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By Root 2048 0

weeks. No one wanted to identify users or misuse the information we collected. But we also knew we weren't the only ones who might see the data in our logs. It was 2003. The Patriot Act had been the law of the land for a little more than a year, loosening restrictions on the government's ability to access email and other electronic communication records. The Justice Department could request data from Google, and we would be legally bound not to tell users that their information had been passed to law enforcement officials. Attorney General John Ashcroft might soon be knocking on our door.

The arguments raised were so complex and technical that it would be impossible to detail them all here.* The main issues, though, had to do with controlling access to logs data by Google staff, the length of time Google retained user data files, notifying users that we were storing their search information, and giving users the option to delete data we had collected. The tradeoff with each of these would be a reduction in Google's ability to mine logs data to make better products for all its users.

I trusted that my colleagues would make intelligent, ethical decisions on data access and retention. The point I cared most about was notification. I drafted a proposal outlining all the things we could do, should do to lead the discussion on privacy and to set an industry standard. Instead of avoiding the issues raised by the collection of user data, I advocated we embrace them. We had nothing to hide. We could establish an advisory committee of outside privacy advocates, set up a public forum in Google groups, post tutorials about data gathering on our site, and give instructions on how to delete cookies to avoid being tracked.

Matt Cutts and Wayne Rosing, our VP of engineering, loudly and publicly supported the plan. I started thinking about ways we could build an area on our site for consumer advocacy. Then Cindy let me know privately that one Googler was not pleased with my proposal. Marissa, Cindy said, claimed that the idea of an advisory panel was hers and that I had neglected to give her credit. I rolled my eyes. I had suggested an advisory panel because we had had one at the Merc. I had not been in any meeting at which Marissa brought up the topic and so had no idea that she had suggested something similar.

I was tempted to fire off a note to that effect, but at my performance review a couple of weeks earlier Cindy had instructed me to stop waging email wars that went on forever. So instead of refuting Marissa over the ether, I set up a face-to-face meeting. It took me a week to get on her calendar, and even then her only available time was after dinner. As dusk fell, we went for a walk around the vacant lot next door to try and clear the air.

Marissa assured me that I was not the only one misappropriating her ideas. I was just the most recent. And, she wanted to know, why didn't she get credit for her work on the homepage promotion lines, which after all, should really be her responsibility, not marketing's?

I wasn't sure what credit there was to give for a single line of text on the Google.com homepage, or who else in the company might care, but I offered to publicly acknowledge her contributions whenever she made them. I wasn't willing to cede control over them, though. The marketing text on the homepage was the most valuable promotional medium we employed. It reached millions of people, and since promotion was a marketing responsibility, not a product-management one, I insisted that marketing should control the space.

As we headed back into the building, I assured Marissa, with complete sincerity, that I respected her intelligence and opinions and the enormous contribution she made to Google. I viewed her as my most important colleague in terms of the work that lay ahead. We had been working together to improve Google for more than three years, I reminded her. Despite our differing points of view in the past—and probably going forward as well—it was essential we maintain a direct channel of communication. I encouraged her