Google influence raises worry

Observers have raised the alarm after Google allegedly pressured a think tank into expelling its research group for criticising the tech firm.

New America, a think tank based in Washington, DC that is funded partly by Google, dropped its Open Markets research group last month. The group’s director Barry Lynn told the New York Times newspaper that he was fired because Eric Schmidt, the executive chairman of Alphabet, Google’s parent company, was unhappy with a blogpost he wrote. New America and Google have both denied this allegation.

In the blogpost published on 27 June, Lynn congratulated the European Commission for fining Google €2.42 billion for breaching EU antitrust rules. In the Commission’s view, the company had manipulated its search engine results to favour its own comparison shopping service. Lynn’s statement called on authorities in the United States to build on the Commission’s precedent.