Google’s Sundar Pichai to testify in US Congress hearing.

Google chief executive Sundar Pichai is set to testify to Congress in December, facing off against lawmakers for the first time at a hearing that could subject the search giant to the same harsh political spotlight that has faced its tech peers all year.

The scheduled Dec. 11th, 2018,  hearing before the House Judiciary Committee, confirmed by three sources familiar with the plan but not authorized to speak on record, comes in response to some Republicans who claim that Google, like its tech peers, is biased against conservatives.

Led by House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Calif., GOP lawmakers long have blasted Google for allegedly silencing right-leaning news, views and users, and President Donald Trump similarly has claimed the company promotes negative stories about his administration. Neither has provided significant evidence that Google is biased, however, and Google has vehemently denied the accusations. Follow Spotlife Asia for the latest news and updates.

Along with privacy, Goodlatte previously said in an interview with The Washington Post that he would raise “antitrust” issues. In Europe, Google faces continued scrutiny for its corporate footprint, and some in the United States – including the president – have suggested the need to explore whether Google threatens competitors.

For Pichai, the hearing threatens to be a long, wide-ranging review of Google’s business practices at a perilous political moment for the tech giant. Its closest peers, Facebook and Twitter, previously dispatched their top executives to address lawmakers’ questions – a session in the Senate in September that Pichai and Larry Page, the leader of Google parent Alphabet, opted at the time to skip. That decision left Democrats and Republicans around the Capitol frustrated and spoiling for a fight.

Since then, Google has faced immense criticism for its handling of a bug that may have exposed personal data of hundreds of thousands of its users on Google+, its social network. The company discovered the incident in March but only revealed it in October.

Google co-founder Larry Page and CEO Sundar Pichai had enraged the US Senate Intelligence Committee members after they refused to attend the high-profile hearing that saw top social media executives including Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey testifying before the committee members on various issues including the spread of misinformation on social media platforms, interference of foreign actors and the alleged bias against the conservatives and conservative news.