Amazon, Google executives lead U.S. Senate panel antitrust hearing witness list

[June 11, 2021]    WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Executives from Alphabet's Google and Amazon.com head the list of witnesses for a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee's antitrust subcommittee next week, along with an executive from speaker maker Sonos Inc, which has been critical of the two tech giants.

The logo of Amazon is seen at the company logistics centre in Boves, France, August 8, 2018. REUTERS/Pascal Rossignol

Ryan McCrate, an associate general counsel, will speak for Amazon while public policy specialist Wilson White will testify for Google, said Senators Amy Klobuchar, chair of the panel, and Mike Lee, the top Republican, in a statement.

Also in the hearing, set for Tuesday, Sonos General Counsel Eddie Lazarus will testify, the statement said.

In congressional testimony in 2020, Sonos CEO Patrick Spence accused Google and Amazon of using their dominance of search and online retail, respectively, to subsidize the smart speaker market and, potentially, dominate the market for other smart home devices. Amazon makes Echo smart speakers and the virtual assistant Alexa while Google makes the Nest series of smart speakers.

The hearing takes place at a time of extraordinary antitrust scrutiny of the biggest U.S. technology companies. One result has been a series of investigations and several federal and state lawsuits filed against Google and Facebook.

(Reporting by Diane Bartz; Editing by David Gregorio)

[© 2021 Thomson Reuters. All rights reserved.]

Copyright 2021 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.  Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.