emily: welcome to "bloomberg technology." i'm emily chang. a fiery hearing on capitol hill still underway. we are going into the fifth hour of the ceo's being questioned by the house committee on a range of issues. the ceo's making the case that --petition

>> we compete hard. we compete fairly. we try to be the best. >> our goal is the best, not the most. we don't have a dominant share in any market or product category where we do business. >> competition leads to better products and more choices for everyone. emily: but lawmakers coming out swinging. the ceo struggling to get their answers in. jeff bezos of amazon having trouble getting some words in edgewise. didn't have monopoly power over the sellers, do you think they would choose to stay in a relationship characterized by bullying, fear, and panic? >> with all respect, congresswoman, i do not accept the premise of your question. >> does amazon pursue similar

predatory campaigns in other parts of its business? >> i cannot comment on that because i don't remember it. >> here's how the company described working with amazon. amazon strings you along for a while because it feels so good to get that paycheck every week and in the past, we called it, heroin. this is one of your partners. why would they compare your company to a drug dealer? >> i have great respect for you and this committee but i completely disagree with that characterization. emily: still, shares of all four companies ending the day in the green and above the rest of the market. joining us, abigail doolittle. this hearingsee as went on and is still going on? abigail: some pretty interesting comments. i think these tech ceo's and companies and more so the stocks

benefited from the fact that it was a fed day. more of wall street attention was probably going to the fed as opposed to this testimony. we did have an up day. all these stocks up more than 1%. look at a five day hast of these mega caps, it been a bit of a rough patch. not just over the five days where all these stocks are down. anticipation that this could be overhang. from the standpoint of whether any regulation will be slapped on big tech, it seems unlikely. the companies probably most vulnerable would be google and facebook. 90%.nk i saw

amazon, which seemed to be under the most pressure, the key there is less compelling when compared to walmart on some statistics. thinking that while it was a psychological overhang, regulation is not going to happen anytime too soon. emily: abigail, thank you for that. we are in round three of questions with the representatives talking to the ceo's. i want to focus on mark zuckerberg's testimony. take a listen to this exchange with representative nadler. >> you have written that facebook can likely always by any competitor. on the day facebook bought instagram, which you described as a threat, you wrote, one thing about startups -- you were referring to companies like

instagram, weren't you? >> i've always been clear that we viewed instagram as a competitor and a complement to our services. in the growing space after smartphones started getting big, and they competed with us in mobile cameras and photo sharing , but almost no one thought of them as a social network. people didn't think of them competing with us in that space. i think the acquisition has been wildly successful. we were able to continue investing and growing it as a standalone brand that now reaches many more people than kevin or i thought would be possible at the time. >> in early 2012 when facebook contemplated acquiring instagram, you told your cfo that instagram could be very disruptive to us. in the weeks leading up to the deal, you described instagram as a threat, saying, instagram can

hurt us without becoming a huge business. >> at the time, there was a small but growing field -- >> did you mean consumers might switch from facebook to instagram? >> congressman -- >> did you mean that? >> in the space of mobile photos and camera apps, they were a competitor. i've been clear that instagram was a competitor in the space of mobile photo sharing. by having them join us, they went from being a competitor to an app that we could help grow. >> mergers and acquisitions that by off potential competitive threats violate antitrust laws. purchasedn words, you instagram to neutralize a competitive threat. if this was illegal at the time of transaction, why shouldn't instagram be broken off into a separate company? >> i think the ftc reviewed this

and unanimously voted not to challenge the acquisition. the acquisition has done wildly well, not just because of the founder's talent, but because we invested in building the infrastructure and promoting it and working on security and a lot of things around this. >> thank you. you are making my point. in closing, i want to end where i began. facebook, by mr. zuckerberg's own admission and the documents, saw instagram as a threat that could potentially siphon business away from facebook. this is exactly the type of anti-competitive acquisition that the antitrust laws were designed to prevent. this should never have happened in the first place. it cannot happen again. guest has some

strong opinions on this. joining us now, roger, early facebook investor and author. roger, i know you have some thoughts on this. facebook has made the case that instagram was much smaller when they bought it. what was your take on that exchange? clearly the house obtained documents that showed zuckerberg was scared of instagram taking users from facebook. roger: i think the thing that is most fascinating about that exchange is exactly what you said. subcommittee has a lot of documentation. i think 1.3 million documents. lots of internal communications. slackedcompany that has , keep this clearly in mind. each of these companies has their own software. it leads to a very informal style of communications.

