Violating rights by controlling choices?: Parl panel doubts Google’s neutrality, calls for regulations

Top executives of the search engine appeared before the Joint Committee of Parliament on the Personal Data Protection Bill and responded to queries related to data security. Gitanjali Duggal, Google’s director and head of legal in India; Aman Jain, head of government affairs and public policy; and Rahul Jain, manager of public policy and government relations, deposed before the panel, headed by BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi.

“They themselves are the platforms, sellers and news agencies. And Google itself has the control button to which information will come first, which will come later or which news will flash and which will be suppressed. So how it can be a neutral platform?” Lekhi Members of the panel, including Congress MP Vivek Tankha, BJP MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar and BJD MPs Bhartruhari Mahtab and Amar Patnaik, posed a number of queries to Google representatives.

Noting that Google has a wider presence and available on different forms on the web, some members said it “has the power to affect the choices of its users” and that needs to be checked.

The members stressed that regulations are required for the safety and processing of data, according to sources.

Besides Google, representatives of telecom operators Reliance Jio and Airtel and cab aggregators Ola and Uber have been asked to appear before it.