Posted by Alan Davidson, Senior Policy Counsel Celine Dion was still performing in Las Vegas, Jamie Lynn was the "good" Spears sister, and I was Time 's reigning Person of the Year (you were too).This blog is now a toddler took the wraps off this blog only six months ago. When we launched in June, our hope was to create a resource to inform policymakers -- as well as our users -- about our positions and efforts to keep the Internet a revolutionary medium for freedom and innovation. Since then we've welcomed tens of thousands of visitors each month, including folks from the House, Senate, FCC, and other agencies. For the curious, here were this year's most popular posts:What Do We Mean By "Net Neutrality"? (June 16)Eric Schmidt's summer of public policy (July 26)The promise of open platforms in the upcoming spectrum auction (July 10)Signs of real progress at the FCC (July 31)Candidates at Google: Barack Obama (November 15)Would-be presidents take the "Google Interview" Newsweek nine ?) presidential candidates visited our headquarters in Mountain View, California: Senator Chris Dodd , Senator Barack Obama , Senator Mike Gravel , Representative Ron Paul , Senator John Edwards , Senator John McCain , Governor Bill Richardson , and Senator Hillary Clinton .Iowa caucuses fast approaching and the 2008 election less than 11 months away, these visits allowed Googlers (and voters, via YouTube) to hear the candidates' thoughts on the war in Iraq, technology, immigration, trade, health care, and the most efficient methods for sorting one million 32-bit integers .Issues, Issues, Issues This year we were very proud of our efforts to promote changes in U.S. spectrum policy . We called for international privacy standards and took steps to further enhance privacy for our users. Patent reform moved forward, and we reminded people of the value of fair use . At year's end, we were gratified that the FTC approved our acquisition of DoubleClick with no conditions -- agreeing that the deal will help consumers and doesn't hurt competition. And, last but not least, we continued our work to keep the Internet free and open .Debates, YouTube style CNN/YouTube debates . Nearly 4.5 million viewers tuned in to the Republican debate, making it the most-watched primary debate in cable television history. More than 3,000 questions were submitted for the Democrats; over 5,000 for the Republicans. One Nebraska high school teacher even asked his students to submit questions as a homework assignment . And who said school was boring?Googlers on the Hill future of online video . People Operations VP Laszlo Bock talked immigration . Chief Legal Officer David Drummond promoted our acquisition of DoubleClick , and JL Needham talked about our work to make federal government websites more searchable .
This is an informative blog.
ReplyDeleteInteresting that Google formally addresses it's policies directly to to the public and not via press releases or third party media.
The only flaw is the lack of debate an interaction with the posters.
Of course, any large firm has to be extremely careful about every word in print - however, intelligent discourse among the comments would add an extra dimension to this blog.
One never knows if and how replies are being discussed and if they have any effect on policies and perceptions.