inevitably there will be things that look terrible. both facebook and amazon came off particularly badly in that regard. there was evidence brought forward that suggested explicit violations of antitrust law relative to mergers. in that context, i think this hearing is qualitatively different from any of the ones that have taken place with executives to this point. this is part of a very long investigation that is not done. and yet they clearly were unbelievably well prepared and they have a lot of data. even on the narrowest definition of antitrust, suggesting there are real issues these companies may not be able to evade. the market can correctly imagine that it is going to take time for this to work through. but i think that regulation is

not only inevitable. what you heard today is openness to thinking about antitrust more broadly. recognize that internet platforms require something more than antitrust. that they need to be addressed relative to the safety of the products they create. but also the privacy issues. all of that collectively is on the table now in a way that was not imaginable a year ago. emily: we are still listening in to this hearing. we are going to the fifth hour of it. the third round of questioning. certainly the ceo's struggled more than they have in previous hearings. if you could give each of them a grade, what would it be? roger: i haven't thought about it that way. i think they came into the hearing with a very clear

framework. worldview, what they are doing is incredibly positive. view orustomer point of a shareholder point of view, these companies have been some of the greatest in american business. in the context of the pandemic, the economic contraction, and george floyd, the country has stepped back, and things that were acceptable suddenly don't look acceptable in the context of an economy that is contracting. and we look at the george floyd murder differently than we looked at similar murders in the past. i think that is because of the context of the pandemic and the contraction. i think these companies played the game they intended to play. i think they were maybe not expecting congress to come in

with the level of preparation it brought, for which there's really nothing they could do, and with this openness on both sides. there were republicans who participated in this as well. openness to thinking about regulation as something that is just good for the economy. forgottentors have the important role antitrust has historically played in unleashing growth in the u.s. it started when at&t signed a consent decree that restricted it to telephone business, which is why there is an independent computer industry in the u.s. but it was also forced to take the transistor and make it available to anyone, which created silicon valley. other cases led to the creation of the software industry, puters, them

internet itself, and the google and facebook era. i think as investors, we should look at antitrust as progrowth. they: we are watching representative questioning amazon ceo jeff bezos. what did you make of jeff bezo'' showing here? i was wondering if he was taking a break or something. there was a viral video of him eating a snack while his colleagues were getting grilled. upmakers certainly stepped and there were a number of times that bezos couldn't get a word in edgewise. roger: i thought jeff's opening statement was really remarkable. i suspect he wrote it himself. it was personal and thoughtful and laid out his personal philosophy well. i think the issue is not whether these companies did something wrong, although in some cases

they did, but rather, there is a reassessment of the entire value system underlying the stock market and the economy. prioritized the interest of shareholders above everybody else. that was great for investors and good for the economy for a while. but when the pandemic struck, what did we see? our supply chains were so fragile that we couldn't make ppe when we needed to. we couldn't make q-tips. we can't process enough tests to know rapidly whether people have the virus or not. our hospitals are struggling. i think there is a legitimate need to ask questions about how we are going to organize the economy. i think this is going to unleash new growth. we've been running one way for so long.

the whole field is going to be open. the test for these companies and for congress is to keep what is great about the internet, and there is so much that we love, while getting rid of the things that are attractive. doing so will make these companies less profitable but more sustainable. pathways toroposed regulation and you say it is easy. what do you think should happen now? it is not just the house investigating various agencies, various countries around the world. what do you think could happen next? roger: i hope i didn't give the impression that i think this is easy. there are important paths to pursue. one is safety. out companies basically put things and let the customers sort out the problems.

