, bred stone reported amazon named a Business Campaign a gazelle product. A strategy which amazon would approach small publishers. I quote the way that cheat that would cheetah would quickly excel. Im not familiar with that project. Get back to me with your answer and id like to know if they per sewer predatory campaigns in other parts of your business. If you get me answerers, id appreciate it. The following is this committees investigation is extremely important for the economy, for consumers, for those we represent and i hope that each of the Witnesses Today will pledge on behalf of the companies they represent to cooperate to the fullest extent possible and to act in good faith to respond to the committees requests in a timely and complete manner, mr. Andeer, can you answer that question on behalf of your company . Yes, we will. And you, mr. Sutton . Yes. Mr. Perault . Thank you, mr. Chairman, yes, we will. Mr. Cohen . Yes, gladly. Finally, there have been some reporting of i think very disturbing efforts by a particular company to aggressively impede congressional oversight to go so far as to hire Opposition Research firms to do Opposition Research on members of congress and staff of the committee so i would sincerely is ask you that you commit to not engaging into those tactics, mr. Andeer . Yes, we would never engage in that sort of conduct. Mr. Sutton. Yes. Yes. Reporter mr. Peraut . Yes. Mr. Cohen. With that i recognize the chairman from north dakota. Mr. Armstrong. The 30 Yellowstone National parkup on apps, thats been the same things the app store started, right . Yes, its correct. For some apps we actually reduce that to 15 and of course that 30 applies to less than 16 of the apps on the app store flu is said 84 dont pay anything. Right . Thats correct. But what percentage of the total u. S. Global revenue from apps comes from the remaining 16 that do share revenue . I dont know the answer to that question. I do know that developers monetize in a number of ways. And so we have developers on the app store that monetize through advertising, through selling of physical goods, through the selling of services, the value that developers collect through the app store is probably hundreds of billions, perhaps over a trillion dollars. So how does the Apple App Store fit into your companys offerings . So, i think to provide some context, when we launched the first iphone, it didnt include the app store. We thought, developers and content creators would access consumers through the safari web browser, weve long supported open and free internet. We created the app store as a compliment and alternative to the open and free internet. Now we have done a lot to encourage developers to create as many great apps as possible. We look at it as a way to continued to sell device itself. Were a Device Company at the end of the day. Were looking to convince consumers we offer the best product. How about apple music . Apple music is a part of that strategy. We offer apple music. We also make it easy for competitors to access each and every ios user through the app store. So spotify, Google Play Music and dozens of others offer apps that compete with apple music. Is apple more of a hardware business, a Software Business or a Platform Business . We think of ourselves as a Products Company first and foremost. So we are selling an experience to consumers. We are selling an entire product. So everything from hardware, software to services, its the total package. To what degree does apple share or not share to other markets to Companies Providing testimony today . We compete with all the companies on this panel in various ways in addition to dozens of others. I felt you didnt have enough questions answering the first round of questions. So i wanted to make sure. This is going to go back to my trend from neguse was talking about. I will go back to mr. Perault. You cant use Facebook Messenger without facebook or can you . I believe you can, congressman. So they are two separate and distinct. Do you know what percentage use messenger that dont use facebook . I do not have that data. Id be happy to follow up. The reason i bring it up, when we talk about competition 51st complementing and i mean how easy it is, i asked you all of those things because i wouldnt know anywhere to get anything other than the Apple App Store. Im sure other things exist. But i dont know about them. I think there are at lovous in this situation. With this as we close this out. I hope as we move forward, these hearings become more focused, more single topic specific focus and id encourage everybody and the companies who are testifying to be for spth right with answers. The questions, ki tell you half of the questions asked today, which im assuming you all with your vast resources can do as well, it sure makes it a lot easier as we focus on specific topics and things, it will be easier for everybody if we are forthright and honest and transparent with our answers so with that id yield. Thank you. I now recognize the gentt lady from Georgia Police debath for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman. The wall street journal recently reported thating gole map is overrun with millions of false business addresses and fake names as many as 11 million. The article noted that googles ad business actually profits from these scams while consumers and legitimate locallyowned businesses suffer. Mr. Cohen. Given the extraordinary power that google enjoys over these small and local businesses what measure is google taking to identify and remove fraudulent listings . And is it a lack of competition in Online Search that allows google to be so complacent about addressing this problem head on . Congresswoman, thank you for the question. Im not familiar with this wall street journal report. Im also not familiar with any claims of fraudulent listings in google maps or that scam. We take a number of measures to address fraudulent listings. It is in our interest to present the most accurate, uptodate information as possible to our consumers, precisely because we operate in a competitive marketplace. And can you make available for the committee those processes that you use to make sure that people arent fraudulently . I would be glad to follow up once i express