Google Draws Fire From Congress

bonch writes "Democrat Herb Kohl, the Senate's leading antitrust legislator, has vowed an antitrust probe into Google as one of his top priorities. Others in Congress are criticizing the search giant over several flubs, including scanning personal data over neighborhood WiFi, collecting Social Security information from children in a doodling contest, and sidestepping net neutrality rules through a deal with Verizon. They're also concerned over ties with the administration — Eric Schmidt is a technology adviser to President Obama, Andrew McLaughlin serves as Obama's deputy chief technology officer, and Sonal Shah leads the White House Office of Social Innovation. Google spent $5.2 million last year on federal lobbying, but critics say their increased Washington presence has made more enemies than friends." Reader walterbyrd contributes an article that suggests this is all just a fund-raising ploy.

Comments

It's certainly time for this already!

[devxo]

Google is smart. They're playing the nice little guy who give everything for free. Even slashdotters love them because it's free. People fail to see the evil behind all that seemingly nice stuff. All the data mining, selling to advertisers, everything. This is why I prefer to pay for software like Microsoft's - their business model is honest and I get what I pay for. Nothing extra, nothing hidden.

Re:It's certainly time for this already!

[phmadore]

You pay for software that almost works 30% of the time and fails to work the other 70% of the time?

What does Microsoft have to do with Google other than that they are attempting -- and I use this word loosely -- to compete with them on their home turf?

Chrome has done more to keep people using Windows than MS would ever give credit for. You don't see Google trying to make it the default browser choice on all systems sold by, I dunno, Dell or HP, do you?

If you had said you pay for Apple products because they work and you get what you pay for, I would consider that reasonable. But all you prove in your comment is that you're some form of retarded Microsoft-bot, and that's a shame, because that bitch is finally on the way out and innovation is finally back on the way in, and it always sucks to be the last to realize that.

Next, we'll deal with the spectre of Apple evil -- even us who love their products.

Re:It's certainly time for this already!

[Clay1985]

My last BSOD: Windows 7 Home Premium. October, 2011. And I had to reformat. It would not boot, even in safe mode. I installed Linux.

I think Google is a good company after all

[happyhacker4]

This wifi scandal, as some name it, is really nonsense.
They just collected the location and strength of the wifi hotspots.
The PCWorld magazine has detailed article on this.