Isn’t Google Violating Fundamental Rights by Controlling Choices? Parliament’s Data Protection Panel Asks

A parliamentary panel on Thursday questioned “neutrality” of Google when it is engaged in both advertising and content, and asked was it not violating fundamental rights of users by “controlling” their choices. 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 told.