How much does the Wall Street establishment dislike Google’s proposed share split plan announced Thursday alongside its first quarter earnings report? Apparently, a lot.

The plan essentially calls for Google stock to split two for one, and all shareholders will receive a share in a new class of stock that will have no voting power. The net effect will over time preserve the roughly two-thirds majority that CEO and co-founder Larry Page, co-founder Sergey Brin and Executive Chairman and former CEO Eric Schmidt have over Google’s proxy voting structure.

Shareholders expressed their opinion with their wallets, sending the price of Google shares down by more than four percent on a day when the broader NASDAQ exchange was down by only one percent. The drop reduced Google’s market capitalization by nearly $8.6 billion, which is not a trivial amount, even for a company with a market cap north of $200 billion.

At least one shareholder advisory firm, Philadelphia-based Egan-Jones, has come out strongly in opposition to the plan. “We strongly oppose governance structures, such as currently exists at Google and as proposed, in which the holders of one class of common stock have voting rights with fewer votes per share,” the firm said.

Also on the record in opposition? CalSTRS, the $145 billion California State Teachers’ Retirement System, which owns $400 million worth of Google shares, told Reuters that it’s not happy about the proposal and intends to let Google know about it.

You can expect more fireworks from the likes of Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass-Lewis after Google files its preliminary proxy statement, which will contain a lot more detail about the plan, with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which it said it will do sometime this week.

In the end, however, even shareholders as large as CalSTRS will have little they can do but vote against the proposal at Google’s next shareholder meeting. The proxy authority Page, Brin and Schmidt already have ensures that the measure will pass. Part of the deal of investing in Google when it first came public in 2004, was putting a lot of faith in management, as the company reminded shareholders this week.

That includes those moments when it puts money and time into seemingly weird things like self-driving cars and computerized eyewear. Those things may not make sense to outsiders, Page argued during a conference call with analysts, but there’s a method to the madness, and as a shareholder you’re kind of expected to roll with it.

Clearly, many with skin in the game aren’t so sure. Sean Egan, president of Egan-Jones, spoke up for that camp in an appearance on Bloomberg TV Friday. I’ve embedded the clip below.

Here’s how Page and his deputies explained it on their quarterly earnings call:

Page said his three main priorities as CEO are velocity, execution and focusing on the future with big bets. Major launches this quarter included Chrome for Android and Google Play.

Responding to criticism of Google+ usage numbers, Page called this “confusion over metrics” and acknowledged that Google+ actually has two parts. One, it is a “social spine” for all of Google; and two, it is a “social destination.” The social spine has 170 million users, and the social destination is “growing very fast … with very healthy growth,” Page said, with all the clarity in the world.

As for Google creating a new class of shares and awarding equivalent stakes to existing investors, Page read out the letter he’d already posted. “We don’t have an unusually big acquisition planned, in case you were wondering,” he said.

Chief Legal Officer David Drummond assured his listeners that despite the effective stock split, all existing Google stockholders will essentially be treated equally and everyone will retain same voting interests, including Page, Brin and Eric Schmidt, who will agree to a “transfer restriction agreement.”

Onto the quarter at hand. CFO Patrick Pichette repeated those three big goals, with a slight twist: “velocity, focus and optimism.” As for perceived dips in numbers, “The most important thing to understand is that our business is healthy,” he said.

It was up to Nikesh Arora to cover the various business units (Susan Wojcicki, who usually helps out, is on spring break with her kids). He talked up YouTube’s progress to become a “key buy” for advertisers, and bragged about new Google Apps customers like Roche and the State of Colorado, accelerated growth in Asia, an underwater Google Hangout from the Great Barrier Reef and Google Street View in Russia.

Onto the analyst questions:

• Headcount growth seemed slower (Google now has 33,000 employees) — why? Pichette said this is just “short term variability.”
• Page said it would be reasonable to expect coming Google+ integrations in products like Wallet, Offers and Maps.
• Success of YouTube advertising shows growth of brand advertising online, said Arora. Page expects that mobile cost per click will improve over time because of local transactions and communication.
• Most resources are still going to core businesses, said Page — still following a 70-20-10 split among core businesses and near-term and long-term bets. Android took six years to get to where it is today, much of that before the public saw anything, he noted.
• Pichette declined to break out U.S. and international cash balances.
• Arora wouldn’t break out traffic acquisition costs for mobile, but said it’s not any different of an arrangement than on the desktop, with OEMs and carriers sharing revenue from Google Play and search, etc.
• Page said social does improve search. He gave yet another shout-out to that Ben Smith guy, who is now highlighted when Larry searches for his name because he’s Larry’s friend.
• As for tablets, Page talked up their media capability. “We definitely believe there’s going to be a lot of success at the lower end of the market as well,” he said.
• Pichette talked again about how lumpy growth and spending is good, and investors shouldn’t be worried.
• How do you account for the value of Android, an analyst asked. Page asked him to think longer-term. “We don’t get very many new operating systems. Only a few in my lifetime, and they’re very important.” He continued that Android is in its early stages, but it’s about the pace of innovation and improvements in user experience, and money will be a part of it, too.
• Page didn’t want to say tablets will eventually be more important than any other device, as an analyst asks him to do.
• Advertisers are interested in ROI — they don’t care about platforms, said Pichette. Google is working toward “dynamically allocating” advertising across its products in order to maximize ROI.

Despite more than a couple repeat questions in there, I don’t think I heard a single analyst ask about the new class of stock. Either they don’t really care, or they were surprised by the announcement and hadn’t prepared for it.

Think about the federal government’s blocking of the $39 billion AT&T and T-Mobile merger and you might want to reread Google’s blog today, penned in reaction to the news that the Justice Department is making a second request for information about its $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility.

“This is pretty routine,” wrote Google’s Motorola integration exec Dennis Woodside. “We’ve gotten these kind of requests before.”

Maybe Google has (and it has with other purchases) — but in actuality, only four percent of transactions got such a follow-up request from regulators.

To be fair, it is much more common in high-profile, big-money deals like this one, but it means a longer closing period and more uncertainty around the Android mobile ecosystem until it’s done.

Still, Google has good reason to be patient. Despite tough criticism and brutal lobbying, it won approval from Justice for its $700 million deal to buy flight data service ITA Software in April, after nine months of scrutiny and a number of conditions imposed.

