Mark Zuckerberg at Senate hearing: Here are 5 questions that made him uncomfortable

By and large, the first senate hearing of Mark Zuckerberg went off quite well for him. He came well-prepared, had a plan and then stuck to it. But in many ways Zuckerberg, as he testified in front of the US senate committees on Justice and Commerce to answer questions about users privacy and data, the Facebook CEO was helped by tech-illiterate senators. The senators, most of them old, were smooth talkers -- like the politicians are -- but they had no clue about how Facebook works, how data moves and what are the areas where they needed answers.

This resulted in Zuckerberg having a field day answering very basic questions from senators. At times he even relaxed and enjoyed his conversations. Yet, this was a long hearing, lasting over 5 hours and occasionally there were questions that made Zuckerberg uncomfortable. Here are 5 questions and moments from his testimony that the Facebook CEO probably hated.

-- One of the most tense moments for Zuckerberg came when he was asked about Palantir, a secretive tech company that often works with the American military. People says that Cambridge Analytica, which has landed Facebook in a soup, is for kids compared to what Palantir offers. There are reports that Palantir too uses Facebook data, although evidence is probably thin. It helped Zuckerberg escape this line of questioning and he said that he is simply not aware of Palantir much.

-- One question that Zuckerberg struggled to explain was how and why Facebook tracks people who are not even Facebook users or aren't logged in to social media. Facebook does that through browser cookies and Zuckerberg repeatedly tried to shy away from answering this question. Unfortunately for the rest of the world, the Us senators were not well-equipped to see through how Zuckerberg dodged this question.

-- Although he answered the question in a no when asked if he will like to share name of the hotel where he is staying, Zuckerberg was annoyed at the way the question laid bare the difference in the level of privacy that Facebook CEO and Facebook users have. Facebook wants its users to reveal, or knows using GPS, where they are staying while travelling. But Zuckerberg categorically refused to reveal the details to senators.

-- Another question that Zuckerberg struggled was about whether Facebook is a monopoly or not. he was asked to name a direct competitor of Facebook and he couldn't or wouldn't. This showed that Facebook is indeed a monopoly, highlighting the fact that regulators in the US may decide to look into its business and operations.

-- And finally Zuckerberg struggled a bit on the question of the way his company uses consent obtained from users. He often talked of the Terms and Conditions that users agree with while using Facebook but the US senators wanted to know really how many people read these terms and conditions. At one point, senator John Kennedy said, "Your user agreement sucks." Many senators also wanted to know how Facebook can use the permissions obtained for users for something else for entirely different purposes. And while replying, Zuckerberg couldn't convincingly explain.

Apart from these instances, a number of times Zuckerberg was asked for specifics. Like whether he will support a strong privacy regulation or not. And similar other questions. In most of these cases, instead of categorical answers Zuckerberg said things that were amount to dodging the questions. In many cases he also said that he would follow up on the question. "I'll have my team follow up with you," was a line he said again and again.

On Wednesday, Zuckerberg was testing in front of 44 senators from Commerce and Justice Committee. Tonight he will testify again before House Energy and Commerce Committee. The testimony by Zuckerberg comes in the wake of Cambridge Analytica scandal in which Facebook has struggled to explain how it keeps the private user data safe and secure.