Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple offer defence in congressional antitrust probe

Four top US tech companies, Alphabet’s Google, Facebook, Amazon.com and Apple, responded to questions from a congressional committee by defending their practices and declining to answer some questions.

The House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, which released the answers on Tuesday, had sent the queries as part of its antitrust probe of the four giants, which face a long list of other antitrust probes.

The companies, long a symbol of the dynamism of the US economy, have seen their reputations tarnished by privacy lapses and allegations they abused their perch on top of the market to hurt small and nascent rivals.