at the scale of these large giants, you can undermine democracy and public health by doing that and it has happened repeatedly. film, iterday, another guess a press conference, was broadcast on to facebook and youtube and other platforms that got something like 20 million views before it was taken down, and it was entirely disinformation on covid. that issue of safety is super important. we have to deal with privacy. that is unbelievably hard and important. one of the things i loved was how they drilled into data as one of the core issues for understanding whether there's competition or not competition in a marketplace. the notion that you don't have to have a monopoly to be dangerous. , with absolute

control of its own ecosystem, it can still have anti-competitive behavior. what i third issue is would call honesty. the industry of online advertising supported as nurses. the industry is convinced that all the numbers are grossly overstated. if that is true, there are security issues. on antitrust, what is weird ,bout this, the reason i think this is a different kind of industry. we need different approaches. what i like about this hearing is that the antitrust subcommittee is showing a willingness to do really serious homework and ask those questions in a forum where we can have

that debate. important and i think it will be important for the economy to get away from concentrated power. emily: roger, so important to have your insight today. lawmakers, much more prepared. my sources tell me voluminous amounts of documents were turned over. lawmakers were more prepared. much forank you so your insights. coming up, more about this hearing. we are in the fifth hour of it. tim cook being questioned right now. this is bloomberg. ♪

lawmakers continuing to question the ceo's of apple, amazon, alphabet, and facebook. the ceo's continuing to make the case that they all face competition themselves. >> services are about connection and our business model is advertising. competition atce the developer side and the customer side, which is essentially so competitive i would describe it as a street fight. categories which are commercial in nature, we see vigorous competition. >> we don't have a dominant share in any market or product category where we do business. innovating,'t keep someone will replace any company here today. emily: for more, i want to being

in our ben brody. the lawmakers were much more prepared. oftentimes the ceo's could not make the arguments they wanted to make. what did you make of the orchestration of this compared to hearings past? ben: i think it was incredibly had done those months of preparation, all the interviews they did, documents they obtained. , almostscinated to see like a deposition with lawmakers, many of whom were probably prosecutors or lawyers, reading mark zuckerberg's words back to him. company saying, i felt bullied and threatened by them, saying, what did you mean by that -- it was a totally different level from what you might have seen at zuckerberg's first hearing.

it was interesting to see the attack that jeff bezos took on a number of occasions, where he simply said, i can't promise that that rule wasn't violated at amazon or by amazon. what did you make of that? ben: i thought it was fascinating, particularly on the issue of accessing the data of specific sellers. floated the question again and again, that he thought the company might have lied about it. basically, it was the main thing that bezos must have prepared for, and that that was the best he could offer was really striking to me. investigationat hasn't progressed very quickly or if it is turning up stuff. it is unclear, but i think the

fact that he knew he couldn't deny it was really telling. bias, anti-conservative definitely a concern among republicans. lots of fire directed at alphabet's sundar pichai and mark zuckerberg on that account. tim cook somehow managed to avoid the toughest line of questioning. what was your take? bias was-conservative something the republicans really hammered on. they made this clear in the days leading up to the hearing, in memos, that they wanted to talk about this first and foremost. of course they are going to go out there and lean on this. , maybe that is sort of a back way of saying, we don't have to change them. i wasn't surprised that tim cook

wasn't hit so much on that. he has always ducked the issue and has a good working relationship with the white house. question, but even here, with all the documents, it is only now that they really started to train questions on him. i think in ways that is a win for him. we are now in the third round of questioning. how much longer do you think this is going to go? -- at some point they are probably not going to go past midnight. even as they go into more rounds, it might not be the full

hour and a half. it might be 40 minutes or 20 minutes. i wouldn't be surprised if maybe there was one more round. emily: they did manage to get quite a few different rounds of questioning in, which is impressive given that all these ceo's could have multi-day hearings of their own. ben brody, thank you so much for that update. we will bring you the highlights as we have them. coming up, we are going to get insights from andrew yang, former presidential candidate, who has a very interesting perspective on the intersection between technology and politics. this is bloomberg. ♪

back toelcome "bloomberg technology." i'm emily chang in san francisco. the antitrust hearing continuing on capitol hill at this moment. we are in the fifth hour of questioning with house lawmakers grilling four big tex ceo's. heated exchanges. one company in particular compared to a drug dealer. >> here is how the apparel company described working with amazon, and i quote "emma, -- amazon strings you along because it feels so good to get that paycheck every week and in the

