Public Policy Blog
Updates on technology policy issues
The "special relationship" comes to the Googleplex
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Posted by Derek Slater, Policy Analyst
Last Thursday Google was honored to host the top diplomats from both halves of the transatlantic "
special relationship
": U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and British Foreign Secretary David Miliband. Both confront on a daily basis some of the most difficult policy issues facing the world, with their recent itineraries taking them to Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, and beyond. Coming to the Googleplex for a tour and another edition of
our Policy Talk series
was a comparatively easy challenge, despite the probing questions from
David Drummond
, our Senior VP for Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer, and the gathered Googlers during an hour-long
discussion
.
Among other topics, Secretaries Rice and Miliband discussed Internet censorship and the role that governments can play in protecting human rights online -- the subject of
our recent testimony before Congress
. Secretary Rice, who in 2006 formed the State Department's
Global Internet Freedom Task Force
, argued that "the Internet is possibly one of the greatest tools for democratization and individual freedom that we've ever seen." Both she and Secretary Miliband expressed concern over Internet censorship and the efforts of some governments around the world to block or regulate content.
Throughout the course of their talk, Secretaries Rice and Miliband also discussed globalization and competition, the Iraq war, the image of the U.S. in the world, the environment, and other issues. You can hear their views for yourself on YouTube:
Be NetSmart in India
Tuesday, May 27, 2008
Posted by Rishi Jaitly, Policy Analyst - India
As we have
highlighted
here
, online child safety is a big priority for Google.
This is especially true in India, an extraordinarily
young nation
where, as a visit to any local cybercafe will make obvious, young people are leading the charge onto the Internet (in 2001, over 35 percent of India's population was under the age of 15).
This is a crucial time for online child safety in India as Parliament is set to amend the nation's Information Technology laws in its current session. While Members consider many provisions, we hope that the final law retains Section 67 (2) of the
Ministry of Information Technology's
proposed amendments. This section, which both adds child pornography to the list of offences under the Act and strengthens the punishment for the offence itself, is critical to drawing attention to the issue and to furthering the safety of India's youth online. While adding this provision to law would represent a step forward, we hope the government will continue to focus on child safety issues, especially as they pertain to the Internet. There are many global examples of innovations in this area, including the presence of organizations that enable the reporting of child pornography in the
U.S.
and
U.K.
; the Indian government should consider these and other options.
Of course, I've
blogged about
India's IT Act
before
(and especially its handling of the issue of intermediary liability). While policy reforms on both intermediary liability and child safety are needed to help position the Internet for growth in India, the issue of child safety presents a unique opportunity to couple advocacy with ground-level programs aimed at making a direct difference in the lives of children.
With this in mind, Google India recently launched
"Be NetSmart"
, a nationwide Internet safety campaign that -- in cooperation with local law enforcement -- aims to educate students, teachers, and parents about the positive and valuable role the Internet can play in modern life, while at the same time conveying important messages about how to be safe, cautious, and smart online.
Mumbai was the site of the first phase of the campaign, and over the course of six weeks, Google employee volunteers and Mumbai Police officials shared the Be NetSmart message with more than 25,000 students and 1,200 school officials across more than 50 schools in India's largest city.
The response in India has been enthusiastic - and has even spurred the creation of several similar programs, including the recent "
Get NetSecure Information Security Week
"
sponsored by the
Confederation of Indian Industry
and the
Ministry of Communications and Information Technology
. We welcome all programs that focus on the safety of children online; India's a
large country
- the more programs, the better.
Larry Page talks about Google's vision of "wi-fi on steroids"
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Posted by Richard Whitt, Washington Telecom and Media Counsel
"Wi-fi on steriods." That's one of the many potential uses for the
wireless spectrum
that is now lying unused between TV channels, our co-founder Larry Page told the
New America Foundation
here in DC this morning.
But why does Google care about helping more people get access to the web, whether it's through enhanced wi-fi or other means? As Larry put it, Google's mission is to organize the world's information -- but if no one has access to the Internet, what good is that effort? That's one of the big reasons Google has become steadily more engaged in spectrum policy debates in Washington. Wading into that debate at his talk today, Larry said that:
The U.S. has slipped from third to sixteenth in broadband penetration rates, in part because the U.S. has not shown leadership in encouraging greater broadband access. Utilizing the unused TV "white spaces" for broadband access would be a tremendous opportunity to
bring the Internet to more Americans
-- including those in rural areas and first responders. Because of the much longer range of these spectrum signals, wireless broadband access utilizing the TV white spaces could be brought to more consumers using fewer base stations -- in effect, "wi-fi on steriods"
While wireless microphone users express concerns about the potential for these Internet devices to interfere with their signals, in fact wireless microphones have been using this spectrum for years without interference problems, so they serve as proof that it can be done safely. And while we believe that spectrum sensing technology can be proven to work, Larry noted that Google has also proposed an
enhanced spectrum protection plan
-- involving
geolocation
and beacon technology -- to guarantee that devices using this spectrum wouldn't interfere with current users.
