Google's general manager in Spain, Javier Rodríguez Zapatero, said in an interview with the newspaper Cinco Días that his company is not immune to the crisis, which has strongly affected the advertising business, although he says that it continues to grow faster than the market.
"Obviously we are not immune to the crisis; the bank data fall in the advertising market has had an impact on the growth levels that the sector was enjoying in previous years," said Zapatero, who did not give precise data but assured that the company's performance is superior to the competition.
However, the executive does not hide the fact that much of Google's revenue comes from advertising linked to the search engine, but that the company is investigating new areas such as online applications and cloud computing.
Zapatero also spoke out about the ghost that the search engine has been haunting lately due to the large amount of user data it handles. In this regard, Google has shown itself open to collaborating with the Spanish Data Protection Agency (AEPD) to adapt its proposals to the legislation.
"We are concerned about this issue and before launching our products we go to the AEPD so they can make suggestions so we can adapt them to the law," Zapatero said.