with our experts in our company. Okay. Thank you. Gentleman, we recognize the gentleman from maryland. Thank you. Im concerned about business conduct that discriminates against competitors online. And because your platforms are so dominant, a decision by any one of them, whether its deliberate or accidental, malignant or benign can be fatal for a business that relies on your platform in order to reach their customers. First of all, do you all agree that in theory, each of your businesses can pick winners and losers in the marketplace . We can go down the lean. Would you agree . No, i dont. I look at the facts of the marketplace and in each and every Single Market in which we compete, whether its music or books or video, there are companies that are far more successful on our platform than we are. Okay. Mr. Sutton, whats your response . Respectfully, i disagree. Amazon offers one store amongst thousands of Retail Options for customers who shop across them every day. Customers pick the winners and losers. Okay. Mr. Perault. Congressman, i disagree as well. We face fierce competition for the products an services that we offer. Yes. Mr. Cohen. Yes, congressman, online, people can traffic anywhere they like. They can click on whatever services they like. We often see in our search results. New companies and new ideas are surfacing all the time that weve never heard of. Lets work down the other way. You have processes in place for businesses to seek redress if they believe theyve havent discriminated against by your platform . Yes, congressman, we do. You do . Can you just describe briefly what that is . There is a process for firms to appeal the way that they are ranked. I am not familiar with how it works indepth. But id be happy to followp with you. Okay. Mr. Drum. Congressman, we do have processes as well. We have an appeals process, for instance. We are looking to expand and improve that process. Okay. In that appeals process, how the u. S. That work . They go to who do they go to . Congressmen, pages for instance disabled on facebook are able to appeal the fact that theyre disabled. We would then review that and then make a determination on the appeal. Okay. Mr. Sutton. Most of our large competitors operate their own independent stores. Not through amazon. With respect to the snowfall and mediumsize sellers that sell through our store, we have many processes in place. We have a eller iss central that provides tools and services for them and lots of opportunities to communicate with amazon if they have any concerns. From andeer. First and foremost, its the consumers who make it very clear if theyre unhappy with the experience on our products and we have been very straight forward with wanting to offer not just our own services but Third Party Service as well. I would also say we employ hundreds of apple employees who are focused on reviews apps and are in constant communications with developers and there is an escalation pact within apple. To address those each and every week. Great. Thank you very much for those answers. Companies across the digital markets, nonetheless, live in fear of retaliation i think by any of the firms that you represent and this fear has kept some of them from speaking out publicly about the anticompetitive practices that they experience and the committee has received a lot of communications for people in advance of this hearing. One business wrote, unfortunately, were not able to be more public at this time out of concern for retribution to our business given how powerful google is in their past actions. We are quite frankly worried about retaliation. So my request etoo you is would you commit that on of your company that you will not retaliate in any way against any of the businesses that cooperate with this committee or share requested information with us as part of the investigation . Will you all agree to a nonretaliation policy towards businesses that participate . Yes. As apples chief Compliance Officer i would take such an allegation of retaliation extremely seriously. Mr. Sutton . Yes, we would absolutely not retaliate against anyone who cooperates with the committee. Mr. Pearl . Thank you, congressman. Yes. Mr. Cohen. Yes for me too. I appreciate that because you guys have done a good job representing your businesses, but if there were a monopoly and you asked them if they were a monopoly, they would say they were not a monopoly, so obviously weve got to do work that goes beyond just asking you for your opinion on it. Weve got to talk to other people. So for that to be meaningful, they cant be living in fear of retaliation from you. So thank you very much. Mr. Chairman, i yield back. Thank you, mr. Raskin. We have been notified that the Ranking Member of the full Judiciary Committee has called for a roll call vote so were going to take a tenminute recess so we can all vote. I want to thank the witnesses for our first panel for being here. You are excused. Youre welcome to stay for the second panel, but we very much appreciate you being here today and sharing the perspective on the current state of the digital marketplace. We are in recess until the call of the chair. Weeknights this week were featuring book tv programs showcasing whats available every weekend on cspan 2. Tonight the theme is opioids in the book in pain Travis Rieder shares his experience with dependency. Journalist beth macy talks about her book dopesick. And in american overdose Chris Mcgreal reports on the Opioid Epidemic in america. Watch tonight at 8 30 p. M. Eastern on cspan 2 and enjoy book tv this week and every weekend on cspan 2. The house will be in order. For 40 years, cspan has been providing america unfiltered coverage of congress, the white house, the Supreme Court and Public Policy events from washington, d. C. , and around the country so you can make up your own mind, created by cable in 1979. Cspan is brought to you by your local cable or satellite provider. Cspan, your unfiltered view of government. A panel of policy experts and capitol hill legislative staff discuss the evolving nature of childrens Online Privacy concerns as well as the way legislators and regulators are addressing those concerns. This event was hosted by the Family Online Safety Institute on capitol hill in washington, d. C