Google Draws Fire From Congress 212
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.
Herb Kohl (Score:4, Interesting)
Herb is kind of above reproach. Having grown up in Wisconsin and actually met the man once, I can say comfortably that he isn't some kind of fundraising whore; he's a principled legislator who will probably get swept out in the next tide of teabagging. So I would be very careful in ascribing any kind of sinister motive to his investigation, or in drawing any conclusions about what the committee's findings will be.
Re:Speaking out of both sides of their mouths? (Score:5, Interesting)
If you think what the US does is substantially different from the rest of the first world, then you're wrong. The difference is we just bitch about it a lot more. If anything we're just catching up. Amazingly we still have preserved the freedom of speech a lot more than places like the UK, Germany, and Australia.
Ah, I guess that makes it alright as we continue this downward spiral? C'mon, your argument is that of an elementary school kid: "But they did this, which is worse!!!!" That's so childish. Nothing personal, but it's true - and I doubt you got away with it often in elementary school, thus I'm simply not letting you get away with it now.
We (the people, this country, it's elected representatives (who often seem to forget who they represent)) need to always hold ourselves to a higher standard, without succumbing to the "well, everyone else is doing it"/"well, they are doing worse" idiocy. Otherwise, we can justify every travesty we commit by finding someone else to point to - and that will accelerate our spiral downwards at an alarming rate.