Google being grilled by US Senate

By Andy Goldberg Sep 21, 2011, 20:49 GMT

San Francisco/Washington - Google was in the crosshairs of US legislators Wednesday as the Senate's antitrust subcommittee held a hearing on whether the company was using its search dominance to handicap competing services.

Democratic and Republican legislators displayed a rare degree of bipartisanship in probing the Silicon Valley heavyweight, which has seen its influence even further extended in recent years as its smartphone operating system Android has grown into the world's most popular smartphone software.

But Google chairman Eric Schmidt insisted that he and other executives at the web search giant were focused solely on providing consumers with the best possible services. He noted that the company makes over 500 changes each year to its search algorithms to ensure the best results.

'Our principles always put consumers first,' said Schmidt, saying that these principles override Google's focus on maximising profit.

'We focus on loyalty, not lockout,' said Schmidt. 'It's easy to leave Google services - we want consumers to stay with us because we're better, not because they're locked in.'

'The ultimate correction is how consumers behave and we live in fear every day that consumers will switch to other services,' Schmidt said.

Schmidt denied that Google games its search results to bump its own products up the rankings list. But he defended the company's practice of often providing direct answers to consumer queries from its own database, rather than directing them to external websites.

'If we know the answer it's better for the consumer to answer the question so they don't have to click anywhere,' he said.

'I'm not aware of any strange boosts or biases' that would favour Google, he said.