Sundar Pichai to talk China and alleged bias against Republicans with lawmakers

Google
Inc. CEO Sundar Pichai

Jason
Lee/Reuters

Google
CEO Sundar Pichai will meet privately with Republican lawmakers
on Friday, according to a report on Monday in
The Wall Street Journal.

Pichai has also agreed to testify at a public hearing later this
year, the paper reported.

The meeting Friday follows weeks of verbal attacks on Google by
US President Donald Trump and his allies. Trump
accused Google of “rigging” the company’s Search engine to
silence the voices of political conservatives, and to deliver
only negative news about his administration.

But Google has also acknowledged contemplating a
re-entry into China. In 2010, Google pulled out of that
communist country, saying that the government had tried to force
managers into censoring information.

More recently, Google apparently underwent a change of heart and
built a search engine that would indeed censor information that
the Chinese government finds objectionable. Meanwhile, Google has
balked at helping the US military with some of its operations and
also promised never to build AI-enhanced weapons.

Both house of Congress have noted that while Google is squeamish
at aiding the US military, it may agree to work with a Chinese
government that doesn’t believe in free speech or the free flow
of information.

On China, Google is politically vulnerable in the United States.
 

The meetings are Pichai’s first real test in the three years he’s
been CEO to handle crisis management. In this area, Eric Schmidt,
Pichai’s predecessor
was highly skilled. 

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