And the search giant waited out an intense six-month Federal Trade Commission approval process last year for its $750 million acquisition of mobile advertising start-up AdMob. It had an even harder time with the FTC’s nod of its 2007 DoubleClick purchase for $3.1 billion.

One that it lost — an obvious bridge too far that I dubbed Yahoogle — was Google’s 2008 effort to meld a troubling partnership with Yahoo in search advertising.

So, we’ll see soon enough which way D.C. — which just had Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt up to the Senate for an antitrust hearing chit-chat — will go.

Until then, here’s Woodside’s whole blog:

An update on our Motorola acquisition

Wednesday, September 28, 2011 at 5:30 PM ET

Posted by Dennis Woodside, SVP Google

Since we announced our plans to acquire Motorola Mobility, we’ve been excited about the positive reaction to the proposed deal — particularly from our partners who have told us that they’re enthusiastic about our defense of the Android ecosystem.

And as David Drummond said when we announced our plans in August, we’re confident that this deal will be approved. We believe very strongly this is a pro-competitive transaction that is good for Motorola Mobility, good for consumers, and good for our partners.

That said, we know that close scrutiny is part of the process and we’ve been talking to the U.S. Department of Justice over the past few weeks. Today we received what is called a “second request,” which means that the DOJ is asking for more information so that they can continue to review the deal. (This is pretty routine; we’ve gotten these kind of requests before.)

While this means we won’t be closing right away, we’re confident that the DOJ will conclude that the rapidly growing mobile ecosystem will remain highly competitive after this deal closes. We’ll be working closely and cooperatively with them as they continue their review.

Ready, aim, fire — at Google at the Senate Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee hearing happening right now in Washington, D.C.

It is titled: “The Power of Google: Serving Consumers or Threatening Competition?”

Here we go:

11:04 am: As usual in D.C., the Senators on the committee get to pontificate first.

Oh, joy! (I used to live there and cover Congress stuff for the Washington Post from time to time and I am having bad déjà vu right now.)

A quick cut to Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt, who is appearing alone. He looks a little peaked, especially as the pols begin to describe the scary behemoth the search giant is.

And also that it is trying to force users to its other products.

Rut-roh.

11:07 am: Sen. Mike Lee, the Republican from Utah, who is a Google critic, is talking on about the search giant’s power, reading from his testimony in a dullish style.

I thought this dude was a Tea Party firebrand!

“The primary focus should be consumer welfare,” he says, blah, blah, blaaaaaaah.

11:09 am: Now, the subcommittee’s dour chairman, Sen. Herb Kohl from Wisconsin, is introing Schmidt, who is actually being introed by California Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

She is an Eric fan, obvi, praising his accomplishments at Google. But she also gives props to Jeffrey Katz, CEO of Nextag, who is testifying against Google later. Also, let her add, is the fabulous CEO of Yelp, Jeremy Stoppelman, another anti-Google speaker to come.

“I hope they tango rather than tangle,” says Feinstein inexplicably about those called to testify. Hey, white geeks can’t dance, although wrestling would also be hard for them too.

In any case, gotta love these everybody-loving pols!

11:14 am: Finally, Schmidt, who — of course — starts off invoking the last big tech giant who was here getting spanked by Congress.

Schmidt does not name Microsoft — classy, by which I mean not at all — but is referring to the software giant.

“We get it,” he says about the lessons Google has learned from Microsoft’s own antitrust troubles back in the day.

11:18 am: Schmidt is talking about Google and saying he welcomes the competition.

“Today it’s Google turn in the spotlight,” he says, still not uttering the word “Microsoft,” much as Microsoft execs have often not been able to say Google. “One company’s past [should] not be another company’s future.”

Now, the senators can have at him. Kohl is up first.

11:20 am: The first question is if Google is favoring its own products, via search.

Schmidt harkens back to what he calls early Google lore that it is just trying hard to get consumers stuff quicker.

The need for speed!

“Is really trusting Google to do the right thing sufficient?,” asks Kohl, who quotes former President Ronald Reagan’s famous line: “Trust but verify.”

That gives Schmidt the chance to talk about how quickly Google could lose out to competitors and then is onto how hard it is to do what Google does.

It takes extra-smart smartypants. Trust us, he says, as we are smartier!

11:24 am: Kohl comes back with a damning quote from Google’s famous Marissa Mayer, who apparently has said that the company favors its own products and why not?

Schmidt says he was not there when she allegedly said this, but that its own testing and intuition tells Google if consumers want a Google map or whatever tout de suite!

Kohl repeats the Mayer quote again: “We do all the work for the search page, so we put [a Google Maps link] in first.”

“I will let Marissa speak for herself,” says Schmidt, now too deep in the weeds of her verbal faux pas. Get out, Eric!

11:28 am: Sen. Lee is up, not taking any of this speedy, we-know-best business.

And he has a chart! I love a good chart. It shows Google info always ranks first in listings versus other sites it competes with.

Schmidt has not seen this poll, but thinks it is not accurate.

11:31 am: Let me note that Schmidt’s grey suit is fantastic looking. And right behind him, you can see Google’s top lawyer, the always nattily dressed David Drummond.

Back to the chart!

Lee wants to know why, according to his chart, that Google seems to come up first.

“Either way, you’ve cooked it,” claims Lee.

“Senator, I can assure you we have not cooked anything,” counters Schmidt.

(Note: Google does have an excellent cafeteria in Silicon Valley, complete with organic arugula and Kombucha for all.)

11:33 am: Hoo boy! But Lee’s time has expired, so Schmidt gets a break in the form of New York’s Sen. Charles Schumer.

I like the way he says “ee-no-vation” for innovation.

He does an expected plug for New York, of course. Somehow it is No. 1 in tech. Not so much, but brag on, Chuck!

11:38 am: Schumer is still talking about New York and its fab entrepreneurs.

Apparently, he has done a lot of jawboning with start-up dudes (likely over Kombucha) and they think Google is a positive force.

“Google is actually pretty good, we don’t see them as rapacious,” Schumer says the New York nerds tell him.

Is “rapacious” the criteria here?

Schumer is running out of time and has yet to ask a question and now is trying to get Schmidt to test Google’s broadband project in the Hudson Valley.