The issue of device testing has been unfortunately politicized in Washington. Larry noted that the FCC process will
guarantee
that no device is sold to consumers until it can be certified not to interfere -- a point often lost in this debate. He said he is "100 percent confident" that the white spaces will be used for Internet access -- it's just a question of when. And when that happens, many different companies will likely invest millions of dollars to develop innovative devices that don't interfere. But the FCC allowing this innovation to happen is a necessary first step.
The way that spectrum has traditionally been allocated is inefficient, and causes a lot of valuable spectrum to go to waste. Larry proposed that spectrum could be auctioned off by the government on a real-time basis (similar to Google's ad auction), allowing devices and consumers to use spectrum as they need it. He also suggested that the U.S. government agencies that hold spectrum -- primarily the Department of Defense -- be allowed to have real-time auctions of their unused spectrum to other potential users, which would also additional government revenue.
What do you think of these ideas?
Here's video of Larry's talk with the New America Foundation's Michael Calabrese:
Just doodle it
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Posted by Galen Panger, Associate, Global Communications and Public Affairs
Today, the 40 regional winners of the
Doodle 4 Google contest
will be frolicking around the Googleplex in Mountain View in one giant celebration of the students' creativity and imagination -- and one lucky student's doodle will end up on the Google.com homepage tomorrow. Last Friday, our office here in D.C. came to life with the imaginations of the state finalists and regional winners from our region (which includes D.C., Maryland, Virginia, Delaware and West Virginia; check out the "Region 3" doodles
here
). Twelve students and their families drove long distances to attend our humble party, where each student was invited to say a few words about his or her doodle. A few even tried their hand at
Rock Band
in our game room.
While some of the doodles were silly or light-hearted, we were surprised that a number touched on more serious subjects like environmentalism, world peace and diversity. We were also pleased to see the doodlers from our region get some local publicity, like
this segment about high schooler Zachary Urtes
that aired on the local Fox affiliate.
We're big believers in human expression and creativity, and it has been such a pleasure for all of us to celebrate that through the Doodle 4 Google contest. Make sure you check out the Google.com homepage tomorrow to see the winning doodle.
UPDATE: We have a winner - check out the
Google.com
homepage or visit
Doodle 4 Google
to see the winning doodle.
Larry Page talks spectrum policy in D.C.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Posted by Richard Whitt, Washington Telecom and Media Counsel
Tomorrow morning Google co-founder
Larry Page
will be in our nation's capital to discuss Google's
efforts
to expand consumer access to the Internet through more efficient allocation of radio spectrum, particularly our ongoing work to open up the TV "white spaces" for untethered broadband access.
The New America Foundation will host the
interview-style discussion
, and for those of you who can't make it there in person it will be
webcast
live starting at 9:00 am EDT.
Promoting free expression on the internet
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
Posted by Pablo Chavez, Senior Policy Counsel
Google's commitment to freedom of expression is at the core of everything we do -- whether it's independent media organizations using YouTube to
express themselves in Venezuela
, or citizen journalists using Blogger to
chronicle
Myanmar's crackdown last year on Buddhist monk protests. Unfortunately, many governments around the world impose limits on their citizens' freedom of speech, and that often leads them to block or limit access to our tools and services.
This is one of the largest challenges we face as a company, and today our Deputy General Counsel Nicole Wong will testify before the
Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Human Rights and the Law
about how Google promotes free expression and responds to these challenges.
In her
testimony
, Nicole will talk about our efforts to be transparent with users, such as our use of the
Chilling Effects
website to highlight legal requests to remove content and our clear
notification
to users whenever search results have been censored. For the last 18 months, we have
joined together
with other companies, human rights groups, and academics to develop a set of principles to guide how companies respond to to these challenges, and we are hopeful that we will reach an agreement. We have also collaborated with human rights organizations to give
exposure
to human rights issues -- including by partnering with the U.S. Holocaust Museum to
map genocides in Google Earth
.
We believe that these efforts will help promote free expression on the internet. But we also believe that governments can take a stronger role in protecting human rights online, and today we will call on the U.S. government to do more. Specifically:
Include censorship in trade negotiations.