past, for lack of a better term, we called it amazon heroin, because you just kept going and you had to get your next fix, your next check. at the end of the day, you find out this person who was seeming -- seeming thusly making you feel good was ultimately going to be your downfall." mr. bezos, this is one of your partners. why on earth where they compare your company to a drug dealer? >> i have great respect for you and this committee. but i completely disagree with i characterization. what we have done is create in the store, -- if you go back in time, we sold only our own inventory. it was a very controversial decision inside the company to invite third-party sellers to come into what is our most valuable retail real estate. we did that because we were convinced that it would be better for the consumer, it would be better for the customer. to have those selections. i think we were right and i think it has worked out well. >> i'm reclaiming my time. this is one of many small

companies that have told us during this year-long investigation that they were mistreated, abused, and tossed aside by amazon. emily: joining us now, andrew yang, former democratic presidential candidate and entrepreneur. think you for joining us. you have such an interesting vantage point having worked in the tech industry and run a presidential campaign. the did you make of lawmakers lines of questioning here? they certainly were a much more prepared than i think some folks expected them to be. andrew: i enjoyed it more than i thought i would. certainly some of the lines of questioning did indicate that they have very specific topics they wanted to dig into. you just showed a clip of amazon's treatment of its third-party sellers. that has been a persistent complaint. there are many companies that have sold through amazon and then felt like as soon as amazon figured out something was selling well, then they would've find a way to privilege a house brand.

that came up. i wished that we talked a little bit more, a lot more, about the treatment of data by facebook and google in particular. but they were focused on antitrust issues and anticompetitive behavior on the part of these companies. which to me is a very large signal as to what may be coming down the pike, where some of these tech companies are concerned in terms of antitrust actions. emily: on the subject of bezos, for a moment, this is the richest man in the world. his first time testifying before congress. and also the owner of the washington post. . does that create an awkward dynamic between these lawmakers and bezos, given perhaps a desire for coverage or positive coverage in the future? andrew: i think it is something we should look at very seriously. where if you are a tech company that dominates in a particular area, let's call it online retail, then it could be that

you and your owners or principals should not necessarily be expanding into national media companies, as one possibility. right now, we are in a media landscape where many of these media companies are struggling to retain profitability. so you are seeing any number of tech leaders by flagship publications like the washington post or others. so it is something we should take a long. look at because you should not have media organs that you are testing in this way. emily: let's talk about the issues you have raised with the data and the data collection. what are your biggest concerns about how these companies operate? andrew: right now, facebook and google in particular are generating tens of billions of dollars a year from our data, and we are not seeing a dime. and you think your to -- think to yourself, how could this be? because facebook is free, google is somewhat free. they are monetizing our data, selling and reselling it.

google announced they are going to try to do away with third-party cookies throughout to their sites which would be an enormous change and would end up consolidating control of user data in google's hands. and make it very, very difficult for many third-party publishers to compete. so we have to face facts that at this point, facebook and google have these data empires on the backs of our data. legislatorsy, our are way, way behind the curve on this set of issues. it is negative not just on the economics, but potentially on our autonomy and our democratic processes. emily: do you think apple is in a different league here? when it comes to data, apple has positioned itself as a company that is focused on privacy. privacy and security of its you -- of its users first and foremost. andrew: apple has a different relationship with his customers and users, where you elected to

join the apple walled garden. you generally have a paying subscriber type relationship. that within an ecosystem we actually opted into. and that is a different situation then is happening with facebook and google, in part because facebook and google monetize our data, not just on their own sites, but through other partner sites as well. it is much more pervasive. i do think apple has a different relationship there, and it should be looked at with a different set of principles and concern in mind. emily: meantime, the biggest contentions about apple today have been the app store and the 30% cut that apple takes from them at -- from the vast majority of assets that make revenue. in the app store, over the past couple of months, we have been speaking to the ceo of spotify, the ceo of epic games, about their concerns here as well as apple cofounder steve wozniak, who took apple's side on this