Now that’s rapacious!

Is there going to be an actual question here?

Yes: Oh please tell us, genius boy, what could Google do better?

Really.

11:42 am: Now, Sen. John Cornyn from Texas is on and asking about the prescription controversy Google was embroiled in recently.

Oops, I missed a bit when someone called me about the CEO mess at Hewlett-Packard I reported on earlier.

Onto Senator Amy Klobuchar from Minnesota. She is cleverly using an article about the Vikings football team to ask about how Google’s super-secret-sauce algorithm works and how it ranks results.

“Do you think companies should have a lot more certainty in how they are ranked?,” she asks.

11:51 am: Schmidt is not really answering, except to say Google is not perfect.

“We don’t know how to do it with more certainty,” he says, which is odd for a company that is perhaps the most irksomely certain group of geeks ever assembled on the planet.

Klobuchar moves to copyright issues. “There’s a real problem here,” agrees Schmidt.

Yes, and some media companies think Google is the problem and has not done enough to fix the problem.

“It’s difficult,” says Schmidt. Well, isn’t Google smartier?

“We’re under great pressure to resolve this,” he says.

11:55 am: Klobuchar is still worried about the small businesses, but she wants Google to come to Duluth.

Good lord, it’s a shakedown in plain sight. Maybe Google isn’t the scary one here! These pols seem pretty frightening.

Now Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley is saying he will attend some Google event in his state.

Of course!

Grassley makes a wishy-wishy statement, and we get to hear from Iowans on both sides.

Some are apparently concerned that Google is a troublemaker and some aren’t.

Iowans, like a lot of folks, are torn.

“We are happy to be judged,” says Schmidt.

12:00 pm: Now it is time for Sen. Al Franken from Minnesota.

“First let me say, I love Google,” he says.

Otay. I wonder if Franken knows that Google is a giant scary computer.

But, as a citizen of San Francisco, I say he should love whoever he wants!

Franken is also concerned about his love’s behavior and is taken aback by one of Schmidt’s previous answers.

It’s that irksome Marissa Mayer quote again.

When asked if the algo was unbiased, Schmidt apparently was not as sure as shootin’!

Now, it is onto Yelp and the fiery quotes from Stoppelman about how Google nefariously blocks the review site’s content.

Eric “generally” disagrees with Jeremy.

At one point Google tried to buy Yelp, so this is a fraught situation.

Does Franken know about the previous Google-Yelp hookup?

Drama!

Schmidt says it is Yelp’s fault for asking to be removed from the algo. Actually, Yelp only asked Google to stop jacking its fare.

12:11 pm: Oh noz, another pol? This time Sen. Richard Blumenthal from Connecticut.

He is super-smiley, while calling Google a “behemoth.” I like that word a lot and use it for the company often, although I always like to use a qualifier like “thuggish” or “freaky.”

Back to the blabby Blumenthal, who cannot seem to get out a question.

Wait! He asks if Google can suggest some fixes to “avoid government regulation.”

I. Kid. You. Not.

12:21 pm: Kohl is back and giving Google a little more slap-a-doo.

I like the whole Kohl thang of looking over his glasses down at Schmidt.

He asks: Should we trust Google? Should we?

In my opinion: If your mother says she loves you, you should check it.

So, no!

Schmidt assures him: “We make mistakes.”

Lee is then back, asking if Google gives preference to its own products in search?

Exactly the point and a question that is still not answered properly.

12:24 pm: Lee remains troubled by Schmidt’s testimony.

He uses terms like “leverage its natural dominance” and “significant market share to disadvantage” competitors.

Sounds like, um, Microsoft. And then it is back to that niggling Marissa Mayer quote. (Memo to the voluble exec, who apparently never met a microphone she didn’t want to talk into: You might want to take a day off today at the Googleplex.)

Google-luvin’ Franken is back and he is asking about mobile search.

Where Google is dominant again! (Jellllllo, Al, we in Silicon Valley know that one already!)

He asks if all Android devices come pre-loaded with Google products. Schmidt thinks two-thirds come with it, but handset makers can choose.

12:31 pm: Back to all-smiles Blumenthal, who says he has come to no conclusion.

But lo! He is not as silly as he seems and goes into an interesting racetrack analogy about how Google owns the track and now has horses and now those horses are winning.

Hmmmm…

Schmidt disagrees, natch!

He thinks the Internet is the platform and Google is the GPS.

Metaphor contest!

I think Google is a big tasty banana cream pie we can’t stop eating, although we know it’s bad for us.

That or an alien wearing an expensive suit who will soon eat us all.

Franken comes in with a doping horses joke. Remember when he was funny on “Saturday Night Live”?

Me neither.

It goes on without a lot of really good discussion. Klobuchar asks something, but I forget it immediately. My bad!

She has a last question about advertisers and privacy. Softball!

Let me write this for Schmidt before he inevitably spits it out: Of course, Google wants to protect privacy.

12:37 pm: Finally, the second panel of critics. Sadly, I must go to an appointment in Silicon Valley to visit one of its rapacious companies.

Oops, I meant ee-no-vative.

But, no worries, John Paczkowski will take over from here once it gets going again after the break.

12:47 pm: The panel’s back in session. The first critic to take a shot at Google, Thomas Barnett, a lawyer for Expedia.

12:51 pm: Riffing on Schmidt’s earlier “We know, we get it” comment, Barnett argues the opposite.

“Google doesn’t get it,” he says, adding that the company’s ever-expanding market power is troubling.

12:54 pm: Google is a monopoly, Barnett continues, and it has a duty not to abuse that position. He concludes by saying antitrust enforcement can and should play a role in maintaining competition in the markets in which it does business.

12:57 pm: Moving on now to Nextag CEO Katz, who has some tough words for the search giant. “Today Google doesn’t play fair,” he says.

He argues that Google rigs its results to drive consumers to Google Product Search when they search for information to inform their purchases.

1:00 pm: Next: Stoppelman of Yelp, who wonders if it’s even possible to create a company like Yelp today because of Google’s massive market power.

1:04 pm: Google’s outside lawyer, Susan Creighton, takes the mic next. Having trouble with the video stream from the Senate, but as best I can tell she talked broadly about the competitive landscape and reiterated Schmidt’s “competition is just a click away” narrative.

