The satellite instrument Global Ozone Monitoring Experiment (GOME), on board the ERS-2 mission of the European Space Agency, is measuring backscattered sunlight from the atmosphere in the range from 240 to 790 nm. This spectrum is used for deriving global, height-resolved information on the ozone distribution in the atmosphere. Contrary to total ozone column retrieval, the retrieval algorithm for ozone profiles requires absolutely calibrated reflectivity spectra. However, the in-flight calibration of the GOME reflectivity spectra needs to be corrected before the spectra can be used for profile retrieval. A general method for this calibration correction of satellite data and the profile retrieval method are described in this paper. The retrieved profiles from the recalibrated reflectivity spectra of GOME differ in the stratosphere by up to 50% from retrieved profiles without the correction. With the calibration correction, improved ozone profiles are retrieved for the complete range of 0--50 km. The GOME ozone profiles have been validated with ground and satellite measurements at a representative urban midlatitude and a rural tropical ground station.