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JANE HORVATH: Senator Dorman and Senator Vitter, the most
important point I'd like to make this morning is simple.
Google makes privacy a priority because our business
depends on it.
If our users are uncomfortable with how we manage their
personal information, they are only one click away from
switching to a competitor's services.
Putting our users first means that we are deeply committed
to their privacy, and succeeding in online
advertising and protecting our users' privacy are not
mutually exclusive goals.
This morning I will first discuss how online advertising
benefits advertisers, website publishers,
and internet users.
Second, I'll discuss Google's approach to privacy.
And finally, I'll make recommendations for how
government and industry can better protect
internet users' privacy.
So let me first touch on the benefits of online
advertising.
Google's two primary advertising programs, AdWords
and AdSense, provide users with highly relevant ads,
match advertisers with users who are interested in their
products, and provide revenue for website publishers who
place our ads on their sites.
For example, in Minneapolis, taxi driver Kenny Kormendy
built a website for out-of-state travelers called
Gopher State Taxi, and used Google's AdWords program to
compete online with bigger taxi companies.
Today, Gopher State Taxi has grow to a network of over 36
cabs, and Mr. Kormendy credits Google with connecting nine
out of 10 of its customers.
When someone clicks on one of our ads on a website, Google
also shares revenue from that ad with the website owner.
Last year we paid a total of $4.5 billion in ad revenue to
website publishers across the United States.
Next, let me talk about Google's approach to privacy.
As I said earlier, Google makes privacy a priority
because our business depends on it.
We make sure that three design fundamentals are the bedrock
of our privacy practices.
First, transparency.
We have been an industry leader in finding new ways to
educate users about privacy, such as through our Google
Privacy channel on YouTube where we feature videos that
explain our privacy policies in plain language.
Second, choice.
We strive to design our products in a way that gives
users meaningful choices about what information
they provide to us.
For example, our Google Talk instant messaging service
includes an Off the Record feature that prevents either
party from storing the chat.
And third, security.
We take seriously the protection of data that our
users entrust with us.
Google employs some of the world's best engineers and
software and network security, and has teams dedicated to
developing information safeguards.
Google's advertising products are primarily driven by
context, rather than behavior.
Unlike other companies, we've built our business on showing
ads that are relevant to what a user is looking for, not by
building detailed profiles based on a
users' online behavior.
As we continue to incorporate DoubleClick's display ad
serving capabilities into our business, Google will continue
to be a leader in offering products that respect privacy.
Finally, let me turn to our efforts to innovate in the
area of privacy protection.
Feedback from our users and outside parties, as well as
our own internal discussions, has led us to several privacy
innovations, including our decision last year to
anonymize our server logs after 18 months.
In that spirit of innovation, today we offer the following
recommendations for both government
and the private sector.
First, Google supports the passage of a comprehensive
federal privacy law that will establish a uniform framework
for privacy and put penalties in place to punish and
dissuade bad actors.
Second, we support the federal trade commission's efforts to
develop principles relating to online privacy and behavioral
advertising, and we hope that revised principles will be
adopted widely by the online ad industry.
And third, we believe that greater labeling of online
display ad should be adopted as an industry standard.
As I conclude my testimony this morning and welcome the
committee's questions, I'd like to show a brief excerpt
from one of the videos on our Google
Privacy YouTube channel.
This video shows a user how to easily remove cookies from
their web browsers.
Thank you.