U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee questions Amazon and Alphabet about their smart-home devices and virtual assistants

U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee, wrote a letter to Amazon and Alphabet’s Google asking them for details about how their smart-home devices and virtual assistants will support competition and user privacy. In the letter, Senator Klobuchar asked the companies which of their products will support the Matter interoperability project and who will be responsible for determining whether to extend the length of the commitment to Matter. The companies were asked to answer the questions till July 2. The letter was sent after last week’s hearing at the subcommittee. The hearing was conducted following other home-device makers’ complaints that the big tech companies engage in allegedly anticompetitive behavior. The hearing also dealt with issues such as privacy/data-sharing, interoperability, and patent infringement.