The Tensions Over Google's Political Activity

Congressman [Last Name] expressed concern over Google's past behavior, specifically an email written by Ilene Marillo, head of multicultural marketing, in 2016. The email, which was widely circulated among executives, discussed a silent donation to the Clinton campaign and how Google had pushed to increase the Latino vote in key states such as Nevada and Florida. This raised questions about whether Google was engaging in electioneering activities.

The congressman asked if this behavior had occurred again in 2020, particularly with regards to configuring its features to help Joe Biden's campaign. He also inquired about whether Google would use its search engine to silence conservatives. The congressman emphasized the importance of neutrality and ensuring that Google's actions do not favor one candidate over another.

Google's Response to Congressman Pachai

In response to the congressman's questions, Google's CEO Sundar Pachai addressed the concerns. He acknowledged that his company had complied with laws in 2016 and was committed to providing non-partisan information to users during elections. Pachai emphasized that Google's goal is to provide accurate and unbiased information, and that users have the right to access polling places, voting information, and other relevant details.

Pachai also discussed the importance of neutrality in his company's actions. He stated that conservatives have more access to information than ever before on Google's search engine, which he took as a positive development. However, when asked specifically about assuring the congressman that Google would not try to silence conservatives or configure its features to help Joe Biden's campaign, Pachai seemed hesitant and did not provide a clear answer.

The Debate Over Election Interference

The conversation between Congressman [Last Name] and Sundar Pachai highlights the ongoing debate over election interference. With just 97 days left before the 2020 presidential election, concerns are growing about whether tech companies like Google will use their influence to sway the outcome of the election. The email from Ilene Marillo in 2016 has raised questions about Google's intentions and its commitment to neutrality.

Google's actions have been criticized by some as an example of election interference, particularly if the company is using its features to help one candidate over another. However, others argue that Google's role is simply to provide information and facilitate access to resources for voters. The debate over election interference will likely continue in the lead-up to the 2020 presidential election, with tech companies like Google at the center of the discussion.

The History of Google's Election Interference Allegations

Google has faced allegations of election interference in the past, including a well-publicized cyber attack in 2009 that exfiltrated code from a US company. This incident highlighted the vulnerability of US technology to foreign actors and raised concerns about the role of tech companies in protecting national security.

In recent years, Google has taken steps to improve its cybersecurity measures and reduce the risk of election interference. However, some experts argue that more needs to be done to address this issue. The 2016 email from Ilene Marillo has reignited these debates, with many questioning whether Google is doing enough to ensure its actions do not interfere with the democratic process.

The Importance of Transparency and Accountability

As the 2020 presidential election approaches, it is essential that tech companies like Google prioritize transparency and accountability. This means being open about their activities and intentions, particularly when it comes to elections. It also requires a commitment to neutrality and a willingness to listen to concerns from lawmakers and other stakeholders.

