Google CEO Eric Schmidt told reporters after his appearance before a Senate committee on Wednesday that the company’s competitors had fed bad info to Senators.
“I think it was obvious that the competitors had sort of fed a couple of bias [sic] in there that weren’t correct,” Schmidt told reporters after the hearing.
“But I tried to explain that we do ranking, we try to do it as fairly as we can, it’s not perfect. So I don’t know whether they understood that or not, but that was my point,” Schmidt said.
One of those competitors was Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman, who told Senators that Google gave preferential treatment to their own content.
Asked by a Politico reporter whether Congress should get involved in regulating the industry, Schmidt indicated the legislative branch’s efforts were probably best focused elsewhere.
“I think Congress should primarily focus on the issues facing the country,” Schmidt said. “My personal view, which is what I tried to say, is that there are many, many checks on Google’s behavior.”