1:08 pm: She concludes by saying government oversight of Google’s search results rankings would put the company at a disadvantage and turn its search service into something akin to a “regulated utility.”

1:09 pm: Interesting. Creighton says she doesn’t believe Google has monopoly power.

1:10 pm: “Each of you right now can test whether or not you like Google’s search results and if you don’t like them it’s free and instantaneous to try someone else.”

1:22 pm: Apologies, the Senate video feed has gone from bad to worse.

1:23 pm: Franken asks Yelp’s Stoppelman and Nextag’s Katz if they could start their companies today given Google’s market power.

Both say that’s unlikely.

1:26 pm: Terse exchange between Franken and Creighton about whether Google paid Apple to be the default search engine on its iOS devices. Lots of back and forth, but Creighton finally concedes that there’s some sort of financial deal between the two companies.

1:39 pm: Sen. Lee asks what Google might do to “level the playing field.” Stoppelman suggests separating search from its other properties. Pipe dream.

1:40 pm: Well, it looks like it may be getting near the end of the session, which is a good thing because we get it to by now.

And that is: Nothing significant is going to get said here.

“He started it.”

“Nuh-uh.”

Anyway, Google has now posted its response to Microsoft’s assertion that it had in fact offered to jointly bid with Google on some Novell-owned patents.

In an updated blog post, Google says that’s true, but argues that doesn’t change the fact that Microsoft is trying to use its patents as a weapon against Android.

“It’s not surprising that Microsoft would want to divert attention by pushing a false ‘gotcha!’ while failing to address the substance of the issues we raised,” Google Chief Legal Officer David Drummond said in a Thursday update to Wednesday’s blog post. Drummond acknowledges that Microsoft made an offer, but adds, “If you think about it, it’s obvious why we turned down Microsoft’s offer. Microsoft’s objective has been to keep from Google and Android device-makers any patents that might be used to defend against their attacks.”

Jointly buying the patents, Drummond said, would have elminated Google’s ability to use the patents as a defense against Microsoft’s other Android patent claims. “Making sure that we would be unable to assert these patents to defend Android — and having us pay for the privilege — must have seemed like an ingenious strategy to them. We didn’t fall for it.”

The back-and-forth underscores just how critical patents have become in the mobile battle. Nearly everyone in the smartphone business is a plaintiff, defendant or both in some patent matter. Microsoft, for its part, has been seeking royalties from those making Android products, having reached an agreement with HTC (as well as some smaller Android players) and having filed suits against Motorola and Barnes & Noble.

Meanwhile, Microsoft PR head Frank Shaw has begun his reply to Drummond’s update, with a warning that the response may take a couple of tweets.

“We offered Google the opportunity to bid with us to buy the Novell patents; they said no,” Shaw said on Twitter (with a few of his capital letters removed). “Why? Because they wanted to buy something that they could use to assert against someone else. So partnering with others & reducing patent liability across industry is not something they wanted to help do.”

Personally, I’m tempted to pull the car over and tell them both that if they can’t play nice, then neither of them gets to blog for two weeks.

After Google’s legal head David Drummond let forth with a blog post about how Microsoft and Apple had formed an evil patent cabal against the search giant, the software giant’s PR head Frank Shaw was not having any of it.

In his post, Drummond had claimed the pair ganged up on Google and had not offered to partner over key former Novell patents, in an attempt to stop the growth of its Android mobile operating system.

Except not, according to an email that Shaw posted on Twitter from Google’s legal counsel Kent Walker to Microsoft’s legal head Brad Smith.

Tweeted Shaw: “Free advice for David Drummond – next time check with Kent Walker before you blog. :)”

It was followed by the image of the email, in which Walker seemed to turn down an offer of a partnership over the patents. “After talking with people here, it sounds as though for various reasons a joint bid wouldn’t be advisable for us on this one.”

Smith also piled on on Twitter, noting: “Google says we bought Novell patents to keep them from Google. Really? We asked them to bid jointly with us. They said no.”

Wax on, Google!

Here’s the image of the email:

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

That’s the gist of a blustery and bitter blog post on the mobile IP wars penned by Google’s chief legal officer, Dave Drummond, who claims that a cabal of Google rivals is conspiring to hamstring Android’s growth by buying up some of the mobile industry’s most valuable IP. From the post:

They’re doing this by banding together to acquire Novell’s old patents (the “CPTN” group including Microsoft and Apple) and Nortel’s old patents (the “Rockstar” group including Microsoft and Apple), to make sure Google didn’t get them; seeking $15 licensing fees for every Android device; attempting to make it more expensive for phone manufacturers to license Android (which we provide free of charge) than Windows Mobile; and even suing Barnes & Noble, HTC, Motorola, and Samsung. Patents were meant to encourage innovation, but lately they are being used as a weapon to stop it.

A brazen takedown, particularly for Google, which to date has been reticent to call its rivals out in this way. Clearly, the company is taking a new tack here, framing the issue in its own way and, presumably, putting whatever lobbying and legal muscle it has into throwing out roadblocks. To wit, these few lines, also taken from Drummond’s post:

We’re encouraged that the Department of Justice forced the group I mentioned earlier to license the former Novell patents on fair terms, and that it’s looking into whether Microsoft and Apple acquired the Nortel patents for anti-competitive means.

I bet you are. Particularly since you’re facing antitrust inquiries into your own core businesses. And in the end, that may be another purpose of this post: To show regulators that Google isn’t always the unstoppable juggernaut it is portrayed to be. Sometimes it’s the victim, or it would like to be viewed that way, especially by the FTC and the tough-talking judge presiding over its patent infringement showdown with Oracle.

One last point: If the patents to which Google refers are “bogus,” why bother decrying them at all? Or, for that matter, bidding $Pi billion dollars for them in the first place?

Where before, Google had listed nine people as executive officers, now it only has six, cutting out Shona Brown, Alan Eustace, and Jonathan Rosenberg. What happened to those three? Long-time head of product management Rosenberg is leaving the company; Eustace is now head of “Knowledge,” a.k.a. search, on par with six other “core product area” SVPs; and Brown is now in charge of Google.org.

By the way, none of those changes have actually been announced by Google, though when asked, the company has confirmed they have indeed happened.

