Apple’s Anti-trust Hearing May Be an Exercise in Cross Talking

This article was first published in Deccan Chronicle. Views are personal.In an event that is set to send sparks flying throughout the global tech ecosystem, the CEOs of Apple, Amazon, Google, and Facebook have agreed to testify to the American Congress for an anti-trust inquiry. Even before the inquiry, there has been cynicism around whether it is a good idea at all to have Tim Cook, Sundar Pichai, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg answering questions so close to each other. Because all of these companies have very different business models, the limited time is likely not going to be enough to achieve a lot.Each of the four companies has been labelled as potentially ‘too big’ and arguments have been made in favour of breaking them up. But it is only Apple that comes to the event with a very recent chip on its shoulder. The App Store was involved in a very public fight with Basecamp around whether an app by the developer should be allowed on to the platform without paying the 30% cut that Apple charges.