The chips are off the table. Symantec and broadcom have halted deal talks. Where does that leave them now . First, to our top story. Big tex the big issue on capitol hill this week. Tech the big issue on capitol hill this week. Tuesday and wednesday, they will hear from facebook on libra. Before the testimony steven , mnuchin taking aim at the social network. The Treasury Department has expressed serious concerns that libra could be misused by money launderers and terrorist financiers. Emily also tuesday, representatives of facebook, google, apple and amazon will defend their companies in front of the house judiciary in a hearing on antitrust. Their goal is to convince lawmakers they do not stifle competition. To discuss, our guest in washington from a nonprofit focused on shaping Public Policy for an open internet. Before that she was at the Anticompetitive Practices Division of the federal trade commission. And we have ben brody. Who covers Technology Influence in the capital. So many areas to keep track of. Libra, antitrust hearings, and a googlespecific hearing. Give us a preview of what we can expect. We are working hard to bring it all to you. One of the things i have been looking at, maybe starting with the googlespecific hearing. This rising chorus there is anticonservative bias by the major social media companies. You saw that in the white house summit last week. I think you will see it, it is the focus of this hearing that will be held by senator ted cruz. You just had a request coming from senator cruz that the ftc look into how these companies are doing content moderation amid concerns of bias. So you have that. And then we will have the antitrust hearing. I expect a lot of talk about the nature of competition. But i also expect a lot of talk about startups, venture capital. Do you start a company just so you can be acquired or because you think it is a great idea that needs to be in the world . That you are going to lead into the future . All those kinds of questions are the ones that i expect to be dueling in different parts of the house tomorrow. Emily meantime, charlotte, you have the fine from the ftc that came down on friday. As far as we know, planning to fine facebook 5 billion in a record privacy settlement. And yet you have got lawmakers like David Cicilline saying it is a slap on the wrist, calling it a Christmas Present coming early. Does the fine matter . It matters but not as much as the behavioral restrictions the ftc places on facebook as part of the settlement. And we have so far not received information about what those restrictions will be. That is what i think could affect facebook going forward. Clearly, the fine is not having a big impact on them. Emily the treasury secretary really taking aim at facebook and libra and the broader crypto industry in general. Take a listen to another portion of his remarks today. This is indeed a National Security issue. The United States has been at the forefront of regulating entities that provide cryptocurrency. We will not allow Digital AssetsService Providers to operate in the shadows and will not tolerate the use of the cryptocurrencies in support of illicit activities. Emily meantime, the cocreator of facebooks cryptocurrency project submitted written testimony he plans to read tomorrow at the hearing. He says, i believe if america does not lead innovation in Digital Currency and payment, others will. If we fail to act, we could see Digital Currency controlled by others whose values are dramatically different. There is a bit of fearmongering here. Do you think this argument will work with lawmakers that if we do not do it, somebody else will . I think on this issue, lawmakers are not going to be swayed. There are some allusions to if we dont do it, china or russia will fill in the space. Occasionally, that will work on the hill. But i think there is a feeling in washington that facebook in particular has not been responsive to concerns. It has not gone and sought what they need to know. Even if they had the meetings, they did not get the kind of regulation and approval they needed and went out with this splashy announcement and did not do the work beforehand. I think there is a lot of concern about the company we are seeing in all of these hearings. When you have that level of concern, you cannot wave it off and say trust us generally in washington. Emily we heard the ceo of facebook give the same argument talking about antitrust more broadly. Saying, china isnt going to break up chinese companies. As someone who used to work at the ftc, how are the agencies going to feel about that argument given the ftc has been assigned oversight of a potential antitrust investigation into facebook should such an investigation happen . I think the antitrust enforcers recognize competition is the best way for these companies to be effective and strong competitors against companies in other countries. We do not do the National Champion thing in the United States. We have competitive markets. The antitrust agencies are tasked with making that happen. Emily what are we expecting in terms of a result from these hearings this week . Lets talk about the house antitrust hearing in particular. How will this move the ball in one direction or another . Great question. This hearing is one in a series. The first one looked at the impact of the big platforms on news. This one is looking at entrepreneurship. I could see others coming down with Small Companies that have complained about some of the Big Companies and how they affect their work and startup culture. When you talk to lawmakers and David Cicilline, the chairman of the committee and say what do you think will come out about this, he says, look, i dont know. It is difficult to know until we know what the problem is