Google CEO Sundar Pichai to Testify in Front of Congress Next Month
Last updated June 14, 2021
- Google chief executive officer Sundar Pichai will be testifying to Congress before the House Judiciary Committee.
- The hearing is scheduled for December 5 to talk about the company’s search algorithm and user data handling.
- Pichai will be under the scanner over the company’s business practices and its political stance.
Google has been dragged into a number of controversies lately including its supposed deal with China for a censored search engine, its reluctance to adopt site blocking laws in Australia and Russia, and more importantly its political stance in the US. The tech giant has been accused of silencing right-leaning content from its search engine and Google news. President Donald Trump had called out the company for promoting negative stories about his administration.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California, GOP lawmakers, and other Congressmen called Google to appear at the House Judiciary Committee. The hearing has been scheduled for December 5. Despite the accusations against the company, no one has provided any evidence so far, and the company has denied all accusations as well. However, there are suspicions that members of the Congress will be asking the company’s search engine algorithms.
CEO Sundar Pichai has agreed to the testimony, and he will be responsible for explaining how exactly Google’s algorithms work and how they are supervised. Google has faced criticism for not appearing at the Senate in September despite Facebook and Twitter sending in some of their top executive members to address questions by the lawmakers in the country. Both Democrats and Republicans have criticized the company’s move.
Recently, Google+ suffered a data breach which may have affected a large number of users, and it also led to the platform shutting down. Despite the incident occurring in March, the company revealed details last month. The company has stopped working with the Pentagon on an AI program after being criticized over its actions. The company was also accused of enforcing unfair trade practices with its apps being forced upon manufacturers if they wanted to implement Android OS on their products. We expect all of the above issues to be discussed in the hearing along with the underlying political issues in the company.
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