Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Apple CEO Tim Cook will testify ahead of the congress on Wednesday.

Today's interrogation is part of the investigation that has been going on for more than a year and which is about distortion of competition and the dominance of technology giants in the market.

The goal is, among other things, to find out if the tech giants have deliberately prevented smaller companies from establishing themselves and thereby strengthened their own position.

These are so-called "antitrust" laws, which are intended to prevent companies from becoming too dominant, and which have been used for a long time in the United States, including in the financial market, but which have not been used as extensively when it comes to technology companies.

Amazon-Bezos' first interrogation

Today's interrogation is also historic as it is the first time the leaders of all four technology giants will testify during the same interrogation. It is also the first time the world's richest man, Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos, will be questioned before the congress.

Jeff Bezos will, among other things, have to respond to criticism of how third-party sellers on Amazon are treated and respond to accusations that his company has invested in smaller start-up companies in order to obtain information that has since been used to start up competitors, which has meant that smaller companies were crushed in the process.  

Zuckerberg is said to be under pressure about the election

Google's CEO Sundar Pichai will probably get many questions about the company's dominance in the search and advertising market, while Apple's CEO Tim Cook will get to answer questions about Apple's App store, and the criticism from developers about injustices in the process, how apps are approved and the fee Apple charges from companies that develop software for iPhone users.

Facebook Mark Zuckerberg has been questioned by Congress before and various authorities have long followed the company's aggressive acquisition strategy - including Instagram, WhatsApp and most recently Giphy - which has made Facebook increasingly dominant.

Given the covid pandemic and the upcoming presidential election, it is also likely that Mark Zuckerberg will have to answer several questions about Facebook's ability, or inability, to stop misinformation and hatred from spreading on the platform.

The hearing in the congress will begin at 18:00 Swedish time. Due to the corona pandemic, the hearing will take place via the Zoom video service.