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Google chief executive Sundar Pichai paid a rare visit to Washington (DC) on Sept 28 to defend the company against allegations that it silences conservatives online, part of an effort to defuse political tensions between the company and Congress ahead of a hearing later in 2018. At a gathering with a dozen Republicans, House Majority Leader Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) stressed to Pichai that party lawmakers are concerned about “what’s going on with transparency and the power of social media today,” particularly given the fact that Google processes 90 percent of the world’s searches.

As Google marks its 20th anniversary, our relationship with it isn’t quite as uncomplicated as it used to be. In the wake of Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal, and fears that the Russians exploited Facebook and YouTube to influence the 2016 presidential election, people are more wary of tech companies these days–especially ones that harvest personal data. This trend won’t reverse itself anytime soon.

The Center for Digital Democracy, Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, and the Benton Foundation told the Federal Communications Commission that if the agency proceeds with its proposed deregulation of children's TV rules, it could spell the end of children's programming on broadcast TV. "The FCC’s assumption that children’s television guidelines are no longer necessary because programming is available on other platforms is simply wrong," the groups told the FCC.

Google’s top privacy staffer will defend the company’s business model at an upcoming Senate hearing, while backing the broad idea of new privacy rules. Google will face tough questions at the Sept 26 Senate Commerce Committee hearing on privacy, where chief privacy officer Keith Enright will appear alongside representatives from other tech companies as well as internet service providers. Enright said he plans to stand by the company’s ad-supported business model.

Advocacy groups pouring money into independent campaigns to impact the Fall 2018 midterm races must disclose many of their political donors beginning the week of Sept 17 after the Supreme Court declined to intervene in a long-running case. The high court did not grant an emergency request to stay a ruling by a federal judge in Washington who had thrown out a decades-old Federal Election Commission regulation allowing nonprofit groups to keep their donors secret unless they had earmarked their money for certain purposes.

Facebook has been criticized in recent years over revelations that its technology allowed landlords to discriminate on the basis of race, and employers to discriminate on the basis of age. Now a group of job seekers is alleging that Facebook helps employers exclude female candidates from recruiting campaigns.  The job seekers, in collaboration with the Communications Workers of America and the American Civil Liberties Union, are filing charges with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against Facebook and 9 employers.

A leaked video of Google executives trying to console employees who were upset after the election of President Trump has infuriated conservatives, who say the remarks illustrate the search giant's political bias and should prompt regulators to take a close look at the company.

When you build services that connect billions of people across countries and cultures, you’re going to see all of the good that humanity can do, and you’re also going to see people try to abuse those services in every way possible.

With new attacks by President Donald Trump, high-stakes testimony Sept 5 on Capitol Hill, and a midterm election vulnerable to online manipulation, tech’s giants are bracing themselves for two months after Labor Day that could decide whether and how much the government regulates them. The companies — led by Facebook and Google but with Twitter, Apple, and Amazon also in the mix — are caught in a partisan vise, between privacy-oriented critics on the left who fear further election interference and newer charges from the right of anti-conservative bias and censorship.