Sundar Pichai Googles chief executive is preparing to testify before the US Congress next week in what is expected to be a wide-ranging hearing with US Senators According to a report in the Financial Times with Google facing backlash from the news that its working on a search engine for China that will be censored and allegations it suppressed certain search results for political reasons Google officials told the Financial Times that the questioning is expected to be tough One aide to a senior member of the committee told the FT that the hearing is going to be a free for all with all members of the committee getting a chance to ask Googles CEO anything they are angry about This will be something similar to the Facebook hearings the person said referring to the two Congressional appearances by Mark Zuckerberg Facebooks chief executive after the revelations surrounding Cambridge Analytica data scandal In that case the now defunct political consulting company accessed data on more than 85 million Facebook users without their consent Pichai has also been viewed hostility by lawmakers in the wake of data breaches misinformation campaigns and concerns about working with China It also comes as Congress is looking at whether or not to put on the books Americas first national data privacy laws In September Pichai declined to testify with Twitters CEO and Facebooks Sheryl Sandberg during a Senate Intelligence committee A empty chair was set up to show his absence Following the hearing Pichai met with Republican leaders to discuss the concerns and agreed to the upcoming hearing slated for Wednesday December 5 In a statement issued ahead of the session Kevin McCarthy the Republican leader in the House said Recent reports suggest Google might not be wielding its vast power impartially Its business practices may have been affected by political bias Additionally reports claim the company is compromising its core principles by complying with repressive censorship mandates from China reported the FT The right has been up in arms over what they think is the leftist slant of Silicon Valley leaders That has resulted in the issue being top of mind for the Republican-led committees agenda for the hearing noted the paper LATEST INSIGHTS Our data and analytics team has developed a number of creative methodologies and frameworks that measure and benchmark the innovation thats reshaping the payments and commerce ecosystem Check out the latest PYMNTS report on Mobile Order-Ahead