GOP House leader notes 'gap of distrust' in Google
129 views · Published 16 December 2018 · 2:59 · Indexed 12 November 2026
Channel: AP Archive · 2018 · News & Politics
(11 Dec 2018) House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy kicked off a congressional grilling of Google CEO Sundar Pichai by noting a "widening gap of distrust" between tech companies and the American people. McCarthy, a California Republican, asked whether tech companies are "serving as instruments of freedom or instruments of control" in the U.S. and beyond. Pichai is facing the Republican-majority House Judiciary Committee before Democrats take control of the House in January. Lawmakers are asking him about alleged bias in the company's search results, as well as its reported plans to launch a censored search engine in China. 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 long-shunned 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. #Google #CEO #SundarPichai Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter: https://twitter.com/AP_Archive Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/APArchives Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/APNews/ You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/aad4ddd38d79f72fe864d04119b5bbb1