That leaves the following:

Larry Page, CEO
Eric E. Schmidt, Executive Chairman
Sergey Brin, co-founder
Nikesh Arora, Senior Vice President and Chief Business Officer
David C. Drummond, Senior Vice President, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer
Patrick Pichette, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer

Sure, we’re obsessing about a single, mostly static Web page, but what makes these deletions more remarkable is that prior to a major clean-up last year, the management page had something like 70 people on it (here it is on the Wayback Machine).

Meanwhile, a related corporate timeline that diligently lists Google’s launches and other accomplishments hasn’t been updated since Sept. 2010.

But this seems to be the way of the new Larry Page regime: offering less information, not more.

Things are sure shaking over at Google, since the sudden departure on Monday of Jonathan Rosenberg, Google’s head of product management and one of its most senior executives.

While his exit was portrayed as friendly all around, sources with knowledge of the dicey situation said that was definitely not the case.

Instead, moving aside Rosenberg was newly installed CEO and Co-founder Larry Page’s first parry at remaking the search giant in his own image.

Moving management chairs around is one of the tried-and-true way new leaders often try to effect that kind of dramatic change and several sources said Page has been tossing them about rather than just rearranging them.

That was certainly clear in last night’s knighting of six new SVP titles upon a group of execs, all very close to Page.

The promoted in new business units: Sundar Pichai, SVP of Chrome; Vic Gundotra, SVP of social; Andy Rubin SVP of mobile; Salar Kamangar SVP of YouTube and video; Alan Eustace SVP of search; Susan Wojcicki SVP of ads.

Of them, Eustace was previously an SVP, in charge of engineering and research, and Wojcicki had recently held the title SVP of product management.

It’s all the next step in Page’s overhauling the company’s management structure, as I reported in this column earlier this week was in the works.

As I wrote:

The main theme that seems to be emerging: An elimination of Google’s more centralized functional structure–where Rosenberg was one of several manager kingpins–to one in which the individual business units and their engineers, such as its most independent Android division, rule more autonomously.

Reimagined like this, Google would become an ambidextrous organization with more powerful unit line execs, mostly engineers, doing what needs to be done to succeed, less burdened by the need to vet every little effort through various managers of Google’s powerful operating committee.

This, of course, brings into focus that fates of several other SVPs on the formal management structure list on Google’s Web site and still serving on that OC.

Leaving Eustace off, since he has a new SVP title, they are: Nikesh Arora, SVP and Chief Business Officer; David Drummond SVP, Corporate Development, and Chief Legal Officer; Shona Brown, SVP, Business Operations; and Patrick Pichette, SVP and Chief Financial Officer.

How their roles evolve or do not–all might stay as is, of course–will be the next interesting part of what I am calling PageYank:

Nikesh Arora:

In a widely read column earlier this week, investing gadfly Eric Jackson argued that Arora is probably the most vulnerable of all the senior executives at the company.

The high-profile Arora is well known both inside and outside the company as both highly ambitious and consistently pugnacious.

While that is not necessarily a bad thing to be, that style has garnered him some criticism and he is often referred to as “Darth Vader” among detractors (and even some supporters).

Still, Arora has been a consistent producer of results over his tenure, which might be all that matters. In fact, it might also make him an attractive candidate for a CEO job outside Google.

But, perhaps most important right now though, is that Arora is “definitely not part of Larry’s inner circle,” said one source, adding “and that’s a very important place to be right now.”

Incidentally, that inner circle currently seems to consist of many of those promoted last night–Kamangar, Rubin, Pichai and Gundotra–as well as search leads Udi Manber and Amit Singhal and, of course, Co-founder Sergey Brin.

And not, it seems, Arora.

David Drummond:

With Kent Walker recently promoted to an SVP title, along with being Google’s general counsel, does the company need a Chief Legal Officer or does it need to winnow down another layer of management?

As one source told me, “Why do you need a Drummond, when you’ve got a Walker?” It’s a fair point.

While also in charge of both public policy and corporate development, Drummond has been known more for benign absence at Google than for aggressive presence.

Some also suggest that the affable exec, who has been at Google since early on and is presumably very wealthy, might also not want to sign up for the long-term commitment that Page now expects of his top managers.

Shona Brown:

Before she came to Google, Brown spent a decade consulting for McKinsey and is widely credited with optimizing Google’s internal structure.

But Page is not a McKinsey guy and he’s obviously not a big fan of Google’s current management organization anymore.

That might not bode well for the legendarily sharp-elbowed Brown who most sources describe as highly strategic but also as extremely difficult to work with.

Still, if Page is tinkering with the way Google is organized, Brown might also be the one he turns to find a new structure.

That said, he seems to be fine doing it on his own and some suggest Brown will move to another role within the company rather than leaving.

Not all agree.

Said one source: “I wouldn’t be shocked to see Shona go. Frankly, I’m surprised she survived as long as she did, but then I didn’t think Rosenberg would last this long either.”

But, said another about Brown, who has previously taken time off from Google and returned: “I’d never count Shona out.”

Patrick Pichette:

He’s not going anywhere, as far as I can tell. The friendly and erudite Pichette is widely admired at the company and by Page–the most important admirer of all at Google these days.

He’s also been a smart and stable presence on earnings calls and does a job with Wall Street analysts and investors that Page is pretty much uninterested in and–more to the point–completely incapable of doing well.

Let’s be honest about the socially awkward CEO: Page’s frequently prickly and robotic style makes Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg look like Cary Grant.

Pichette stays.

As for everyone else, as Page reaches even further down into the organization at Google, it will be interesting to see where the next chair will fall.

One thing is clearest of all: Page is positioning himself as the centerpoint of the entire company.

Because make no mistake, these new autonomous divisions all report to him, in a system that mimics Apple and its legendary leader Steve Jobs.

A tough act to follow, to be sure.

PREVIOUSLY:

• Google’s Page Begins Major Reorg: Engineers, Not Managers, In Charge
• Product Chief Jonathan Rosenberg to Leave Google
• Larry Page as CEO: Steve Jobs or Jerry Yang?

“If this were happening with physical trade, we’d all be saying this violates trade agreements,” Drummond said. “If you want to be part of the community of free trade, you have to let the Internet be open.”

