White House Petition: Congress to investigate Google | Hacker News Reader

White House Petition: Congress to investigate Google

wwws.whitehouse.gov

2 pointsrobomartin9 comments

Erm - petitioning the executive branch for the legislative branch to do something is not how the government works. If you want congressional hearings, contact the members of the appropriate committee (particularly if one of them represents you). If you want an agency investigation, then the WH can direct that. But this is sort of like a kid asking his mom to make his dad do something.

Not my petition.

Still, if you read through the WH petitions site there are a lot of them asking for Congress to become involved. I would imagine that, at some level, this is probably a way to raise awareness. That said, they all talk to each other to think otherwise is probably a little naive.

Naivete would be to suggest that this administration could get the House to do anything (partisan politics and all that). I could possibly see a few senators holding a hearing, but again: much easier to approach them directly rather than roundabout. :)

Probably true.

I do like the idea that someone is getting tired of Google's behavior.

I'd sign it but I hate the idea of having an account with the White House. Probably dumb on my part. I just have a distrust of politicians, regardless of affiliation.

The complaint is so vague as to be meaningless. Let's give a specific instance in which google has acted unlawfully, not just that they deleted your account an you're pissed, which is what this sounds like.

I've already said that this is NOT my petition. There are no issues with my Google accounts because I avoid all of their products except for Analytics. I don't use AdSense or AdWords because of the way they behave.

That they engage in questionable practices is probably without dispute. For specific instances, well, Google something like "google suspended my account" which returns some 12 million results. If you have the time, read through the first hundred or so and see if you agree with the general sentiment.

Also, on the being vague part. I read somewhere that the petitions severely limit the number of characters you can use(I think it is 500 or so). It might be difficult to create a really detailed petition under those conditions. I don't know if they allow links or not.

>> That they engage in questionable practices is probably without dispute. For specific instances, well, Google something like "google suspended my account" which returns some 12 million results. If you have the time, read through the first hundred or so and see if you agree with the general sentiment.

I think that's far fetched. Of course you can argue that Google engages in questionable practices, but account suspension are nothing of that sort. First of all, most of the stories you will find are from the perspective of the user, which isn't entirely fair. And secondly, although I'm not saying they can do what they want with your account, if you violated their terms in any way, they have that possibility. That's not an unfair or otherwise questionable practice.

Didn't congress already do this?

http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/hearings/hearing.cfm?id=3d90... http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-20109630-93/eric-schmidts-o...

It was bound to happen...

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