Republicans are mad at Google for search bias—will they do anything about it?

Enlarge / Google CEO Sundar Pichai testifies before the House Judiciary Committee. (credit: Xinhua/Liu Jie via Getty Images)

At a House Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday, members of Congress grilled Google CEO Sundar Pichai about a variety of topics, from user privacy to the possibility of a censored Chinese search engine. But the focus of the hearing was political bias.

"A while back Republicans passed legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare," said Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio). During the debate over that legislation, Chabot said, he Googled the Republican legislation and "virtually every article was an attack on our bill. It wasn't until you got to the third or fourth page of search results before you found anything remotely positive."

Chabot was just one of several Republican committee members who charged that Google's search algorithms-and its employees-were biased against conservatives. But Pichai stood firm, insisting that Google has rigorous procedures in place to ensure that the personal political views of Google employees don't undermine the objectivity of search results.

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