what the solution will be. But he has leaned in the direction of saying there is bipartisan concern and maybe we could move some laws forward. Some folks say they may be interested in doing that. You can tweak how mergers are looked at. Or what they cost, to be examined by the ftc. Those sorts of things can change the Competitive Landscape even though they are little. That might be something the committee is looking to do. Emily in what direction is the ball going to go . Some of these are shorterterm sentiment issues. And of course the antitrust investigation by the ftc could take five or 10 years. If such an investigation happened. What do you see happening over the shorterterm versus the longerterm . I think the role of the congressional investigation is really important. Because antitrust can take a long time. And these markets move quickly. What i am looking for from the congressional investigation is building a record for legislation that could happen more quickly than the antitrust investigations and certainly more quickly than future antitrust investigations. Emily after this week, what is next . Then Congress Goes into recess and the 2020 Campaign Starts up. I think that is important to realize. Because a lot of the congressional work goes on hold after this recess. I think that is why youre seeing a flurry of activity right now, because people want to get things into the record. That is not to say they cannot pick them up in the fall and try to advance them, but right now is kind of the moment you have to seize the publics imagination and make your case. If you can get that out, maybe you can advance things in september, october, and november. If you cant, things might die. So when you ask about antitrust, privacy,sial content, anticonservative bias, all these things tech is facing in congress, the question is, which one of them can rise above in the next few weeks . That is what im watching. Emily the president ial campaign will not go on hold. Some candidates have made tech a central part of their platform. Like senator elizabeth warren. Thank you both so much for weighing in. We have full coverage of tuesday and wednesdays congressional tech hearings right here on bloomberg technology. Meantime in europe, france and the u. K. Are also looking at their relationship with big tech. The french have passed a digital tax despite pushback from the United States. Bloomberg opinions alex webb reports from london. On july 11, french lawmakers passed a new Digital Sales tax which will see a levy of 3 imposed on companies with revenue over 750 Million Euros carrying out some Digital Services in france. The huge change is it will be affecting revenue and not profit. The interaction with the customer has been a huge debate, whether the tax should be imposed on Tech Companies where they base, california, or where they have the interaction with users. This is ongoing at the oecd level on how the u. K. Has already put in place a similar process to impose this sort of sales tax. It has caused discontent in the u. S. And germany, where they sell capital goods in the country but might sell Additional Services on top of it which would be subject to such a tax if imposed globally. There are difficulties for the companies. They are concerned there is a lack of clarity in the french tax on what they need to be paying taxes on. Either way, there will be a big tax bill going frances way in the near future. Alex webb in london. Emily thanks. Coming up, this year amazon is celebrating prime day with help from hollywood. They are using star power to generate buzz amid increasing competition from rivals. We will head to seattle for that story next. If you like bloomberg news, check us out on the radio, on the bloomberg gap, bloomberg on the radio and on sirius xm. This is bloomberg. Emily amazons fifth annual prime day is underway with more than a million deals on offer to prime members. According to research, shoppers will spend over 5. 8 billion over the 48hour sale, up 11 from last years event which was about half a day shorter. But the shopping extravaganza is battling increasing competition from rivals. Over 250 retailers including target, walmart, and ebay staging their own sales to to compete, emphasizing that their deals dont require a paid membership like amazon. Spencer, what are the highs and lows of the day so far . On the celebrity front, the big thing running into prime is like, what is new. They used prime day to sell gadgets in the past and to promote their acquisition of whole foods. Trying to get more prime members to whole foods. The big thing this year is the celebrity emphasis. A very traditional marketing tactic, but new to amazon where they have people like Mark Wahlberg selling protein power and kobe bryant selling deodorant. That is helping maintain buzz around the big event in its fifth year. The novelty could be fading. Emily amazon opened a celebrity store a year ago. Now they have all of these deals today tied to celebrities. They are starting to offer exclusive products. Lady gaga will offer an exclusive beauty product line only on amazon. How big of a deal is that . There are two things amazon has been trying to push into. Fashion has always been an achilles heel for amazon. They have tried to go into apparel by getting into basics and nonfashion categories. They picked up bigger business than macys doing that. Some of this is to get into the Fashion Accessories business. Apart from that, there starting to realize the millennial crowd, theyre going to start looking at different ways to attract that crowd back to amazon. Celebrity has been a channel that has been added for a while now. Emily what are the trends youre following on this particular prime day . We have a number, at least one Research Firm over 