Rockefeller: What does Google's economic impact have to do with its privacy responsibilities?

Senate Commerce Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) questioned a Google representative on Thursday on what Google's economic success has to do with whether the company is keeping users' data sufficiently private.

"Psychologically, it was interesting to me that you started out by talking about how successful Google is," he said. "We all know that."

Google's privacy engineering lead Alma Whitten said at the front end of her prepared testimony, "In 2009 alone, our advertising products generated a total of $54 billion of economic activity for American businesses, website publishers and non-profits."

She continued, "This number only covers economic activity generated by Google's search and advertising tools, including the over $5 billion of revenue we generate for online published in 2009."

Rockefeller said Whitten did not have to answer the question and moved on when she did not.