Google CEO Sundar Pichai Grilled By Lawmakers On Data Privacy And Political Bias

Google CEO Sundar Pichai was on Capitol Hill Tuesday in his first appearance before Congress. Members of the House Judiciary Committee grilled him about his company's process of handling user data, filtering information, and whether political bias plays a role in its platforms. Here's some of what he said before lawmakers. Mr. Pichai, is it true that the Android operating system sends Google information every few minutes detailing the exact location of a smartphone within a few feet, the speed of movement of the phone, the altitude of the phone sufficient to determine what floor of a building the phone is on, the temperature surrounding the phone, and other readings? And if so, with Americans carrying their phones with them virtually at all times, doesn't the collection of this volume of detailed information really mean that Google is compiling information about virtually every movement an individual with a smartphone is making every hour of every day? It depends on the applications users choose to use. If you're using a fitness application, which is deducting the number of steps you walk, you expect it to send that information. But it's a choice users make. We make it clear, and it depends on the use cases. So the answer to my question, my first question, is yes. Is that correct, that the information that I cited is gathered by Google? If the, for Google services, you have a choice of what information is collected, and we make it transparent. Do you believe that Google has been brought out here in some question is biased? Congressman, it's really important to me that we approach our work in an unbiased... Do you believe that Google is biased? It's either yes or no. No, not in our approach. Let's bring in Connie Guglielmo. She's editor-in-chief of CNET News. She's in Los Altos, California. And in New York, we have Issy Lepofsky. She is a CBS News contributor and senior writer for Wired. Ladies, welcome to you both. Issy, let me start with you. Conservatives accuse Google, which has a 90% market share of web searches, of political bias. Is there any evidence of that, and did we get a clearer picture of their content policy? There really isn't much evidence of that, and Google has denied this claim repeatedly. They say that they have conducted their own internal surveys, and that they find that the searches are relatively equal for conservative and liberal causes. Of course, some of the Congress members today held up one study in particular that Google has challenged its methodology. I think that it's, what's really complicated here is that Google's algorithms are a black box, and they're really hard for the public to understand. They're equally hard for lawmakers to understand, and Google keeps it that way because it doesn't want to be nitpicked. It doesn't want to be asked about every single decision it makes, so it prefers to leave this as a black box. But Sundar did try to explain a little bit about how Google search works. He says that when you type in a keyword, we will search all of the Internet, crawl all the web pages out there, and look for that keyword. And then we'll try to rank pages based on 200-plus signals. Some of those signals have to do with relevancy, or freshness, or the popularity of the content. And he said we're really trying to reflect an accurate view of the conversation about this topic, not necessarily an equal view on partisan lines. Well, Connie, we heard Pichai reluctantly confirm that Google collects extensive data from users. What do we know about the data collection process and how that data is being used? Well, what we do know is that Google is an ad supported service, and that means that you are the product. That information about you and what you're doing on many of its services, and let's remember Google has eight products that have each more than 1 billion users, and they're collecting all sorts of data. If you have maps on, they know exactly where you are within a building, or a city, or a location. And so they are using that data to serve as advertising, and the more targeted the advertising, the more lucrative it is. So, of course, a big part of what Google does, and as was pointed out, is in a black box. We don't know exactly how all of these algorithms work. We don't know exactly all the information they collect, but we do know they collect a great deal of information. They're one of the most powerful companies in tech, and they make a terrific amount of money from advertising. So, Connie, Democrats will be in the House majority come January. Did today's hearing give us any signs of how they want to approach regulations on the tech industry? Well, what we do know, in general, is that lawmakers are getting increasingly frustrated with tech companies and their ability to basically self-regulate. So regulation is something that is being discussed more and more, and there's more examples of companies like Google and like Facebook erring in how they handle customer data. Remember some of the biggest incidents this year, Google with its Google Plus service, and Facebook with Cambridge Analytica. Those were not hacker attacks. That was how those companies set up their business practices to allow vulnerabilities in, and the more that we as Americans and citizens around the world use these services and rely on them for information, the more important their influence is. Therefore, their lack of transparency in how they're collecting data, how easy it is for you to find out what data they have about you, and to check those boxes. The CEO of Google today did say that they need to do work on making it easier for you to even understand what you're agreeing to when you agree to use Gmail or YouTube or Android or any of their big services. Izzy, what do you think? Do we have a little bit of a clearer picture, you think, of how it is some lawmakers intend to go about the business of regulating this technology? I think Connie is right that there is increased appetite for this on Capitol Hill, but what's really important is that we're seeing increased appetite in Silicon Valley, and that's not just out of the goodness of their hearts. That's because in 2020, there is a privacy bill that's set to take effect in California, and that bill is opposed by almost everyone in the tech industry. It's much stricter than they would like to see, and they want to preempt it with a federal privacy bill. So what you're seeing is not only this increased appetite from lawmakers, but also a lot of corporate lobbyists heading to Capitol Hill and saying, work with us on a privacy bill that we can we can both agree to. Well, a few moments from the hearing are getting some attention. Let's play them. I have an iPhone, and if I move from here and go over there and sit with my Democrat friends, which will make them real nervous, does Google track my movement? Does Google through this phone know that I have moved here and moved over to the left? I have a 7-year-old granddaughter who picked up her phone before the election, and she's playing a little game, kind of game a kid would play, and up on there pops a picture of her grandfather. And I'm not gonna say into the record what kind of language was used around that picture of her grandfather, but I'd ask you, how does that show up on a 7-year-old's iPhone who's playing a kid's game? Congressman, iPhone is made by a different company, and so, you know, I mean, it might have been an Android. It's just, it was a hand-me-down of some kind. All right, so taking a step back from those specific technical questions, Izzy, you talked about sort of this black box off the top, trying to sort of keep some of this tech a mystery. Do we get the sense that lawmakers understand the technical side of what they're asking questions about? I think it's pretty clear from those clips that they don't, and what was really troubling today is that they weren't taking the time to allow Sundar to explain the technology, which is what, after all, he was there to do. So, for instance, Steve King mentions that a game on his granddaughter's iPhone is circulating news about him. Frankly, I would like to know what that is all about. And, you know, with the earlier question about whether an Android phone knows if you move from one side of the room to the other, well, that really does depend on a user's privacy settings. And Sundar Pichai was trying to get those answers out, but lawmakers really weren't allowing him to do that. They wanted a yes or no, and they didn't want to understand the nuance. And I think at this point, it's a little embarrassing that they are not, that they don't understand the nuance, because they say that this is something that they take seriously, they say that this is something they want to regulate, but in order to regulate, you have to understand the difference between Android and iPhone. You have to understand the difference between Apple and Google, and how they treat data differently, and how they treat privacy differently. These are core questions to any debate about regulation. All right, we continue to watch it all closely. Connie Guglielmo and Izzy Lipowski, thanks to you both. Thank you. Thank you.