Google’s Sundar Pichai Claims Google Has Never & Will Never Bias Its Search Results

Google’s chief executive, Sundar Pichai, reportedly sent an email to the company’s employees on Friday emphasizing that the company has never and will never bias its search results for political purposes.

The email was sent after a Wall Street Journal report surfaced on Thursday, citing internal emails, claimed that Google employees had looked for ways to tweak search results in the wake of President Trump’s first travel ban in 2017. The ban restricted people traveling from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen to the United States for 90 days.

According to The Journal, employees discussed the possibility of including pro-immigration content in the search by way of an internal email thread. The emails in question were written on Jan. 29, 2017, just two days after Trump signed the travel order that led to a lot of protests across the country.

Notably, Google didn’t deny the validity of the emails. A company spokesperson came forward to explain that the emails were just a brainstorm of ideas, assuring that none of the ideas were even close to being put into action. The spokesperson stressed that Google has never manipulated its search results or modified any of its products to promote a particular political ideology.

“It’s important to me that our internal culture continues to reinforce our mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. Recent news stories reference an internal email to suggest that we would compromise the integrity of our search results for a political end,” Pichai’s e-mail, obtained by Axios, read. “This is absolutely false. We do not bias our products to favor any political agenda. The trust our users place in us is our greatest asset and we must always protect it. If any Googler ever undermines that trust, we will hold them accountable.”

Google came into scrutiny last month when Mr. Trump said the search giant was intentionally rigging the search results against him. He claimed that Google displays only negative news about the president when searching for his name.