The internet giant Google today dismissed the Communications Minister's withering critique of its record on privacy.

In a Senate estimates hearing last night, Senator Stephen Conroy accused the company of lying, described the views of the company's chief executive as creepy, and said Google was responsible for the biggest privacy breach in history.

While Google has declined repeated requests for an interview, in a statement a spokeswoman said the company was surprised to hear criticism about Facebook and Google's privacy record in a hearing supposed to be focused on the Government's proposed internet filters.

Google has been a critic of the filters, saying they could affect user speeds, might accidentally filter legitimate material and in any event would be easy to circumvent.

This morning the internet was also biting back, with many social media users less than impressed with Senator Conroy and some suggesting he was using parliamentary privilege to attack critics of his internet filtering plan.

"Conroy's constant misuse of parliamentary privilege to attack those who criticise him never fails to amaze and disgust me," one user said.

"Ha, ha, ha. The guy who wants to tell me what porn I can look at online is talking about privacy?" another said.

"Senator Conroy claims Google says 'trust us' with privacy. Exactly the same argument he uses for the proposed internet filter," another commenter said.

In recent weeks Google has been criticised after revelations that its Street View photo cars were also collecting information about people's wireless internet connections.

Several national privacy commissioners have raised concerns over Google's collection of wi-fi data, a practice that has ceased since it was made public.

Senator Conroy says Google considers itself to be above government.

"They consider they are the appropriate people to make the decisions about people's privacy data and that they are perfectly entitled to drive the streets and collect as much private information by photographing over fences and collecting data information," he said.

"This is probably the single greatest breach in the history of privacy."

'Hypocritical'

Geordie Guy from the Electronic Frontiers Association (EFA) says he also thinks it is hypocritical of Senator Conroy to accuse Google of playing big brother given the nature of his proposed filters.

"It was really quite extraordinary to see him flip between things he does himself and things he accuses others of doing. A truly extraordinary attack," Mr Guy said.

He says Google has admitted wrongdoing and have been active in trying to fix the problem relating to collection of data.

"Google has made a mistake. They have publicly acknowledged that in response to both private and public questions about what their activities have been and they are now undertaking to fix those issues with regulatory bodies in different parts of the world," he said.

"EFA was part of that process originally. We are not sitting back and seeing how Google cleans up the mess it has made and that is the type of more tactful approach we think is sufficient in this regard.

"Spending your evening lambasting public figures from within Google and Google itself as a company is not the type of tact I think it is appropriate to employ."

Negotiating tactic

But the Internet Industry Association has been far more guarded in its comments regarding Senator Conroy.

Its communications director, John Hilvert, described the Minister's comments as an interesting negotiating tactic but notes sometimes that is what parliamentary privilege is for.

"There are different styles and in many ways Conroy has been probably our most diligent digital economy minister, so it is not a matter of ignorance or briefing," he said.

"It is obviously something he feels very strongly about and I guess that is what parliamentary privilege is about. It is designed for freedom of speech of our politicians and I think that is a very worthy thing."

He says Senator Conroy also raises a valid point about privacy for users.

"I think privacy in many ways has been one of the issues substantially overlooked over the last few years in the move to roll out social networks and the like," he said.

"It is a shame it came up in terms of potential alleged infringements, but we are all for that and the Internet Industry Association has always pressed the role of privacy as being an absolute foundation for a healthy digital economy."

The debate is likely to continue. Senator Conroy says consideration of the internet filtering bill has been delayed until the second half of this year.