A congressional committee investigating the strength of giant-generation corporations has accused Google of leveraging its dominant search engine to borrow from others and manipulate the effects to bring others to its own virtual services. (July 29)
DAVID CICILLINE: First question, Mr. Pichai. Why does Google steal content from honest businesses?
SUNDAR PICHAI: I disagree with that characterization. Last week, I met with a lot of small businesses. In fact, today, 1.4 million small businesses generate more than $385 billion in economic activity.
DAVID CICILLINE: Mr. Pichai, is there a basic conflict of interest between users who need access to Google’s high-production and applicable data and business style that encourages Google to sell classified ads and keep users on its own sites?
SUNDAR PICHAI: We are committed to providing users with the maximum applicable information. And we depend on that trust for users to return to Google every day. In fact, for the vast majority of queries on Google, we don’t serve classified classified ads. And we only serve classified classified ads for a small subset of queries, where users’ intent is very commercial.
DAVID CICILLINE: What is the price of the component for which you use Google ads? I mean, it’s a genuinely extensive component of your business. What’s the real price, $200 billion, $300 billion?
SUNDAR PICHAI: You know, in terms of revenue, it’s about $100 billion or more.
DAVID CICILLINE: That’s a lot of money, Mr. Pichai. Mr. Pichai, do you know how Google reacted when Yelp asked you to prevent the theft of your reviews? Well, I’ll tell you. Our research shows that Google’s reaction to threatening to absolutely remove Yelp.
SUNDAR PICHAI: Congressman, you know, when I run the company, I focus on giving users what they want. We behave with the highest standards, satisfied to get involved, perceive the main points and answer your questions for the –