Congressman Leading Tech Antitrust Investigation Says July Hearing Confirms 'Deeply Disturbing Behavior'

The antitrust hearing that Apple CEO Tim Cook, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos participated in back in July confirmed that all of the companies are engaging in "behavior which is deeply disturbing and requires Congress to take action," according to Representative David Cicilline, the chairman of the House antitrust panel leading the inquiry.

appstore
Cicilline made the remarks in an interview with Bloomberg, where he said that the investigation has confirmed that Apple, Google, Amazon, and Facebook are all abusing their market power to the detriment of consumers.

"The kind of common theme is the abuse of their market power to maintain their market dominance, to crush competitors, to exclude folks from their platform and to earn monopoly rents."

Cicilline said that he is prepared to deliver recommendations as soon as next month, and that Congress must act urgently to protect consumers. Cicilline did not go into detail about the recommendations the panel would deliver, but he says he's working with Republicans to find common ground on "biggest, boldest ideas."

According to Bloomberg, Cicilline did mention the possibility of a Glass-Steagall law for technology platforms, which would prevent tech companies from both running a platform and competing on it at the same time.

"That's a big idea," he said about separating the two functions. "It would be one way to try to separate out what is a relationship fraught with conflicts that I think is promoting tremendous market dominance and bullying behavior by Amazon, as an example."

The antitrust committee's report will address four areas: changes to current antitrust laws, reforms aimed at the tech sector, strengthening private antitrust litigation by plaintiffs, and ensuring the DoJ and FTC have the resources to do their jobs.

The U.S. House Judiciary Antitrust Subcommittee has been investigating Apple, Google, Amazon, and Facebook since July 2019, culminating in a hearing with the CEOs of all of the companies.

For Apple, the subcommittee has focused on the company's App Store policies and fees, specifically instances where it has rejected apps and changed App Store rules to its apparent benefit, such as when it began rejecting some parental control apps for using Mobile Device Management after the release of the Screen Time feature.

As the antitrust investigation has unfolded, Apple has been involved in some public battles over ‌App Store‌ policies and fees, first with the "Hey" email app and currently with Epic Games.

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Popular Stories

iOS 26 Feature

iOS 26.1 to iOS 26.4 Will Add These New Features to Your iPhone

Saturday October 18, 2025 11:00 am PDT by
iOS 26 was released last month, but the software train never stops, and iOS 26.1 beta testing is already underway. So far, iOS 26.1 makes both Apple Intelligence and Live Translation on compatible AirPods available in additional languages, and it includes some other minor changes across the Apple Music, Calendar, Photos, Clock, and Safari apps. More features and changes will follow in future ...
ios 26 1 liquid glass opaque

iOS 26.1 Beta 4 Lets Users Control Liquid Glass Transparency with New Toggle

Monday October 20, 2025 10:57 am PDT by
With the fourth betas of iOS 26.1, iPadOS 26.1, and macOS 26.1, Apple has introduced a new setting that's designed to allow users to customize the look of Liquid Glass. The toggle lets users select from a clear look for Liquid Glass, or a tinted look. Clear is the current Liquid Glass design, which is more transparent and shows the background underneath buttons, bars, and menus, while tinted ...
iphone air thickness

Apple Said to Cut iPhone Air Production Amid Underwhelming Sales

Friday October 17, 2025 8:29 am PDT by
Apple plans to cut production of the iPhone Air amid underwhelming sales performance, Japan's Mizuho Securities believes (via The Elec). The Japanese investment banking and securities firm claims that the iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone 17 Pro Max are seeing higher sales than their predecessors during the same period last year, while the standard iPhone 17 is a major success, performing...
iOS 26

iOS 26.0.2 Update for iPhones Coming Soon

Friday October 17, 2025 7:35 am PDT by
Apple's software engineers continue to internally test iOS 26.0.2, according to MacRumors logs, which have been a reliable indicator of upcoming iOS versions. iOS 26.0.2 will be a minor update that addresses bugs and/or security vulnerabilities, but we do not know any specific details yet. The update will likely be released by the end of next week. Last month, Apple released iOS 26.0.1,...
Apple iPad Pro hero M5

