Representative Jim Jordan, a Republican from Ohio and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, during a field hearing in New York, April 17, 2023.
Stephanie Keith | Bloomberg | Getty Images
House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, threatened enforcement action against Google that could include holding the company in contempt of Congress for failing to produce documents the committee subpoenaed to learn about tech company communications with the Biden administration.
In a letter to a lawyer for Google shared exclusively with CNBC, Jordan called the company’s compliance so far “insufficient” and demanded it hand over more information. If the company fails to comply fully by its new May 22 deadline, Jordan warned, “the Committee may be forced to consider the use of one or more enforcement mechanisms.”
Jordan issued subpoenas to the CEOs of Google parent Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta and Microsoft in February, demanding they hand over communication with the U.S. government to “understand how and to what extent the Executive Branch coerced and colluded with companies and other intermediaries to censor speech.” Jordan requested the companies comply by March 23. He made the request after initially asking the companies to hand over the information voluntarily, but said they had not sufficiently complied.
While several other tech giants were subpoenaed in connection with the committee’s investigation, the other companies have so far appeared more responsive than Google to the demands, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Congress can hold individuals in contempt for refusing to provide information requested by a committee. Doing so requires a committee vote and then a floor vote, with a simple majority. Republicans currently hold the majority in the House 222-213.
Criminal contempt cases can be referred to the Justice Department, or Congress could seek a civil judgement from a federal court to try to enforce the subpoena, according to a 2017 paper from the Congressional Research Service.
The committee may also seek to take other actions against Google, like deposing the company’s management or trying to restrict federal dollars from going to Google in future legislation.
In the letter, Jordan laid out several ways Alphabet has failed to adequately comply with the committee’s demands.
He said that Alphabet “has frustrated the Committee’s review of the responsive material by unilaterally redacting key information necessary to understand the context and content of the material.”
Alphabet didn’t assert that those redactions included privileged information, according to Jordan, and the committee requires unredacted documents to be handed over.
The company has recently placed some documents in a “reading room,” Jordan said, “in a form and manner that prevents and frustrates the Committee’s understanding and use of those documents and fails to comply with the terms of the subpoena without the Committee’s consent.”
He wrote that Alphabet had produced 4,000 pages of documents in response to the subpoena. But those documents have yet to include an “appreciable volume” of several types of communications the committee assumes Google would have. Those include communications with other social media platforms about content moderation, documents from Alphabet’s other subsidiary companies, communications over messaging services other than email and communications between employees about any contact with the executive branch of the U.S. government.
“The release of the Twitter Files has shown just how extensively the Executive Branch communicated and coordinated with technology companies regarding content moderation,” Jordan wrote, referring to reports on internal documents that Twitter owner Elon Musk made available to a hand-selected group of journalists when he took over the company. “We are skeptical that Alphabet’s interactions with the federal government where pressure was applied were any less concerning than those of Twitter.”
Paxton sued Google in 2022 for allegedly unlawfully tracking and collecting the private data of users.
The attorney general said the settlement, which covers allegations in two separate lawsuits against the search engine and app giant, dwarfed all past settlements by other states with Google for similar data privacy violations.
Google’s settlement comes nearly 10 months after Paxton obtained a $1.4 billion settlement for Texas from Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, to resolve claims of unauthorized use of biometric data by users of those popular social media platforms.
“In Texas, Big Tech is not above the law,” Paxton said in a statement on Friday.
“For years, Google secretly tracked people’s movements, private searches, and even their voiceprints and facial geometry through their products and services. I fought back and won,” said Paxton.
“This $1.375 billion settlement is a major win for Texans’ privacy and tells companies that they will pay for abusing our trust.”
Google spokesman Jose Castaneda said the company did not admit any wrongdoing or liability in the settlement, which involves allegations related to the Chrome browser’s incognito setting, disclosures related to location history on the Google Maps app, and biometric claims related to Google Photo.
Castaneda said Google does not have to make any changes to products in connection with the settlement and that all of the policy changes that the company made in connection with the allegations were previously announced or implemented.
