Privacy, Oh Privacy - Google Defends Its Policies Once Again

Google's pressure point regarding users' privacy is infamous. Even when it is not collecting data on purpose, something has to come up with and trouble the waters, such as is the case with the trial with Viacom. Regardless of that, the officials stand up to defend their reliable privacy policy whenever the situation requires it. During a recent hearing organized by the Senate Meeting Committee, regarding the privacy issues of the online advertising market, Jane Horvath, Senior Privacy Counsel at Google, endorsed the company's policies once again.

"Google makes privacy a priority because our business depends on it," Horvath started her assertion by saying. "If our users are uncomfortable with our usage of their personal information, they are only one click away from switching to a competitor's services." The most important feature of the company's privacy approach is considered to be transparency. The representative also reminded the two members of the Committee that Google had several YouTube videos in which it explained what was the extent to which the company made use of private data and what were the exact purposes for that.

The second principle that rules the corporation's view about privacy is, as mentioned above, choice. The users have the possibility of electing what is to be made public and what has to stay private. The official also gave an example to emphasize this idea. As she put it, Google Talk offers the possibility that none of the parties save the conversation for further use. Security is the third aspect Horvath brought to the Senate's attention. The fact that Google Search determines, "unlike other companies," what is relevant for the users by resorting to a contextual ranking comes as a clear advantage for their security.

To ensure that her assertions will be convincing enough to divert the attention of the Senate's members from some too-hot-to-handle questions, the Google team member also presented to them, at the end of her speech, a video that showed how users can remove the cookies from their web browsers.