By prioritizing transparency and accountability, Google can build trust with its users and ensure that its actions do not undermine the democratic process. This will require ongoing effort and attention from the company's leadership, as well as a commitment to doing what is right, even when it may be difficult or unpopular.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: endid google ever use its surveillance over web traffic to identify competitive threats congressman just like other businesses we tried to understand trends from uh you know data which we can see and we use it to improve our products for our users but we really focused on improving our products and that's how i appreciate that google's own documents and numerous interviews with companies affected by this conduct show that google did just that google takes pride in the number of people who choose our products we are even prouder of what they do with them from the 140 million students and teachers using g suite for education to stay connected during the pandemic to the 5 million americans gaining digital skills to grow with google to all the people who turn to google for help from finding the fastest route home to learning how to cook a new dish on youtube google's work would not be possible without the long tradition of american innovation and we are proud to contribute to its future we employ more than 75 000 people in the u.s across 26 states the progressive policy institute estimated that in 2018 we invested more than 20 billion dollars in the us citing us as the largest capital investor in america that year and one of the top five for the last three years one way we contribute is by building helpful products research found that free services like search gmail maps and photos provide thousands of dollars a year in value to the average american and many are small businesses using our digital tools to grow stone dimensions a family-owned stone company in pewaukee wisconsin uses google my business to draw more customers gil's appliances a family-owned appliance store in bristol rhode island credits google analytics with helping them reach customers online during the pandemic nearly one-third of small business owners say that without digital tools they would have had to close all or part of their business during covet another way we contribute is by being among the world's biggest investors in research and development at the end of 2019 our r d spend had increased 10 fold over 10 years from 2.8 billion dollars to 26 billion dollars and we have invested over 90 billion dollars the last five years our engineers are helping america remain a global leader in emerging technologies like artificial intelligence self-driving cars and quantum computing just as america's technology leadership is not inevitable google's continued success is not guaranteed new competitors emerge every day and today users have more access to information than ever before competition drives us to innovate and it also leads to better products lower choices and more choices for everyone for example competition helped lower online advertising costs by 40 over the last decade with savings passed down to consumers open platforms like android also support the innovation of others using android thousands of mobile operators build and sell their own devices without paying any licensing fees to us this has enabled billions of consumers to effort cutting-edge smartphones some for less than 50 whether building tools for small businesses or platforms like android google succeeds when others succeed competition also sets higher standards for privacy and security i've always believed that privacy is a universal right and google is committed to keeping your information safe treating it responsibly putting you in control and we've long supported the creation of comprehensive federal privacy laws i've never forgotten how access to technology and innovation changed the course of my life google aims to build products that increase access to opportunity for everyone no matter where you live what you believe or how much money you earn we are committed to doing this responsibly in partnership with lawmakers to ensure every american has access to the incredible opportunity technology creates mr bachai over 85 percent of all online searches go through google every online company in the united states depends on google to reach users a business may sink or swim based on google's decisions alone numerous online businesses told us that google steals their content and privileges its own sites in ways that profit google but crush everyone else most businesses ask to stay anonymous due to fears that google would retaliate against them one entrepreneur brian warner told us his website was thriving until google stole his content after google's decision traffic to his website dropped by 80 percent he had to downsize his business and lay off half his staff he told us and i quote if someone came to me with an idea for a website or a web service today i tell them to run run as far away from the web as possible launch a lawn care business or dog grooming business something google can't take away as soon as he or she is thriving so my first question mr pachai is why does google steal content from honest businesses mr chairman with respect uh i disagree with that characterization just last week i met with many small businesses in fact today we support 1.4 million small businesses supporting over 385 billion dollars in econ economic activity we see many businesses thrive particularly even during the pandemic businesses an example cattle kings in texas which sells kettlebells they're really which i have a limited amount of time so i don't want to interrupt you but my question is very specific we heard throughout this investigation that google has stolen content to build your own business these are consistent reports and so uh your your testimony that that doesn't happen is really inconsistent with what we've learned during the course of the investigation but but i'll move on to it to a new question mr pachai most americans believe that when they enter a search query that what google shows are the most relevant results but increasingly google just shows whatever is most profitable for google via google ads or google's own sites and so my question mr chai isn't there a fundamental conflict of interest between serving users who want to access the best and most relevant information and google's business model which incentivizes google to sell ads and keep users on google's own sites we've always