So what’s to be done? Drummond says the U.S. government needs to respond to foreign nations who censor the Internet in the same way it would to those that restrict free trade. “We have great opportunities now with pending trade agreements to start putting some pressure on countries to recognize that internet freedom not only is a core value–that we should be holding them to account from a human rights standpoint,” he said. “But also that if you want to be part of the community of free trade, you are going to have to find a way to allow the internet to be open.”

A wonderful idea in theory, but one that’s certainly not going to go over well in places like China, where an “open Internet” is by defininition a restricted one.

With the news that a Hollywood production company is working on a movie about Google, based on the nonfiction book “Googled: The End of the World as We Know It” by Ken Auletta, BoomTown has been noodling on which actors would be good to cast in the various roles of the top players.

While the Google film isn’t as juicy as the film about Facebook–“The Social Network,” coming out this fall (and, par for the course, the social networking site beats the search giant to the big screen!)–there is plenty of opportunity to bring a little glamour to the Googleplex.

While not a casting director by trade, but having actually covered the Google (GOOG) geeks off and on since its earliest days, I feel that I might have nailed the casting, below, for a smattering of the more-visible execs from the company, then and now.

I could not get to everyone–no Silicon Valley frenemies at Apple (AAPL), no VCs, no giant parade of former Googlers now at Facebook–but please feel free to add your own suggestions.

Thus:

CEO Eric Schmidt/Philip Seymour Hoffman (uncanny!):

Co-founder and President, Products Larry Page/Zachary Quinto (keeping the Spock ears):

Co-founder and President, Technology Sergey Brin/Tom Cruise (in crazy jumping mode):

SVP, Product Management Jonathan Rosenberg/Jim Carrey (need we say more?):

SVP, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer David Drummond/Denzel Washington (even more uncanny!):

VP, Search Products & User Experience Marissa Mayer/Reese Witherspoon (separated at birth, right?):

VP, Product Management Susan Wojcicki/Maggie Gyllenhaal (because, let’s be frank, both deserve more notice):

VP, Engineering Andy Rubin/Dick Costolo (he’s not an actor, but he plays one at Twitter; also uncannily uncanny!):

VP, Engineering Vic Gundotra/Stewie Griffin (pretend the gun is a smartphone and it will all make sense):

Please see this disclosure related to me and Google. (And I will leave the casting of Megan to others, although I did lob in a call to Angelina Jolie’s people.)

Google has finally adopted the “New Approach to China” that it announced in January, making good on its threat to end censorship of its services in the country. Earlier today, the company begun redirecting Internet traffic away from its Chinese-language site at google.cn to google.com.hk in Hong Kong, beyond the so-called Great Firewall of China.

Searches that once would have been censored now return results, and the legend that once appeared at the bottom of the page–“According to local laws, regulations and policies, some search results are not shown.”–is no more.

David Drummond, Google’s chief legal officer, announced the move in a post to the company blog:

Earlier today we stopped censoring our search services–Google Search, Google News, and Google Images–on Google.cn. Users visiting Google.cn are now being redirected to Google.com.hk, where we are offering uncensored search in simplified Chinese, specifically designed for users in mainland China and delivered via our servers in Hong Kong. Users in Hong Kong will continue to receive their existing uncensored, traditional Chinese service, also from Google.com.hk. Due to the increased load on our Hong Kong servers and the complicated nature of these changes, users may see some slowdown in service or find some products temporarily inaccessible as we switch everything over….We believe this new approach of providing uncensored search in simplified Chinese from google.com.hk is a sensible solution to the challenges we’ve faced. We very much hope that the Chinese government respects our decision, though we are well aware that it could at any time block access to our services.

To that end, Google (GOOG) has established a page monitoring which of its services are available in China and which are blocked. As of this writing, access to quite a few are either partially or totally restricted.

Google stopped short of full withdrawal from the country. According to Drummond, the company will keep its operations in China, as long as it can anyway. Said Drummond: “We intend to continue R&D work in China and also to maintain a sales presence there, though the size of the sales team will obviously be partially dependent on the ability of mainland Chinese users to access Google.com.hk.

China and its state-run media, which were particularly vocal in advance of this latest move, haven’t yet commented on it beyond a simple acknowledgment that the redirect is in place.

PREVIOUSLY:

• China to Google: Go Ahead and Leave, Ya Big Loser
• Report: Google Bailing on China in Early April
• Beijing to Google’s China Partners: Nice Site You Got There. Shame if Something Happened to It.
• China: We Are in Talks With Google. Also, We Are Not in Talks With Google.
• Chinese Scientists Recalibrate Google’s Evil Scale
• Chinese Schools Tied to Attacks on Google? Where’d You Read That, Mad Magazine?
• World War WAN: Google Hack Traced to Schools in China
• Nearly a Month After Debut, Google’s “New” Approach to China Still a Lot Like the Old One
• Google CEO: Ask Not What Google Can Do for China–Ask What China Can Do for Google
• China on “Google Farce”: Our Internet Is Open
• China to Google: No Worries, We Were Planning to Clone Those Android Phones Anyway
• U.S. State Department to Complain to China About Google Hack. Not That China’s Going to Listen.
• Microsoft: “Don’t Be Evil” Is Google’s Motto, Not Ours
• What’s the Chinese Word for Bing? Google Threatens to Leave China.

In China, the search giant is battling hackers and the government, who may be one and the same. In Europe, the company is being hauled in front of an antitrust review. And Italy? Total disaster.

Yesterday, an Italian court convicted three Google (GOOG) executives of privacy violations in a case that stems from a clip uploaded to Google Video in 2006. The executives, who include former CFO George Reyes, have been sentenced to six-month prison sentences.

And that verdict follows a December ruling whereby an Italian court found the company guilty of copyright violations on YouTube, the video site it bought in 2006. Mediaset, the broadcaster that brought the suit–and which is controlled by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi–is looking for more than $730 million in damages.

Google has responded to the video convictions with an outraged blog post. Note that the language is more forceful than the company used to describe its China problem. But also note that the company isn’t threatening to pull out of Italy altogether. Maybe it should.