let's take a listen to what they had to say. >> it is -- they are two companies. they control 100% of the smartphone market. or something like 99.9%. if you look at a lot of territories, apple. . has the majority of revenue. in many of these countries. other countries, google has majority of revenue. it is impossible to look at a territory and say in this place, apple and google is not a monopoly. they have on them -- have a monopoly. >> sometimes i have negative opinions about apple being a little too much control over you. but i thought about this one. there is one going on right now with antitrust, and i actually take apple's side on this one. 30%, and giving you guarantees and protection and security in the apps you can possibly download, when you look at what happened in the android world, oh my gosh, i don't expect of the -- i don't object to the 30% at all. >> it is moving in the right

direction but we have many steps to go before we consider this an open and fair platform. emily: daniel act, ceo of spotify. what do you make of that issue given apple's brand, given there are 1.7 million apps in the app store that maybe would not have a place if apple did not run the gates and hold the keys the way it does? andrew: it is a tough one. it is a line drawing question. clearly, there is some toll that is appropriate. you can look at 30% and say it is too high. no one would argue it is too low, i don't think. but there is something of a duopoly, it's true. if you want to have access to the vast marketplace, you kind of have to play by apple's rules. apple has said a 30% threshold. issue almost is not even the toll they are taking. it is the control. there is a certain toll that would be appropriate.

you could argue for a lower than 30%. but regardless of the toll they are taking, the other issue is their ability to determine exposure in the app store and who gets to participate in really what is one of the only ways to reach consumers. emily: meantime, the president made his voice heard on this today, tweeting earlier, if congress does not bring fairness to big tech which they should have done years ago, i will do it myself with executive orders. this is an interesting issue. all of these companies have been feeling it from both sides of the aisle. . republicans have their concerns about anti-conservative bias that these platforms are taking down too much content. liberals have the opposite concern, that the platforms are leaving too much up. how do you think the politics will impact what these companies are going to face over the next years?

obviously the house investigation is one thing but they are facing investigations in several states from several different agencies across the country. andrew: on this one, i feel for the tech companies. because they are being put into a position where they have to be the arbiters of what is proper types of content and communication. i was very amused by the republican congress person who asked, why are my emails going to spam? bias?anti-conservative and then a democratic congress person said no, it happens to all of her emails. -- all of our emails. because they are generated -- generally regarded as spam he. the politicization of this issue is unfortunate. i feel conservatives do their crying bias, and a lot of the sites actually in some ways he could argue, are actually very friendly to different types of content, including conservative content. the problem is when some of this content spews into something you could regard as hate speech or incitement to violence. and that is a real problem. these tech companies have been

put in position where they have to draw these lines and folks are going to be angry at whatever line they draw. on this one, a think the tech companies -- i think the tech companies best approach would be like, maybe we should have some kind of other way to make these decisions beyond us. because whatever decision they make, someone will politicize it and attack it. and might be in their interest to put their heads together with media companies, government, nonprofits, and come up with a more objective set of criteria that they cannot be attacked on. emily: meantime, you have both the president and vice president biden, full speed ahead, with their campaigns. with advertising on facebook. advertising on youtube. at this time yesterday, this video about hydroxychloroquine being touted as a cure going viral. then all of the platforms pulling it. how concerned are you about

these platforms being undermined? being weaponized? and compromising yet another presidential election? andrew: i'm very concerned about election security. and it may not be even in the hands of the tech companies. you can see new york is having trouble counting mail-in ballots days and weeks after the fact. this goes back to the issue about moderating content. where if you are promoting something that is not beneficial to public health or even harmful to public health, you are putting these platforms in a spot where you say wait a minute, we can't allow misinformation that is quick to hurt the public health out there, and someone will politicize that decision. election security is one issue. disinformation is another issue. these issues are unfortunately going to be with us for this election in november. i think we all want to have an outcome that gets declared in the night of, and that, to me, will be a big test for our democracy.

