WASHINGTON, D.C. –U.S. Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) questioned Google’s senior privacy counsel Will DeVries in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing today on data privacy concerns and user data protection.

 “I think we can all agree that the digital promised land has a few mines in it,” said Sen. Kennedy. “I think we can agree that social media can now influence what we believe, how we vote, what we buy, even how we feel.”  

Click here or the photo below to watch the full questioning.

Here is an excerpt from Sen. Kennedy’s questioning:

Sen. Kennedy: “You have the ability to put in let’s say ‘John Neely Kennedy’ and find everything you want about me in terms of my data: what websites I go to, what ads I read, what I buy, that sort of thing. Do you do that?”

DeVries: “Yeah, and we try to show that to you Senator. If you have a Google account, we do that, and we provide you that information you can see that and you can…”

Sen. Kennedy: “So you do that repeatedly? I could call you up and say, ‘Give me all of the information you have on Thom Tillis and I’ll give you a quarter of a million dollars.’ You can do that?”

DeVries: “Senator, we never sell our users’ personal information.”

Sen. Kennedy: “Can you do that?”

DeVries: “We would never do that. That violates…”

Sen. Kennedy: “Can you do that?”

DeVries: “Not legally. No.”

Sen. Kennedy: “Could you do it technically?”

DeVries: “Oh, yes sir.”

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