focused on providing users the most relevant information and we rely on that trust for users to come back to google every day in fact a vast majority of queries in google we don't show ads at all and we show ads only for a small subset of queries where the intent from users is highly commercial for example they may be looking for something like tv sets or so on but mr richard what is the what is the value of the part that you do use the google ads for i mean it's a substantial part of your business what's that what's the actual value 200 billion 300 billion uh uh you know in terms of revenue uh it's around 100 100 plus billion dollars but uh that's a lot of money mr bachai let me move on uh it really mr bachai it's google's business model that is the problem our documents show that google evolved from a turnstile to the rest of the web to a walled garden that increasingly keeps users within its sites emails show that over a decade ago google started to fear competition from certain websites web pages that could divert search traffic and revenue from google these documents show that google staff discussed the proliferating threat is how it was described that these web pages posed to google any traffic loss to other sites was a loss in revenue one of google's memos observed that certain websites were getting and i quote too much traffic so google decided to put an end to that mr pachaya you've been at google since 2004 were you involved in these discussions about the threat from vertical search uh congressman uh without knowing the specifics it's uh you know i'm not fully clear of the context but definitely when we look at vertical searches it validates the competition we see for example when users come looking to shop online independent studies show that over 55 of product searches originate with amazon and over 70 originate with the major e-commerce companies in the few categories which are commercial in nature we see vigorous competition we travel be it real estate and and we are working hard let me ask very specifically mrs the evidence that we collected shows that google pursued a multi-pronged attack first google began to steal other web pages content for example in 2010 google stole restaurant reviews from yelp to bootstrap its own rival local search business mr bachai do you know how google responded when yelp asked you to stop stealing their reviews well i'll tell you our investigation shows that google's response was to threaten to de-list yelp entirely in other words the choice google gave yelp was let us steal your content or effectively disappear from the web mr pachai isn't that anti-competitive congressman uh you know when i run the company i'm really focused on giving users what they want we conduct ourselves to the highest standard happy to engage understand the specifics and and answer your questions further thank you just one final series of questions mr pichai did google ever use its surveillance over web traffic to identify competitive threats uh congressman just like other businesses we tried to understand trends from uh you know data which we can see and we use it to improve our products for our users uh but we're really focused on improving our products and that's how i appreciate that google's own documents and numerous interviews with companies affected by this conduct show that google did just that which is very disturbing and very anti-competitive in addition to stealing content google also began to privilege its own sites an investigative report published just yesterday found that 63 percent of web searches that start on google also end somewhere on google's own websites and to me that's evidence that google is increasingly a walled garden which keeps users on google sites even if google doesn't have the most relevant information and it's economically catastrophic for other companies online and so uh my time is running out but mr mr patrol just end by saying the evidence seems very clear to me as google became the gateway to the internet it began to abuse its power it used its surveillance over web traffic to identify competitive threats and crush them it has dampened innovation and new business growth and it's dramatically increased the price of accessing users on the internet virtually ensuring that any business that wants to be found on the web must pay google a tax mr uh pachai is google going to tailor its features to help joe biden in the 2020 election uh congressman we approach our work uh you know we support both campaigns today we think political ads is an important part of free speech in democratic societies and we engage with campaigns you know according to law and we approach our work in a non-partisan way it was a yes or no question can you assure americans today you won't tailor your features to help joe biden in the upcoming election uh you know we support work that campaigns do i just want to make sure i understand that we all we all we all do all kinds of online social media every all kinds of that kind of that that uh outreach that communication this is a simple question can you today assure americans you will not tailor your features in any way to help specifically help one candidate over other and this this what i'm concerned about is you're helping joe biden over president trump we we won't do any work uh you know it to politically tilt anything one way or the other it's against our core values but but you did it in 2016. an email in 2016 that was widely circulated amongst the executives at your company that got public where ms ileana marillo head of your multicultural marketing talks about the silent donation google made to the clinton campaign and you applauded her work she points that out in the email i'm just curious if you did it in 16 i want to make you know in spite of the fact you did it in 16 president trump won i just want to make sure you're not going to do it again in 2020. uh congressman i recall our conversation at that time and i appreciate your concern we didn't find any evidence of such activity and i took the opportunity after our conversation to reinforce uh to the company we realize even an appearance could be improper so we have clearly communicated to our employees any personal political activity while that's their right needs to happen on their own time and resources and should avoid any use of course everyone's got their first amendment rights to campaign for who they want what they can't do is configure your features to help one candidate over the other so you might have not found any evidence but here's what she