certainly i hope that we have an election that everyone regrouped -- everyone agrees on the result of very quickly. emily: as we look forward, do you think these companies can do a better job managing their relationship with washington? andrew: you know, you know this better than anyone. there has been a long period of time where technology tried to keep the government at bay and say look, you don't understand us, leave us alone. they came a little later to say well, i guess we should invest in lobbyists, that seems like a good idea. they regarded government as a source of friction to be circumvented. and that actually has to be the progression among tech companies where they regarded government thatreal, let's say, peer needs to be engaged with as opposed to someone you try to run circles around. the issues are growing in prominence. unfortunately for these technology companies, they have

gone from being able to do no wrong to having fewer and fewer political allies and friends because it is becoming increasingly clear that many americans that there have been excesses that could be very destructive to not just competitive landscapes, but also our democracy and our kids mental health. yang, all right, andrew always good to have your insights on the show, and especially good to have you today. thank you for stopping by, andrew yang, entrepreneur and formal presidential candidate. we will be talking more about this hearing. it is still happening on capitol hill. we will be speaking with sally hubbard of the open markets institute, former attorney general in the state of new york next. this is bloomberg. ♪

another antitrust expert calling for the derailing of these big tech monopolies is set out -- is sally hubbard. she was also the former assistant attorney general state of new york. take a listen to what she has to say. i was really impressed at how strong and aggressive they were with her questioning. it was like night and day from past tech hearings we have seen. i know in the past, it felt like the tech ceos were the ones in charge. at this hearing, i felt like it was the members of congress who were running the show. and they had done their homework and they had the documents to back up what they were actually saying. emily: you focused on antitrust during your time at the assistant attorney general in new york. what is your take on how anticompetitive these companies are? should they be broken up? they havetake is that

been violating the antitrust laws for a long time without having any consequences. and that is through both anticompetitive acquisitions like the acquisition of competitors that we saw in a testimony today. facebook had done that with instagram and what's up. and also through exclusionary conduct which is when a giant uses their muscle to stop another company from being able to compete on the merits to be the best. and i have seen that time and time again. i have set it for almost five years now. and i do believe they are in rampant violation of the antitrust law. emily: what kind of regulations would you like to see? sally: there is a lot of different aspects of what i would like to see. i would like to see strong cases brought against the tech companies. we have ongoing investigations by the state ag's and boj. i would like those to resolve in strong cases, not weak settlements we have seen in the past where you get a find that does not mean anything. but actually a litigated

situation to get the remedy we need, which would be structural breakup, as well as monitoring of ongoing behavior. making sure that there is not this exclusionary conduct that violates the sherman act. and that is the thing that we have touched on. interoperability regulations, nondiscrimination rules, transparency. there's a whole toolkit that needs to be used right now. emily: the president tweeted earlier today, if congress does not bring fairness to big tech, which they should have done years ago, i will do it myself with executive orders. the president's tweets imposed themselves have been the subject controversy. in these companies are facing fire from both sides of the aisle with republican saying they take down too much democrat, saying they don't take down and off. how does this change the risk for the companies given that they have lawmakers on all sides unhappy? sally: there are some republican lawmakers who really believe in

antitrust enforcement and want to enforce the antitrust laws legitimately. then there are some that i really believe are working the ref and trying to make sure that they can keep pushing lies through social media by accusing -- by making these depositions bias.here is a liberal if you look at any record of what is the top trending materials and content on any of these platforms, the top 10 is right wing media. i really believe it is unfounded. but i do sympathize with their concern that we have too much concentrated control over information flow. and that the solution to that is antitrust enforcement. trumpt believe donald really wants antitrust enforcement. i think what he wants more than anything is to control facebook rather than to bring it up -- break it up. emily: what happens next? ? we have the house investigation, but as you mentioned , different

federal agencies, what is the path forward look like from here? sally: i think very soon, we need to see very aggressive complaints filed by the state ag's and enforcers. i do not think that will be too far along. and then also, some congressional reform would be ideal. but i think we will see the antitrust cases sooner. emily: that said, how long could that reform take, if it happens? are we looking at potentially several years of a protracted side on this? sally: antitrust litigation takes a long time. the microsoft case took almost a decade best -- by the time it was resolved. we ended up having a very dynamic competitive market because of the enforcement. it had just enforcement is slower than actual legislation. whether it will pass will depend on what happens in the election in november. emily: sally hubbard at they are of the open markets institute,

