SENATORS BEAT UP ON GOOGLE:

A top Google executive faced tough questions from a Senate committee on Tuesday about the company’s data collection practices as lawmakers vow to impose tougher privacy regulations on tech giants.

The Senate Judiciary Committee grilled Will DeVries, senior policy counsel at Google, over the company’s user location tracking and data practices.

“Do you think the average consumer would be surprised to learn that her location is recorded and sent to Google hundreds of times every day, even when she is not using her phone?” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) asked the executive.

DeVries argued that it was necessary for Google’s Android operating system to take in some location information, even when users have toggled off location tracking, in order to provide certain services.

But Hawley and others on the panel were not satisfied.

“Here’s my basic concern: Americans did not sign up for this,” he said. “They think that the products that you offer are free — they’re not free. They think that they can opt out of the tracking that you’re performing — they can’t meaningfully opt out.”