Google Director Sundar Pichai to testify before US Congress

Google CEO Sundar Pichai is reportedly set to testify before Congress about his search engine’s alleged bias and Google’s plans to launch operations in China.

Sundar Pichai

Google has not confirmed the testimony, but The Washington Post has heard from three people that Pichai will appear and Cnet has also heard the same. The testimony was to take place next Wednesday.

Republicans in Congress want Google to explain its search engine bias. For example, they suspect that the search engine is suppressing sites and posts by Republicans by adjusting the algorithm. US President Donald Trump has previously accused Google of this. In addition, it is questionable whether algorithms such as Google’s should be supervised, because they provide information to many people and are opaque.

Congress would also like an explanation about Dragonfly, Google’s project to develop activities in China with the approval of the Chinese government. Many people within Google are against that. Google has not confirmed Pichai’s testimony. Pichai received an invitation in September, but then refused to come. This resulted in a lot of criticism from politicians.