Serious threat to the web in Italy
2/24/2010 01:57:00 AM
In late 2006, students at a school in Turin, Italy filmed and then uploaded a video to Google Video that showed them bullying an autistic schoolmate. The video was totally reprehensible and we took it down within hours of being notified by the Italian police. We also worked with the local police to help identify the person responsible for uploading it and she was subsequently sentenced to 10 months community service by a court in Turin, as were several other classmates who were also involved. In these rare but unpleasant cases, that’s where our involvement would normally end.

But in this instance, a public prosecutor in Milan decided to indict four Google employees–David Drummond, Arvind Desikan, Peter Fleischer and George Reyes (who left the company in 2008). The charges brought against them were criminal defamation and a failure to comply with the Italian privacy code. To be clear, none of the four Googlers charged had anything to do with this video. They did not appear in it, film it, upload it or review it. None of them know the people involved or were even aware of the video’s existence until after it was removed.

Nevertheless, a judge in Milan today convicted 3 of the 4 defendants–David Drummond, Peter Fleischer and George Reyes–for failure to comply with the Italian privacy code. All 4 were found not guilty of criminal defamation. In essence this ruling means that employees of hosting platforms like Google Video are criminally responsible for content that users upload. We will appeal this astonishing decision because the Google employees on trial had nothing to do with the video in question. Throughout this long process, they have displayed admirable grace and fortitude. It is outrageous that they have been subjected to a trial at all.

But we are deeply troubled by this conviction for another equally important reason. It attacks the very principles of freedom on which the Internet is built. Common sense dictates that only the person who films and uploads a video to a hosting platform could take the steps necessary to protect the privacy and obtain the consent of the people they are filming. European Union law was drafted specifically to give hosting providers a safe harbor from liability so long as they remove illegal content once they are notified of its existence. The belief, rightly in our opinion, was that a notice and take down regime of this kind would help creativity flourish and support free speech while protecting personal privacy. If that principle is swept aside and sites like Blogger, YouTube and indeed every social network and any community bulletin board, are held responsible for vetting every single piece of content that is uploaded to them–every piece of text, every photo, every file, every video–then the Web as we know it will cease to exist, and many of the economic, social, political and technological benefits it brings could disappear.

These are important points of principle, which is why we and our employees will vigorously appeal this decision.

Posted by Matt Sucherman, VP and Deputy General Counsel–Europe, Middle East and Africa

Google’s Sergey Brin took the stage at the TED conference this morning for a brief discussion about the search giant’s recent declaration that it will pull out of the country if it has to continue to censor results.

Google has been quiet about its plans in China since it said a month ago that it was contemplating leaving the country over a range of issues centered on onerous censorship laws there.

Explaining Google’s “new approach” to China in a Jan. 12 blog post, chief legal officer David Drummond wrote:

“We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.”

While not adding a lot more to what has been said, Brin did shed some light on his own and Google’s thinking.

While the Google (GOOG) co-founder would not directly blame the Chinese government for the security attacks on his company, or for others, he did note that the entity was so huge that there was no telling where they came from.

“It might represent a fragment” of the government, he said, although he did not give any specifics, in a short Q&A interview with curator Chris Anderson at TED, which has been taking place this week in Long Beach, Calif.

Brin also noted that he wished all those who underwent cyberattacks, as Google claims it has, would go public.

“If all companies came forward, we’d all be better,” he said.

As to where Google goes from here, after declaring its “intent” to withdraw from China, Brin said the company would definitely not censor political results in the future.

That said–nearly a month after the original statement, Google does continue to censor search results in China.

This will end, Brin seemed to indicate, although he did allow that other kinds of censorship around porn or gambling barred by Chinese law, similar to what Google does in other countries, would remain in place.

Brin said he did not know how the situation would turn out or if Google would come to some kind of compromise.

But he said he is “always optimistic” about some kind of detente with China.

“We want to find a way to work within the Chinese system,” said Brin, but without having to censor political results. “A lot of people might think I am naive and that might be true.”

“We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.”

A dramatic announcement given that the Chinese government’s policy requires the company to remove certain sensitive information from its search results in order to have a presence in the country. Yet nearly a month after it was made, Google (GOOG) continues to censor search results in China, and it has said nothing about its efforts to reach a compromise with Beijing.

What’s taking so long?

Drummond’s statement–“We are no longer willing to continue censoring our results…”–was about as definitive as they come. But is Google following through or not?

Asked for an update on its discussions with the Chinese government and the future of its operations in the country, a Google spokesman told me the company doesn’t have any new information to provide.

“Our blog post announcing the matter remains our current statement of record on the issue,” he told me.

Yes, but since publication of that post, Google seems to have adopted a more amicable stance on the matter. During the company’s fourth-quarter earnings conference in January, CEO Eric Schmidt said Google was committed to retaining its presence in China.

“We wish to remain in China,” Schmidt said. “We like the Chinese people, we like our Chinese employees, we like the business opportunities there. We’d like to do that on somewhat different terms than we have, but we remain quite committed to being there.”

Of course Google is.

China is the world’s largest Internet market. But in order to operate in China, foreign businesses must abide by laws restricting Internet content, and Google has said publicly that it will no longer do so.

Again, Drummond’s words: “We are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn…”

If that’s truly the case and Drummond’s blog post remains Google’s current statement of record on China, why are censored results still appearing on Google.cn? Is the moral high ground the company claimed a month ago proving just a bit too high?

“We’re in this for the long haul. In the years to come, we’ll be making significant and growing investments in China. Our launch of google.cn, though filtered, is a necessary first step toward achieving a productive presence in a rapidly changing country that will be one of the world’s most important and dynamic for decades to come. To some people, a hard compromise may not feel as satisfying as a withdrawal on principle, but we believe it’s the best way to work toward the results we all desire.”

– Google Senior Policy Counsel Andrew McLaughlin, January 2006

Whether it’s an act of moral bravery or the first step in a commercial retreat it had been planning anyway, Google’s “new approach to China” isn’t going to fly with that country’s government. Beijing clearly has no intention of granting Google’s request to allow unfiltered Internet searches.

“We must make truly improving our capacity to guide opinion on the Internet a major measure for protecting Internet security,” Wang Chen, director of China’s State Council Information Office, said Wednesday. Our country is at a crucial stage of reform and development, and this is a period of marked social conflicts….Properly guiding Internet opinion is a major measure for protecting Internet information security. Internet media must always make nurturing positive, progressive mainstream opinion an important duty.”