wrote to the email to a number of key executives in your company quote we pushed to get out the latino vote with our features second quote we pushed to get out the latino vote with our features in key states seems to me those last three words are the real qualifier here that's electioneering when you're trying to increase the latino vote in keys in key states and she'd already communicated that she was supporting clinton that she wanted clinton to win so when she talks about increasing the latino vote which she assumed was going to help candidate clinton and she's doing that in key state it's one thing if you're going to increase the latino vote around the country if you're just a good corporate citizen you're urging people to vote it's quite another when you're focusing on in key states and you know what those key states were nevada and florida the swing states so again i want to make sure this isn't going to happen in 2020. i can assure you that we complied with laws in 2016 as a company any work we do around elections is non-partisan users to come to us for understanding where polling places are where to vote which is the day toward what the voting hours are we're committed to providing that information and i can assure you that we will approach our work so mr pachai here's here's the question i think's on so many americans minds they saw the list that we read here earlier on in our opening statements all the things google has done google is siding with the world health organization over over anyone who disagrees with them even though the world health organization obviously lied to america obviously shills for china google's siding with them youtube is siding with them we have the history of all the things google has done and the history of what happened in 2016 in the election where they obviously according to one of your your multicultural marketing executive tried to help clinton and here we are 97 days before the election and we want to make sure it's not going to happen again we want to make can you give us two assurances one you're not going to try to tailor your features configure your platform in a way to help joe biden and second that you're not going to use your search engine to silence conservatives can you give us those two assurances today congressman on our search engine uh conservatives have more access to information than ever before we appreciate that that's that wasn't the question can you assure us today you're not going to try to silence conservatives and can you assure us today you're not going to try to configure your features as miss murillo said you did for clinton in 16 can you assure us today you're not going to do the same thing for joe biden in 2020 uh you know you you you have my commitment uh it's always been true and we will continue to conduct ourselves uh in a neutral way do you believe that the chinese government steals technology from united states companies uh congressman um i have no first-hand knowledge of uh any information stolen from google this recall before i call on uh the next witness i want to recognize mr pachai who i think wants to make a correction uh for the hearing the only correction uh thanks mr chairman uh there was a question earlier about information uh with respect to china i just wanted to acknowledge on record that i recalled in 2009 we had a well-publicized uh cyber attack originating there which did exfiltrate some code from there i just wanted to correct that thank youdid google ever use its surveillance over web traffic to identify competitive threats congressman just like other businesses we tried to understand trends from uh you know data which we can see and we use it to improve our products for our users but we really focused on improving our products and that's how i appreciate that google's own documents and numerous interviews with companies affected by this conduct show that google did just that google takes pride in the number of people who choose our products we are even prouder of what they do with them from the 140 million students and teachers using g suite for education to stay connected during the pandemic to the 5 million americans gaining digital skills to grow with google to all the people who turn to google for help from finding the fastest route home to learning how to cook a new dish on youtube google's work would not be possible without the long tradition of american innovation and we are proud to contribute to its future we employ more than 75 000 people in the u.s across 26 states the progressive policy institute estimated that in 2018 we invested more than 20 billion dollars in the us citing us as the largest capital investor in america that year and one of the top five for the last three years one way we contribute is by building helpful products research found that free services like search gmail maps and photos provide thousands of dollars a year in value to the average american and many are small businesses using our digital tools to grow stone dimensions a family-owned stone company in pewaukee wisconsin uses google my business to draw more customers gil's appliances a family-owned appliance store in bristol rhode island credits google analytics with helping them reach customers online during the pandemic nearly one-third of small business owners say that without digital tools they would have had to close all or part of their business during covet another way we contribute is by being among the world's biggest investors in research and development at the end of 2019 our r d spend had increased 10 fold over 10 years from 2.8 billion dollars to 26 billion dollars and we have invested over 90 billion dollars the last five years our engineers are helping america remain a global leader in emerging technologies like artificial intelligence self-driving cars and quantum computing just as america's technology leadership is not inevitable google's continued success is not guaranteed new competitors emerge every day and today users have more access to information than ever before competition drives us to innovate and it also leads to better products lower choices and more choices for everyone for example competition helped lower online advertising costs by 40 over the last decade with savings passed down to consumers open platforms like android also support the innovation of others using android thousands of mobile operators build and sell their own devices without paying any licensing fees to us this has enabled billions of consumers to effort cutting-edge smartphones some for less than 50 whether building