• by Joe Mandese , July 30, 2020

"Advertising" and "marketing" -- and especially their use of "data," "targeting," and the potential for "abuse" -- were a big part of the five-and-a-half hours of Congressional testimony during the "Big Tech" company hearing on Wednesday, according to a MediaPost analysis of the transcribed testimony published by C-SPAN.

While "competition" (118 references) and "antitrust" (21) were the dominant themes cited, "data" (96) ranked as the second-biggest theme, followed by "privacy" (42) and "advertising" (37).

Interestingly, "consumers" (31) were an also-ran in the discussion, although there were 37 references to "Americans" and one reference to "voters."

In terms of sentiment, "good" (21) ranked ahead of "harm" (29), although when "abuse" (6) and "bad" (6) are added in, it was more negative than positive.

"Pay" (27) ranked midway, just ahead of "election" (26), but "journalism" (11) seemed to be an afterthought.

As a stand-alone keyword reference, "Google" (223) was the dominant Big Tech firm reference, followed by "Amazon" (195), which was making its first appearance before Congress, and then "Facebook" (152) and "Apple" (104).

Google subsidiary "YouTube" (38) ranked ahead of Facebook's "Instagram" (29) and "WhatsApp" (9), and there were nine references to "Twitter" and one to "TikTok," where were not present.

Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg (67) had the most CEO references, followed by Amazon's Jeff Bezos (55), Apple's Tim Cook (25) and Google's Sundar Pichai (24).

There was one reference to Twitter's Jack Dorsey, who was not present.

There were 17 references to "Trump," 15 to "President," five to "Biden."

There were 96 references to "America," 24 to "China," and one to "Russia."

There were two references to Cambridge Analytica.

There were four references to the Facebook ad "boycott."

There was no reference to "Section 230" of the Communications Decency Act.