And then there was this remark from foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu, offered up a regular ministry briefing: “China’s Internet is open. China welcomes international Internet enterprises to conduct business in China according to law.”

Chen and Yu didn’t mention Google (GOOG) by name, but their messages were clearly intended for the search giant. China has laws restricting content and if Google refuses to abide by them, well, there will be “far-reaching consequences”–as the company’s chief legal officer, David Drummond, recently called them.

“Far-reaching consequences” not for China, but for Google, which may now be forced to shut down Google.cn and potentially the rest of its China operations as well, ceding its claim to the world’s largest Internet market to Chinese rival Baidu.

“We actually did an evil scale and decided not to serve at all was worse evil.”

– Google CEO Eric Schmidt on the company’s decision to offer a censored version of its search services in China, Jan. 30, 2006

Evidently Google is taking its informal “don’t be evil motto” a bit more seriously these days. The search sovereign threatened late Tuesday to pull out of its operations in China after detecting a “highly sophisticated and targeted attack on [its] corporate infrastructure originating from China.” Targeted in the assault: The Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists.

“These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered–combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web–have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China,” Google’s chief legal officer, David Drummond, wrote in a post to the company blog.

“We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all,” Drummond added. “We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.”

Shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China? Hmm. What’s the Chinese word for “Bing”?

Drummond didn’t directly accuse the Chinese government of orchestrating the incursion, but he certainly seems to be implying there’s a link. And you’d think one would have to exist for Google (GOOG) to threaten pull out of a country that has more Internet users than the total population of the U.S.–even if its efforts to gain market share there haven’t met with the same success as in the rest of the world.

It’s tough to stake your claim in a country where the government favors the local rival and blocks your traffic if you fail to censor. Baidu’s share of the Chinese search market in the third quarter was 77 percent, up from 75.6 percent. Google’s share for the same period? Just 17 percent, down from 19 percent.

So, to some extent, Google can probably threaten to leave China because the country accounts for such a small portion of its revenue. On the other hand, China leads the world in Internet users and presents a hell of a market opportunity–large enough that Google willingly provided a censored version of its services as a prerequisite for doing business there. Or, rather, it used to.

At $395.50 Baidu shares are up more than two percent after hours on the news. Google shares are down 1.6 percent at $581.01.

Drummond’s post in full, below, as well as another on the safety of data on Google by Dave Girouard, President of Google Enterprise:

A new approach to China

Like many other well-known organizations, we face cyber attacks of varying degrees on a regular basis. In mid-December, we detected a highly sophisticated and targeted attack on our corporate infrastructure originating from China that resulted in the theft of intellectual property from Google. However, it soon became clear that what at first appeared to be solely a security incident–albeit a significant one–was something quite different.

First, this attack was not just on Google. As part of our investigation we have discovered that at least twenty other large companies from a wide range of businesses–including the Internet, finance, technology, media and chemical sectors–have been similarly targeted. We are currently in the process of notifying those companies, and we are also working with the relevant U.S. authorities.

Second, we have evidence to suggest that a primary goal of the attackers was accessing the Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights activists. Based on our investigation to date we believe their attack did not achieve that objective. Only two Gmail accounts appear to have been accessed, and that activity was limited to account information (such as the date the account was created) and subject line, rather than the content of emails themselves.

Third, as part of this investigation but independent of the attack on Google, we have discovered that the accounts of dozens of U.S.-, China- and Europe-based Gmail users who are advocates of human rights in China appear to have been routinely accessed by third parties. These accounts have not been accessed through any security breach at Google, but most likely via phishing scams or malware placed on the users’ computers.

We have already used information gained from this attack to make infrastructure and architectural improvements that enhance security for Google and for our users. In terms of individual users, we would advise people to deploy reputable anti-virus and anti-spyware programs on their computers, to install patches for their operating systems and to update their web browsers. Always be cautious when clicking on links appearing in instant messages and emails, or when asked to share personal information like passwords online. You can read more here about our cyber-security recommendations.

We have taken the unusual step of sharing information about these attacks with a broad audience not just because of the security and human rights implications of what we have unearthed, but also because this information goes to the heart of a much bigger global debate about freedom of speech. In the last two decades, China’s economic reform programs and its citizens’ entrepreneurial flair have lifted hundreds of millions of Chinese people out of poverty. Indeed, this great nation is at the heart of much economic progress and development in the world today.

We launched Google.cn in January 2006 in the belief that the benefits of increased access to information for people in China and a more open Internet outweighed our discomfort in agreeing to censor some results. At the time we made clear that “we will carefully monitor conditions in China, including new laws and other restrictions on our services. If we determine that we are unable to achieve the objectives outlined we will not hesitate to reconsider our approach to China.”

These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered–combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web–have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.

The decision to review our business operations in China has been incredibly hard, and we know that it will have potentially far-reaching consequences. We want to make clear that this move was driven by our executives in the United States, without the knowledge or involvement of our employees in China who have worked incredibly hard to make Google.cn the success it is today. We are committed to working responsibly to resolve the very difficult issues raised.

Keeping your data safe

Many corporations and consumers regularly come under cyber attack, and Google is no exception. We recently detected a cyber attack targeting our infrastructure and that of at least 20 other publicly listed companies. This incident was particularly notable for its high degree of sophistication. We believe Google Apps and related customer data were not affected by this incident. Please read more about our public response on the Official Google Blog.

This attack may understandably raise some questions, so we wanted to take this opportunity to share some additional information and assure you that Google is introducing additional security measures to help ensure the safety of your data.

This was not an assault on cloud computing. It was an attack on the technology infrastructure of major corporations in sectors as diverse as finance, technology, media, and chemical. The route the attackers used was malicious software used to infect personal computers. Any computer connected to the Internet can fall victim to such attacks. While some intellectual property on our corporate network was compromised, we believe our customer cloud-based data remains secure.

While any company can be subject to such an attack, those who use our cloud services benefit from our data security capabilities. At Google, we invest massive amounts of time and money in security. Nothing is more important to us. Our response to this attack shows that we are dedicated to protecting the businesses and users who have entrusted us with their sensitive email and document information. We are telling you this because we are committed to transparency, accountability, and maintaining your trust.