tools for small businesses or platforms like android google succeeds when others succeed competition also sets higher standards for privacy and security i've always believed that privacy is a universal right and google is committed to keeping your information safe treating it responsibly putting you in control and we've long supported the creation of comprehensive federal privacy laws i've never forgotten how access to technology and innovation changed the course of my life google aims to build products that increase access to opportunity for everyone no matter where you live what you believe or how much money you earn we are committed to doing this responsibly in partnership with lawmakers to ensure every american has access to the incredible opportunity technology creates mr bachai over 85 percent of all online searches go through google every online company in the united states depends on google to reach users a business may sink or swim based on google's decisions alone numerous online businesses told us that google steals their content and privileges its own sites in ways that profit google but crush everyone else most businesses ask to stay anonymous due to fears that google would retaliate against them one entrepreneur brian warner told us his website was thriving until google stole his content after google's decision traffic to his website dropped by 80 percent he had to downsize his business and lay off half his staff he told us and i quote if someone came to me with an idea for a website or a web service today i tell them to run run as far away from the web as possible launch a lawn care business or dog grooming business something google can't take away as soon as he or she is thriving so my first question mr pachai is why does google steal content from honest businesses mr chairman with respect uh i disagree with that characterization just last week i met with many small businesses in fact today we support 1.4 million small businesses supporting over 385 billion dollars in econ economic activity we see many businesses thrive particularly even during the pandemic businesses an example cattle kings in texas which sells kettlebells they're really which i have a limited amount of time so i don't want to interrupt you but my question is very specific we heard throughout this investigation that google has stolen content to build your own business these are consistent reports and so uh your your testimony that that doesn't happen is really inconsistent with what we've learned during the course of the investigation but but i'll move on to it to a new question mr pachai most americans believe that when they enter a search query that what google shows are the most relevant results but increasingly google just shows whatever is most profitable for google via google ads or google's own sites and so my question mr chai isn't there a fundamental conflict of interest between serving users who want to access the best and most relevant information and google's business model which incentivizes google to sell ads and keep users on google's own sites we've always focused on providing users the most relevant information and we rely on that trust for users to come back to google every day in fact a vast majority of queries in google we don't show ads at all and we show ads only for a small subset of queries where the intent from users is highly commercial for example they may be looking for something like tv sets or so on but mr richard what is the what is the value of the part that you do use the google ads for i mean it's a substantial part of your business what's that what's the actual value 200 billion 300 billion uh uh you know in terms of revenue uh it's around 100 100 plus billion dollars but uh that's a lot of money mr bachai let me move on uh it really mr bachai it's google's business model that is the problem our documents show that google evolved from a turnstile to the rest of the web to a walled garden that increasingly keeps users within its sites emails show that over a decade ago google started to fear competition from certain websites web pages that could divert search traffic and revenue from google these documents show that google staff discussed the proliferating threat is how it was described that these web pages posed to google any traffic loss to other sites was a loss in revenue one of google's memos observed that certain websites were getting and i quote too much traffic so google decided to put an end to that mr pachaya you've been at google since 2004 were you involved in these discussions about the threat from vertical search uh congressman uh without knowing the specifics it's uh you know i'm not fully clear of the context but definitely when we look at vertical searches it validates the competition we see for example when users come looking to shop online independent studies show that over 55 of product searches originate with amazon and over 70 originate with the major e-commerce companies in the few categories which are commercial in nature we see vigorous competition we travel be it real estate and and we are working hard let me ask very specifically mrs the evidence that we collected shows that google pursued a multi-pronged attack first google began to steal other web pages content for example in 2010 google stole restaurant reviews from yelp to bootstrap its own rival local search business mr bachai do you know how google responded when yelp asked you to stop stealing their reviews well i'll tell you our investigation shows that google's response was to threaten to de-list yelp entirely in other words the choice google gave yelp was let us steal your content or effectively disappear from the web mr pachai isn't that anti-competitive congressman uh you know when i run the company i'm really focused on giving users what they want we conduct ourselves to the highest standard happy to engage understand the specifics and and answer your questions further thank you just one final series of questions mr pichai did google ever use its surveillance over web traffic to identify competitive threats uh congressman just like other businesses we tried to understand trends from uh you know data which we can see and we use it to improve our products for our users uh but we're really focused on improving our products and that's how i appreciate that google's own documents and numerous interviews with companies affected by this conduct show that google did just that which is very disturbing and very anti-competitive in addition to stealing content google also began to privilege