48 hours. , 28 billionsounds like a lot. Slightly more than last year. What is your take . Prime day has typically been the biggest day of the year for amazon, more so than cyber monday or any holiday. This year, they expect that to be the same. One thing which has been counterintuitive we are seeing from amazon is a big push in consumer packaged goods. Representsrime day sales in categories like consumerelectronics, battery packs, tvs, things like that. This year leading into prime day, we saw a 300 increase in traffic and unit sales into consumer packaged goods categories which got into the whole Foods Acquisition like baby food and cereal boxes and things like that. I would imagine people buying more diapers and baby food on prime day is not something you would think of. You would think of them buying echo and alexa devices and tvs and things like that. It has been a big push. We think it is more intensive, from amazon, a big push to capture that 800 billion market of groceries. Emily there was a big Technical Glitch during prime day last year. So far today, i have seen some shoppers complain they could not add stuff to their carts. Have there been hiccups . It looks like a small number here and there. Nothing on the scale of last year. We were monitoring earlier. It seems to have faded. It does seem like whatever problems they had last year they have been able to avoid this year. That is a big deal when you consider competitors like ebay staged a crash sale, basically rubbing amazons face in last years failure and telling customers, when amazon crashes, check out our deals and you wont have problems with our site. Emily what is your take on some of the competitors offerings over these two days . I think it is not giving amazon a run for the money. They are serving amazon by legitimizing prime day. Essentially they say this is a day when we are offering deals. And it is not called a holiday, it is called prime day. Emily they do say you dont need a prime subscription to access it. But already 50 million to 60 million households in the u. S. Have subscriptions. So what is the incrementality they are able to get . Maybe those who are not bigger spenders on ecommerce and things like that. Full to folks who amazon is trying to attract they have already done a great job turning into prime subscribers. Every prime day, there is an agenda for amazon to recruit more prime subscribers. And they are very successful doing that year over year. Emily thank you so much. We will give you the update tomorrow. Coming up netflix is due to , report secondquarter results this week. It has just released a new season of Stranger Things but it is losing the office. And friends. How does it all add up . We will discuss next. And we are Live Streaming on twitter. Be sure to tune into tictoc on twitter. This is bloomberg. Emily netflix is due to report secondquarter results wednesday. Investors are eager to see how new competition is weighing on the company. Apple and disney plan to launch Subscription Services later this year. Nbcer media and universal plan platforms for 2020. The possibility that publishers could withdraw content from netflix without renewing licensing deals. Joining us from stamford, connecticut, to discuss is an Audience Data measurement expert. Always good to have you on the show. What is your take on how the new season of Stranger Things and losing the office nets out . I think that in the near term, for the rest of this calendar year, netflix is going to be fine. I am sometimes negative on netflix, and people call me on it. But it is because i just think the future will be pretty tough for them. They have made some wise decisions in terms of the money they have invested the past few years in terms of original content. And obviously, Stranger Things is an example of that. Obviously theres still previous titles, like orange is the new black that have done well for them. But the problem is it is not just friends. It is original movies from disney. The fox library that disney purchased. It is the new original content from apple. I think they have never had so much competition in terms of known content that they have previously licensed as well as original content that will be pulled off their platform and go to competing platforms. Emily how does netflix fill the void . Is it all about original content . Or can they fill it with original content . One thing netflix has benefited from even with the amount of money theyre spending on original content is the first mover advantage they have had in terms of generating market share. The issue, now theres more connected tv homes in the United States than homes with the cable box. So the economies of scale have changed in that they are no longer differentiated from a lot of the other services. So, i dont see them outspending apple or amazon. So i dont think original content can do it alone. What i have said for some time, i think they should invest money in buying an existing content provider that has a library and a fan base and some following, similarly to how disney bought fox. I think that is much more likely. The other thing that people talk about less but will play a Significant Impact in terms of time spent on netflix is the growth of adsupported streaming Services Like pluto tv, recently acquired by viacom, and others. Im a big believer in 2020 that netflix has to launch some sort of adsupported tier that they can maybe feature the original content library on. Emily interesting. What will you be watching for on wednesday when the Company Reports . A couple of things. I will be looking more at the international number. I think that is an area where they have more wiggle room in terms of the first mover advantage. In those markets, they dont have these huge Global Internat