‘Instruments of freedom (or) control’?: U.S. Congress grills Google CEO Pichai
Questions on privacy, data collection, China, Russia — and especially political bias — dominated Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s grilling before Congress Tuesday.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy opened the House Judiciary Committee hearing by noting a “widening gap of distrust” between tech companies and the American people. He asked whether tech companies are “serving as instruments of freedom or instruments of control” in the U.S. and beyond.
He also expressed concerns that Google’s business practices may have been influenced by employees’ political bias against conservatives.
The question of bias has dogged tech companies for years, but there has been no credible evidence that political leanings factor into Google’s search algorithm.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, the committee’s top Democrat, called the notion of bias a “delusion” and a “right-wing conspiracy theory.”
Nadler says Tuesday’s hearing is the committee’s fourth one to address political bias. Hinting at a new agenda under Democratic control next year, Nadler said lawmakers should instead examine issues such as the spread of misinformation and Russia’s efforts to influence U.S. elections online.
Pichai reiterated the company’s position that it has no plans “right now” to launch a censored search engine in China. If that changes, Pichai promised to be “fully transparent” about the move. Pichai, who became CEO in 2015, has said that he wants Google to be in China serving Chinese users.
Pichai’s appearance comes after he angered members of a Senate panel in September by declining their invitation to testify about foreign governments’ manipulation of online services to sway U.S. elections. Pichai’s no-show at that hearing was marked by an empty chair for Google alongside the Facebook and Twitter executives who did appear.
Pichai went to Washington later in September to mend fences, meeting with some two dozen Republicans and indicating he also planned to meet with Democrats. He took part last week in a White House meeting with other tech industry executives that focused mainly on getting government and businesses working more closely on accelerating emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence.
In October, Google announced it was shutting down its longshunned Plus social network following its disclosure of a flaw discovered in March that could have exposed some personal information of as many as 500,000 people. The company deliberately avoided disclosing the privacy lapse at the time, in part to avoid drawing regulators’ scrutiny and damaging its reputation, according to a Wall Street Journal report citing anonymous individuals and documents.
Lawmakers want Google to explain its failure to reveal the breach.
On Monday, the company said it was accelerating its plans to shutter Plus after discovering a privacy flaw that inadvertently exposed the names, email addresses, ages and other personal information of 52.5 million users last month. The service will now go dark in April instead of August, as previously announced.
“We work hard to ensure the integrity of our products, and we’ve put a number of checks and balances in place to ensure they continue to live up to our standards,” Pichai said in his opening statement prepared for Tuesday’s hearing.