its own sites an investigative report published just yesterday found that 63 percent of web searches that start on google also end somewhere on google's own websites and to me that's evidence that google is increasingly a walled garden which keeps users on google sites even if google doesn't have the most relevant information and it's economically catastrophic for other companies online and so uh my time is running out but mr mr patrol just end by saying the evidence seems very clear to me as google became the gateway to the internet it began to abuse its power it used its surveillance over web traffic to identify competitive threats and crush them it has dampened innovation and new business growth and it's dramatically increased the price of accessing users on the internet virtually ensuring that any business that wants to be found on the web must pay google a tax mr uh pachai is google going to tailor its features to help joe biden in the 2020 election uh congressman we approach our work uh you know we support both campaigns today we think political ads is an important part of free speech in democratic societies and we engage with campaigns you know according to law and we approach our work in a non-partisan way it was a yes or no question can you assure americans today you won't tailor your features to help joe biden in the upcoming election uh you know we support work that campaigns do i just want to make sure i understand that we all we all we all do all kinds of online social media every all kinds of that kind of that that uh outreach that communication this is a simple question can you today assure americans you will not tailor your features in any way to help specifically help one candidate over other and this this what i'm concerned about is you're helping joe biden over president trump we we won't do any work uh you know it to politically tilt anything one way or the other it's against our core values but but you did it in 2016. an email in 2016 that was widely circulated amongst the executives at your company that got public where ms ileana marillo head of your multicultural marketing talks about the silent donation google made to the clinton campaign and you applauded her work she points that out in the email i'm just curious if you did it in 16 i want to make you know in spite of the fact you did it in 16 president trump won i just want to make sure you're not going to do it again in 2020. uh congressman i recall our conversation at that time and i appreciate your concern we didn't find any evidence of such activity and i took the opportunity after our conversation to reinforce uh to the company we realize even an appearance could be improper so we have clearly communicated to our employees any personal political activity while that's their right needs to happen on their own time and resources and should avoid any use of course everyone's got their first amendment rights to campaign for who they want what they can't do is configure your features to help one candidate over the other so you might have not found any evidence but here's what she wrote to the email to a number of key executives in your company quote we pushed to get out the latino vote with our features second quote we pushed to get out the latino vote with our features in key states seems to me those last three words are the real qualifier here that's electioneering when you're trying to increase the latino vote in keys in key states and she'd already communicated that she was supporting clinton that she wanted clinton to win so when she talks about increasing the latino vote which she assumed was going to help candidate clinton and she's doing that in key state it's one thing if you're going to increase the latino vote around the country if you're just a good corporate citizen you're urging people to vote it's quite another when you're focusing on in key states and you know what those key states were nevada and florida the swing states so again i want to make sure this isn't going to happen in 2020. i can assure you that we complied with laws in 2016 as a company any work we do around elections is non-partisan users to come to us for understanding where polling places are where to vote which is the day toward what the voting hours are we're committed to providing that information and i can assure you that we will approach our work so mr pachai here's here's the question i think's on so many americans minds they saw the list that we read here earlier on in our opening statements all the things google has done google is siding with the world health organization over over anyone who disagrees with them even though the world health organization obviously lied to america obviously shills for china google's siding with them youtube is siding with them we have the history of all the things google has done and the history of what happened in 2016 in the election where they obviously according to one of your your multicultural marketing executive tried to help clinton and here we are 97 days before the election and we want to make sure it's not going to happen again we want to make can you give us two assurances one you're not going to try to tailor your features configure your platform in a way to help joe biden and second that you're not going to use your search engine to silence conservatives can you give us those two assurances today congressman on our search engine uh conservatives have more access to information than ever before we appreciate that that's that wasn't the question can you assure us today you're not going to try to silence conservatives and can you assure us today you're not going to try to configure your features as miss murillo said you did for clinton in 16 can you assure us today you're not going to do the same thing for joe biden in 2020 uh you know you you you have my commitment uh it's always been true and we will continue to conduct ourselves uh in a neutral way do you believe that the chinese government steals technology from united states companies uh congressman um i have no first-hand knowledge of uh any information stolen from google this recall before i call on uh the next witness i want to recognize mr pachai who i think wants to make a correction uh for the hearing the only correction uh thanks mr chairman uh there was a question earlier about information uh with respect to china i just wanted to acknowledge on record that i recalled in 2009 we had a well-publicized uh cyber attack originating there which did exfiltrate some code from there i just wanted to correct that thank you\n"