Let's look at the possible interpretations of the officially recorded question and see if we can figure out what the congressman meant.
Question: "how does this show up on a 7 year olds iPhone".
Interpretation 1:
>"How does this show up on a 7 year olds iPhone"
Senator, the iphone has a component on the front of it called an LED screen. LED stands for "light emitting diode", and the screen itself, which is similar in composition to a piece of glass, contains millions of these LEDs. The software in the phone selectively turns these LEDs (called pixels) on and off in patterns which your eyes interpret as images and text.
Interpretation 2:
>"How does this show up on a 7 year olds iphone"
Senator, there is a complex system of interactions between the user and the device they are using which influences the things that show up on the phone. I'm not sure what specific actions your grand daughter took to cause that specific ad to show up on her phone; one of the goals of interface design is to allow the user to precisely indicate to the device or software system what it is that they wish to see, or have the system produce. Likely there were some actions that your grand daughter took that caused the ad you are concerned about to appear, and some of these actions were likely tracked as a part of an advertising network which takes into account previous actions, location, browsing histo..
<Speaker the senators time is expired>
Interpretation 3:
>"How does this show up on a 7 year olds iphone"
Senator I am not sure how the age of your granddaughter is effecting that advertisements that she is seeing in this specific case, however I can tell you that at google, age is certainly a part of the algorithm we use to select which ads we show to children.
> possible interpretations of the officially recorded question and see if we can figure out what the congressman meant.
This is not how things work legally. If they want better answers they need better questions. It's not about interpreting what they meant but never actually said. Especially when what they said it accusatory of Google and very likely false. He asked a terrible question, and you're bending over backwards to interpret it in the most charitable way possible. That's fine on HN, or in a group of friends. That is not how things work at a congressional hearing. If I was Sundar, my answer would be that without photographic proof I don't believe this ever actually happened.
Cheers to whomever is downvoting my responses. It doesn't change the fact that it was a bad question and it got a deservedly snarky answer. I'm leaving this thread, it's clear most people here don't want to understand ads and just want to be angry at the big corp.
Question: "how does this show up on a 7 year olds iPhone".
Interpretation 1:
>"How does this show up on a 7 year olds iPhone"
Senator, the iphone has a component on the front of it called an LED screen. LED stands for "light emitting diode", and the screen itself, which is similar in composition to a piece of glass, contains millions of these LEDs. The software in the phone selectively turns these LEDs (called pixels) on and off in patterns which your eyes interpret as images and text.
Interpretation 2:
>"How does this show up on a 7 year olds iphone"
Senator, there is a complex system of interactions between the user and the device they are using which influences the things that show up on the phone. I'm not sure what specific actions your grand daughter took to cause that specific ad to show up on her phone; one of the goals of interface design is to allow the user to precisely indicate to the device or software system what it is that they wish to see, or have the system produce. Likely there were some actions that your grand daughter took that caused the ad you are concerned about to appear, and some of these actions were likely tracked as a part of an advertising network which takes into account previous actions, location, browsing histo..
<Speaker the senators time is expired>
Interpretation 3:
>"How does this show up on a 7 year olds iphone"
Senator I am not sure how the age of your granddaughter is effecting that advertisements that she is seeing in this specific case, however I can tell you that at google, age is certainly a part of the algorithm we use to select which ads we show to children.
Interpretation 4:
>"How does this show up on a 7 year olds iphone"
Senator my company doesn't make the iphone.