Google: "Users should expect to have their data respected"

Tech companies are making user privacy protections a selling point for their services—even as advertisers cry out for more data. David Temkin, director of product management, ads privacy and user trust at Google, talks how user privacy is being balanced with advertiser demand on Yahoo Finance.

Video Transcript

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- Welcome back to "Yahoo Finance Live." Big tech is rethinking privacy, thanks to Apple's change in ad policy earlier this year that makes it more difficult to track users' activities across apps Snap, Meta, not Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are losing a cool $10 billion of revenue in the second half of this year. Now Google recently followed suit and is developing alternatives to deliver relevant ads without compromising privacy. And here to break it all down for us is David Temkin. He is the Google Director of Product Management Ads Privacy and User Trust.

Thanks for joining us, David. And I was just talking about what Apple has done briefly, but also your company. Can you just break down how did the-- what was the groundswell I guess, movement that started this privacy concern? Because I remember five years ago, we talked about data breaches, and it just glossed over people's heads.

DAVID TEMKIN: That's a great question. I think you're looking at a long standing trend in tech where people have gotten a lot more conscious about how their data is being used. They don't necessarily distinguish between is it a data breach? Did I get hacked? Is it a privacy concern? Am I being tracked?

It all sort of feeds into this overall notion of what's going on with my data I don't understand it. I'm uncomfortable with it. And tech is playing a giant role in my life. So that's kind of the backdrop to what we're doing right now, which is we need to address that head-on. We care a great deal about our users trust. And this sort of doubt about how data is being used for advertising is central to that.

- And what are some of the methods and tools you're using to deliver ads that are, I guess, target or relevant without having to compromise user privacy?

DAVID TEMKIN: Right. We're making a huge investment in that area where we want to deliver users ads that work for them, ads that make sense, that, are relevant that they are likely to find useful. That's central here. And so the question is, how do you do that in a way that's different from the current system where users' data is getting transmitted to entities that they're not aware of, they don't see.

They're just kind of out there in the ether, right? And how do you do this without creating those profiles? The fact is there are a lot of ways to do that.

One of the things that we're working on here-- and we're working on this in conjunction with Google's browser division. Google makes a browser called Chrome, widely used. Chrome is working with the world wide web community to create a way to deliver this personal advertising-- personal advertising meaning, it's relevant to me-- without creating these profiles. In effect, the browser takes on a bigger role instead of cloud-based entities. And you still get advertising that makes sense for you, that you're going to find useful, but no profiles getting built, and no data being transmitted out there that can be used to track you. It's a huge change, but we're keeping advertising viable and useful while maintaining user privacy.

- Well, and one of the experiences I think everybody's had who has a smartphone, as you're talking about something, and you just magically get an ad for it. And frankly, I find it creepy. I mean, that's why I've gone out of my way to turn off just about-- or turn on all the privacy features I can on my phone.

But I guess, it gets down to the question you know, what should people expect? What should people reasonably expect? They're getting a free service. And the companies have to make money somehow.

DAVID TEMKIN: I think there's a couple of answers to that question. First of all, users should expect to have their data respected by the people who are doing advertising. That's critical. We believe in that 100%. They should expect to understand what's being done with their data should they choose to. And they should expect that the ads are useful to them.

So it's a kind of a multidimensional question. They need to feel safe. They need to feel that they're private. And to the degree that they're interested, they need to understand how that works. Who's getting their data? What's being done with it?

You know, just as an example, we absolutely not are listening to people's microphones and customizing ads for them. Absolutely not. We never sell users data, right? So there's a whole bunch of misconceptions out there, that I think over time, we have an opportunity to improve upon.

- And what direction-- how-- what other measures are you taking-- undertaking, right now to provide a better user experience and also deliver on that privacy guarantee? What's-- what's the next step here for Google, and maybe any of your competitors that you're aware of?

DAVID TEMKIN: So we talked about moving away from tracking and moving away from hidden data sharing. It's really important. The other things that we're doing here is we've given users a great deal of control and say, as far as personalized advertising goes, what am I interested in? Do I want to actually have personalized advertising at all? Those controls are existing right now.

You can also change-- you can have your-- your data wiped out automatically. You've got a lot of control right now. And you can learn why did I see this ad? And report an ad. There's a fair amount of functionality in there right now. Over time, the more a user can do, the more user can control, the more transparent all of this is, the more we think we're going to-- that they're going to feel comfortable with Google's ad practices, in particular.

- And what's the response that you've seen from users of Google, but also your customers who are the people that you sell advertising to? What's their response?

DAVID TEMKIN: Users of Google, it's a broad span of people. And what we're-- right now, the concerns are largely shared by sophisticated users. And we're talking a lot to them. And they really do appreciate the moves that we're making with regard to tracking, the like, cookies, the like.

Advertisers, they view this correctly as an industry disruption. You're moving from individualized advertising with cloud-based profiles for every single user, into a different world that has different attributes where you can't necessarily see, well, what did that individual user do across all the websites and all the apps they've used? So it's pretty different.

Advertising industry is sort of, well, this represents a really big change. What does it mean for us to adapt to it? How can we get comfortable with it? And so I think there's a great deal of engagement and education and just plain confidence-building that needs to occur. And that will be occurring over the next year or two.