Rep Nadler Sounds Off On Google Hearing

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) has called an upcoming House Judiciary Committee hearing with Google CEO Sundar Pichai an important “step to restoring public trust in Google & all the companies that shape the Internet.” But the prospect of Republican lawmakers using the appearance to air allegations of bias against tech companies is giving Democratic leaders pause. Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), who is poised to become the panel’s chairman when Democrats take control of the House in 2019, said the hearing will probably become “one of those things about ‘Google is discriminating against conservatives.’” But don’t expect the future panel chairman to join in the bias talk. “There are a lot of topics to talk to Google about, that’s not one of them,” Rep Nadler said. He added that “[market] concentration is one issue” in the tech sector that lawmakers need to grapple with. “And there are others,” he added.

Conservative tech critics gained new ammo on the bias front after the Daily Caller reported that “Google employees debated whether to bury conservative media outlets in search results as a response to President Donald Trump’s election in 2016.”