and the hearing still underway. we have been listening in. alphabet ceo being questioned. earlier we heard from tim cook talking about the app store, talking about how many jobs it has created. he says the app store has created 2 million jobs. jennifer reid, r bloomberg intelligence analyst is here. you have been doing a lot of work on this. preparedkers came today. now that the house is soon to be wrapping up this hearing, they have more information, they have the responses from the ceos about their biggest contentions. what do they do with that information next? jennifer: now i think the hard work starts for them. they have said that they will put everything they found from this investigation, which i think culminated today, into a report. in the report is just to outline what their findings are. and also to start to think about what should they done with respect to legislation.

whether there should be new laws applying to these companies in or eventrust world, beyond in privacy or some of the things sally hubbard was talking about. . interoperability and transparency. or whether the laws currently on the books are fine, or maybe just need some amendment. this is going to start the hard work. because i think where there is consensus on capitol hill, that something should be done to curb the power of these companies. i'm not so sure there is an agreement about what that is. emily: mark zuckerberg made the case in his opening statement that regulation could have the potential of giving chinese tech companies an advantage. he welcomes regulation, but it depends on what kinds of -- kind of regulation. did you get the sense that lawmakers care about the china issue at this point? he seems more -- they seem more focused on competitive issues in the united states. jennifer: i don't think they do. and i really think that is the

way they should be thinking. that they should not be thinking about what this means vis-a-vis the chinese companies. because essentially what the antitrust laws would say is that healthy competition is going to benefit our companies, american companies. and that anticompetitive conduct doesn't. what they should be doing is focusing on whether this and -- there is anticompetitive conduct happening and whether the antitrust laws have been violated. the defense to that is not, if you regulate us, you just might see chinese companies take our place, or it could be detrimental to us on good for the chinese. that is not a defense to anticompetitive conduct. what they should be focused on is healthy competition in the market. out, how we close would you evaluate the showing here of these four ceos? jennifer: i think they were put in a tough spot. the format really did not lend them -- lend itself to them being able to explain anything

or getting an answer out. . i think it was set up to be that way. the politicians wanted to say their piece. they wanted to get these documents out that contradict what the ceos said. and they didn't give them a chance to explain themselves. i don't think it was a great showing for them. and i do think there are probably some explanations for some of those documents and some of the decision-making that the lawmakers were talking about and raising. but it does not really matter. i don't think at the end of the day, i think lines have been made up after this investigation has been done with respect to what is going to go into legislation. the department of justice and federal trade commission has -- have done thorough investigations themselves and will base any decision they make about an forstmann actions on what they have seen, and not on this hearing. emily: right. do you get the sense they will be pursuing aggressive legislation, based on a line of questioning and the town of this hearing? jennifer: i do think so. i think what we will see coming

up is not just legislation, but also enforcement action. i think the enforcement actions would happen sooner than the legislation. legislation, especially in antitrust, is going to take a long time. we don't know what will happen with the election and how that might change things. even ftck the doj and may be ready pretty soon to bring a lawsuit in court against google may be this year, facebook may be in the first quarter of next year. and then possibly amazon and apple. although i think it is less likely we will see some aggressive enforcement action against those two ladder companies. i think the next thing we will see will be enforcement action. emily: all right. we will be watching, jennifer re-of bloomberg intelligence. jennifer, thank you so much for joining us. this hearing is still underway on capitol hill, going well into the evening. 9:00 p.m. on the east coast. we are going into the sixth hour of questioning. we will continue to cover this.

stay tuned right here to bloomberg television. that is it for "bloomberg technology." i'm emily chang. this is bloomberg. ♪ >> public health measure which i would hope all of us would endorse. we don't want anybody including the president of the united states -- ident of the united states -- hey, kids!

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haidi: good morning. welcome to "daybreak: australia." i'm haidi stroud-watts in sydney. we are counting down to the major market opens. shery: good evening from new york. i'm shery ahn. our top stories this hour. jerome powell warns of the worst economic downturn in our lifetime as the fed leaves rates on hold and urges congress to boost fiscal spending. u.s. coronavirus deaths passed