Google Continues Stonewalling Congress in Written Responses to Lawmakers’ Questions

Google’s written responses to Congress are as unresponsive as CEO Sundar Pichai’s answers during his hearing before the House Judiciary Committee in December.

In the written responses, the Silicon Valley Masters of the Universe avoided directly answering a number of questions.

For example, when Google was asked whether it “prioritize[s] its own content over other content when users search for local goods and services,” the company avoided a yes or no answer, and instead replied that Google gives users results based on “relevance” to their query, and that if users are unhappy with Google’s results, they can go elsewhere.

After being asked why Google did not disclose the fact that it had given money to the National Review in 2018, the company claimed it would be disclosing its financial sponsorship in its “upcoming transparency report.”

“Google’s transparency report lists third party organization, which the company funds… Jonah Goldberg recently disclosed that the National Review Institute received funds from Google, but the Institute is not listed on the report. Why?” asked Chairman Bob Goodlatte.

Google replied, “Google has a long history of supporting organizations on all sides of the political spectrum. Google was among several corporate sponsors of the National Review Institute’s William F. Buckley Prize dinner in 2018, which is scheduled to be reported in our upcoming transparency report.”

Yelp Vice President of Public Policy and Government Affairs, Luther Lowe, pointed out on Twitter that Google had also given money to the National Review in 2017, and did not disclose that either.

On the National Review Institute’s website, Google is listed as one of the William F. Buckley Jr. Prize Dinner’s Gold Sponsors for both 2017 and 2018.

The National Review has published pro-Google articles.

Pichai was grilled by the House Judiciary Committee in December, where the Google CEO also avoided direct answers.