New iPad Pro Has Six Key Upgrades Beyond M5 Chip

Saturday October 18, 2025 10:57 am PDT by
While the new iPad Pro's headline feature is the M5 chip, the device has some other changes, including N1 and C1X chips, faster storage speeds, and more. With the M5 chip, the new iPad Pro has up to a 20% faster CPU and up to a 40% faster GPU compared to the previous model with the M4 chip, according to Geekbench 6 results. Keep in mind that 256GB and 512GB configurations have a 9-core CPU,...
iPhone Siri Glow

Some Apple Employees Have 'Concerns' About iOS 26.4's Revamped Siri

Sunday October 19, 2025 7:39 am PDT by
iOS 26.4 is expected to introduce a revamped version of Siri powered by Apple Intelligence, but not everyone is satisfied with how well it works. In his Power On newsletter today, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said some of Apple's software engineers have "concerns" about the overhauled Siri's performance. However, he did not provide any specific details about the shortcomings. iOS 26.4 will...
HomePod mini and Apple TV

Apple's Next Rumored Products: New HomePod Mini, Apple TV, and More

Thursday October 16, 2025 9:13 am PDT by
Apple on Wednesday updated the 14-inch MacBook Pro, iPad Pro, and Vision Pro with its next-generation M5 chip, but previous rumors have indicated that the company still plans to announce at least a few additional products before the end of the year. The following Apple products have at one point been rumored to be updated in 2025, although it is unclear if the timeframe for any of them has...
maxresdefault

Here's How the iOS 26.1 Transparency Toggle Changes Liquid Glass

Monday October 20, 2025 1:55 pm PDT by
With the fourth beta of iOS 26.1, Apple added a toggle that makes Liquid Glass more opaque and reduces transparency. We tested the beta to see where the toggle works and what it looks like. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. If you have the latest iOS 26.1 beta, you can go to Settings > Display and Brightness to get to the new option. Tap on Liquid Glass, then...
m4 macbook air blue

M5 MacBook Air Coming Spring 2026 With M5 Mac Studio and Mac Mini in Development

Thursday October 16, 2025 3:57 pm PDT by
Apple plans to launch MacBook Air models equipped with the new M5 chip in spring 2026, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Apple is also working on M5 Pro and M5 Max MacBook Pro models that will come early in the year. Neither the MacBook Pro models nor the MacBook Air models are expected to get design changes, with Apple focusing on simple chip upgrades. In the case of the MacBook Pro, a m...

Top Rated Comments

TiggrToo Avatar
67 months ago
Given that way too many politicians also think that providing a backdoor to encryption would still be perfectly safe, you’ll forgive me if I start off assuming pretty much all politicians are morons, then work my way up from there.
Score: 35 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Apple_Robert Avatar
67 months ago
It is so disturbing the Congressman doesn’t even state what he meant by deeply disturbing.
Score: 30 Votes (Like | Disagree)
edgonzalez32 Avatar
67 months ago
Anyone who has spent time reading into these issues even on a surface level will understand that yes, what these companies are doing, Apple included, is getting a bit out of hand.

But I don’t expect anyone here to realize that. Because you people can’t do research of your own or even think critically for a second. Yes it’s Apple’s platform but it doesn’t mean what they’re doing is right.

You are all so quick to bash literally every other single tech company, but can’t criticize Apple on one thing. Apple is starting to repeat the same exact mistake Microsoft made in the 90s and I’m sure you’ll all gladly **** all over them because it’s Microsoft. But apple doing the same exact thing? Nah, ya’ll dig extra hard and do the craziest backflips to defend them.

It’s a company. You can enjoy and use their products and criticize things you have issues with at the same time.
Score: 21 Votes (Like | Disagree)
TheDailyApple Avatar
67 months ago
Government intervention usually makes things worst.
Score: 20 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Dwalls90 Avatar
67 months ago
Nothing was done by Congress when Facebook screwed with the 2016 election. I'm sure no real action will be taken here either.
Score: 18 Votes (Like | Disagree)
DanTheMan827 Avatar
67 months ago

Government intervention usually makes things worst.
It didn't hurt when they took care of Microsoft in the 90s...
Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)