“This settles a raft of old claims, many of which have already been resolved elsewhere, concerning product policies we have long since changed,” Castaneda said.
“We are pleased to put them behind us, and we will continue to build robust privacy controls into our services.”
Virtual care company Omada Health filed for an IPO on Friday, the latest digital health company that’s signaled its intent to hit the public markets despite a turbulent economy.
Founded in 2012, Omada offers virtual care programs to support patients with chronic conditions like prediabetes, diabetes and hypertension. The company describes its approach as a “between-visit care model” that is complementary to the broader health-care ecosystem, according to its prospectus.
Revenue increased 57% in the first quarter to $55 million, up from $35.1 million during the same period last year, the filing said. The San Francisco-based company generated $169.8 million in revenue during 2024, up 38% from $122.8 million the previous year.
Omada’s net loss narrowed to $9.4 million during its first quarter from $19 million during the same period last year. It reported a net loss of $47.1 million in 2024, compared to a $67.5 million net loss during 2023.
The IPO market has been largely dormant across the tech sector for the past three years, and within digital health, it’s been almost completely dead. After President Donald Trump announced a sweeping tariff policy that plunged U.S. markets into turmoil last month, taking a company public is an even riskier endeavor. Online lender Klarna delayed its long-anticipated IPO, as did ticket marketplace StubHub.
But Omada Health isn’t the first digital health company to file for its public market debut this year. Virtual physical therapy startup Hinge Health filed its prospectus in March, and provided an update with its first-quarter earnings on Monday, a signal to investors that it’s looking to forge ahead.
Omada contracts with employers, and the company said it works with more than 2,000 customers and supports 679,000 members as of March 31. More than 156 million Americans suffer from at least one chronic condition, so there is a significant market opportunity, according to the company’s filing.
In 2022, Omada announced a $192 million funding round that pushed its valuation above $1 billion. U.S. Venture Partners, Andreessen Horowitz and Fidelity’s FMR LLC are the largest outside shareholders in the company, each owning between 9% and 10% of the stock.
“To our prospective shareholders, thank you for learning more about Omada. I invite you join our journey,” Omada co-founder and CEO Sean Duffy said in the filing. “In front of us is a unique chance to build a promising and successful business while truly changing lives.”
Liz Reid, vice president, search, Google speaks during an event in New Delhi on December 19, 2022.
Sajjad Hussain | AFP | Getty Images
Testimony in Google‘s antitrust search remedies trial that wrapped hearings Friday shows how the company is calculating possible changes proposed by the Department of Justice.
Google head of search Liz Reid testified in court Tuesday that the company would need to divert between 1,000 and 2,000 employees, roughly 20% of Google’s search organization, to carry out some of the proposed remedies, a source with knowledge of the proceedings confirmed.
The testimony comes during the final days of the remedies trial, which will determine what penalties should be taken against Google after a judge last year ruled the company has held an illegal monopoly in its core market of internet search.
The DOJ, which filed the original antitrust suit and proposed remedies, asked the judge to force Google to share its data used for generating search results, such as click data. It also asked for the company to remove the use of “compelled syndication,” which refers to the practice of making certain deals with companies to ensure its search engine remains the default choice in browsers and smartphones.
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The DOJ also proposed the company divest its Chrome browser but that was not included in Reid’s initial calculation, the source confirmed.
Reid on Tuesday said Google’s proprietary “Knowledge Graph” database, which it uses to surface search results, contains more than 500 billion facts, according to the source, and that Google has invested more than $20 billion in engineering costs and content acquisition over more than a decade.
“People ask Google questions they wouldn’t ask anyone else,” she said, according to the source.
Reid echoed Google’s argument that sharing its data would create privacy risks, the source confirmed.
Closing arguments for the search remedies trial will take place May 29th and 30th, followed by the judge’s decision expected in August.
The company faces a separate remedies trial for its advertising tech business, which is scheduled to begin Sept. 22.