The search advertising company’s efforts to fight child pornography were the focus of Google’s testimony before a House subcommittee.
When a collection of Internet companies including AOL, Microsoft, and Yahoo, took their places in a coalition of firms against child pornography, one company was distinguished by its absence from the list.
After part of the day had passed since the announcement, Google’s role in battling the evils of child exploitation became known. Associate general counsel Nicole Wong spent part of her day in Washington DC, testifying before the House of Representatives Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.
Wong’s testimony, a six-page discussion of Google’s processes regarding child pornography, noted the company’s zero tolerance for it.
“We prohibit any advertising related to child pornography. When we become aware of child pornography anywhere in our search engine or on our site, we immediately remove and report it to the appropriate authorities,” Wong told the Subcommittee.
She also cited Google’s work with law enforcement in helping hunt down these predators. Google responds to hundreds of child safety requests per year, as well as data preservation requests related to these cases.
Since Google has hundreds of thousands of advertisers participating in its self-service AdWords program, it has devoted significant resources to detecting child pornography that an advertiser may try to slip into advertising.
“Google has policies restricting the types and content of advertising we accept,” said Wong. “The AdWords service employs numerous automated and manual checks, program policies, and enforcement mechanisms” in place to enforce this.
Evidently, some still try to get through the process.
“In our experience, child pornographers very rarely attempt to advertise online as it requires the submission of verifiable personal information, including a credit card,” Wong testified. “We estimate that we identify and report to the authorities approximately one to two advertisers every six months whom we suspect are engaged in child pornography.”
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David Utter is a staff writer for Murdok covering technology and business.
