Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt put on a show of confidence on Wednesday before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee, giving excruciating details of competitors from Yelp to Bing in testimony aimed at persuading lawmakers that the company is open, honest, and impossible to indict.
But Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, was ready for him with graphs showing Google's search results from 650 different shopping-related keyword searches, accusing Google of cooking results and diving in for a back-and-forth over whether he was comparing apples and oranges.
And that was just the show inside the hearing room. Outside, mimes dressed in white stalked passersby and "Google" brand ice cream was served up in a show by critics of the Internet search giant.
“We are confident that our business practices will stand up to scrutiny,” Schmidt said in written testimony submitted before the hearing.
“Consumers have a truly vast array of options—some search and some not—from which to access information,” he added.
(Story continues below.)
Schmidt came armed with data. “Google faces competition from numerous sources including other general search engines (such as Microsoft's Bing, Yahoo!, and Blekko); specialized search sites, including travel sites (like Expedia and Travelocity), restaurant reviews (like Yelp), and shopping sites (like Amazon and eBay); social media sites (like Facebook); and mobile applications beyond count, just to name a few,” he said.
Lee said the data showed that Google always came up eerily third in shopping searches.
"Either way, you've cooked it so you're always third," Lee said. Schmidt's expression did not change as he said Lee was comparing a Google product search to price searches by the other sites. "Senator, I can assure you we haven't cooked anything," he said.
Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis., attacked Schmidt with quotes from Google's Marissa Mayer in 2007 when she said the company favored Google Finance in search rankings. "You recognize, of course, if that’s company policy that’s very contrary to what you are putting to us here today," Kohl said.
Schmidt said he sticks by his testimony, and gave the example of a stock quote. "If you want a stock quote, we’ll just give you a stock quote," he said. "I disagree with the characterization that somehow we were discriminating against the others."
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., asked Schmidt to test a broadband project in the Hudson valley, while Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, admitted to being a "frequent user" of Google. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., admitted to "Googling" herself and then compared the results on Bing in a clearly unscientific experiment.
Cornyn and Schmidt had a brief legal standoff when Cornyn asked the Google chief about a $500 million settlement the company reached last month with federal prosecutors in return for not being prosecuted for carrying illegal online ads from Canadian pharmacies.
"We regret what happened. Unfortunately, as part of that agreement … we are not to speak about any of the details of it," Schmidt said. Cornyn said his counsel begged to differ, and the hearing room fell silent as Schmidt invoked his own counsel and, after a whispered consultation, stuck to his guns.
Schmidt also addressed the Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust probe of the company.
“I am not a lawyer, but I take comfort from the fact that every decided antitrust suit that has been brought against Google regarding our search results has been dismissed,” he said.
Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman argued in his written testimony that Google is no longer focused on providing users with the most useful information. “It now hopes to be a destination site itself for one vertical market after another, including news, shopping, travel, and now, local business reviews,” he wrote. “It would be one thing if these efforts were conducted on a level playing field, but the reality is they are not.”
Covington & Burling partner Thomas Barnett, counsel to Expedia and testifying on behalf of a coalition of travel sites known as FairSearch.org, said Google’s dominance over search provides it with a unique ability to steer users to its own offerings by posting links to Google services at the top of search rankings.
“The key question for antitrust enforcement is how Google is expanding its control over the Internet,” he said. “[T]here is reason to believe that Google is using its extraordinary power to manipulate users and foreclose the ability of other sites to compete,” Barnett added. “If so, Google should be found to be violating the antitrust laws and an appropriate remedy should be imposed.”
Want to stay ahead of the curve? Sign up for National Journal’s AM & PM Must Reads. News and analysis to ensure you don’t miss a thing.
Leave a Comment