As attorney general, Richard Blumenthal didn’t get the chance to put top Google executives on the witness stand when he launched a multistate investigation into Google’s collection of data from personal wireless networks.
But as senator, he’s now going to have a shot at grilling Google’s Executive Chairman, Eric Schmidt, who will be sitting at the witness table today during a hearing convened by the Senate Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust and consumer rights.
Blumenthal and others on that panel hope to use the session to examine Google’s dominance in the market-the official title for the hearing is “The Power of Google: Serving Consumers or Threatening Competition?”
Blumenthal already demonstrated earlier this year that he would continue to press Google on its Street View service, the subject of his lawsuit as AG, which focused on the company’s collection of emails and other personal information from unsecure networks. (Google has said the collection was inadvertent, Blumenthal is skeptical.)
Today’s session will focus more broadly on the consumer and competitiveness implications of Google’s dominance in the search engine market. Blumenthal has signaled that he’ll be a skeptical questioner.