We believe that government-sponsored censorship is one of the largest barriers to making information more available online, and so it is vital for the U.S. Departments of State and Commerce and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to make censorship a central element of our bilateral and multilateral trade talks.
Strengthen the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
More can be done to ensure that the
ICCR
-- developed more than 30 years ago -- truly protects free expression online. The U.S. should renew diplomatic efforts to encourage more countries to ratify the agreement; countries that belong to the covenant should submit regular compliance reports; and aid should be provided to help individuals filing complaints under the Covenant.
Enhance the State Department's Global Internet Freedom Task Force and appoint an at-large ambassador.
The
task force
has accomplished a lot so far, but should receive additional prominence, authority and funding. For example, the State Department could appoint an Ambassador-At-Large for Internet Freedom to serve as a diplomatic advocate for these issues.
Pro
mote free expression as part of foreign aid.
Government can do more to tie U.S. aid programs to countries' implementation of their ICCR obligations. We have already urged the
Millennium Challenge Corporation
to incorporate Internet censorship in measuring whether candidate countries have achieved criteria for democratic governance.
While Google and other companies have a big part to play in promoting free expression, much more can be done by the U.S. and at the international level to ensure that individuals have the freedom to express themselves online.
UPDATE:
Check out video of Nicole's testimony:
Google Health, privacy, and HIPAA
Monday, May 19, 2008
Posted by Mike Yang, Senior Product Counsel
Ever since we announced in late February that we were launching a
pilot program
with the Cleveland Clinic and
building
Google Health -- a new service for users to store and organize their health information online -- we've received questions and followed discussions in the media and blogosphere about how the service might work, how it will benefit users, and how it will protect their privacy.
Our product counsel team works with our product and engineering teams to think about and work through the privacy implications of new products under development -- from inception to launch. I started working with the health team at Google several years ago. Early on, we launched the
Google Health Advisory Council
, made up of health industry veterans, in part to solicit feedback from privacy experts and advocates about Google Health's features and privacy practices.
Now that we've officially
launched
Google Health
, we’d like to describe in more detail the privacy protections we’ve designed and address some of the most common questions surrounding health privacy.
At its foundation, Google Health is about putting people in control of their health information. This is both its greatest benefit to users and its strongest privacy protection. Google Health puts users in complete control over who views their health information and who can add information to their profile.
We do not sell user health information, and our
Google Health privacy policy
tells people in a simple, straightforward way what information we collect, how we use it, and the steps we take to keep it safe. We also have strict data security policies and measures in place to limit access to sensitive information and to protect against data breaches.
Some have asked how Google Health relates and compares to the privacy protections for patients under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), a federal law that establishes privacy standards for patient health information. Unlike a doctor or health plan, Google Health is not regulated by HIPAA because Google does not provide health care services.
Instead, Google Health acts on behalf of users to store their medical records. Our privacy policy governs what information the product collects and how we use it, and any violation of that policy can be enforced by the Federal Trade Commission, which takes action against companies that engage in unfair and deceptive trade practices -- including violations of their privacy policies.
Additionally, some third party services integrated with Google Health are covered by HIPAA, and those that aren't must comply with Google Health's
Developer Policies
, which establish strict privacy standards for how they collect, use, or share user information.
This
chart
describes how Google Health's privacy practices compare to those contained in HIPAA.
We believe that Google Health will bring tremendous value to our users. We also understand the responsibility that comes with storing sensitive health information and are confident that putting control squarely in the hands of users is the best way to build a service where people can store, organize, and manage their medical records online -- and keep them private and secure.
Dialogue with Sen. Lieberman on terrorism videos
Monday, May 19, 2008
Posted by the YouTube Team
(Cross-posted from the
YouTube blog
)
Last week,
Senator Joe Lieberman
(I-CT) contacted us to voice his concerns about seeing videos from several Islamic terrorist organizations on YouTube. We appreciated our dialogue with Senator Lieberman and his staff and wanted to explain to the YouTube community how we responded to his concerns.
First, some background: hundreds of thousands of videos are uploaded to YouTube every day. Because it is not possible to pre-screen this much content, we have developed an innovative and reliable community policing system that involves our users in helping us enforce YouTube's standards. Millions of users report potential violations of our
Community Guidelines
by selecting the "Flag" link while watching videos.
Senator Lieberman's staff identified numerous videos that they believed violated YouTube's Community Guidelines. In response to his concerns, we examined and ended up removing a number of videos from the site, primarily because they depicted gratuitous violence, advocated violence, or used hate speech. Most of the videos, which did not contain violent or hate speech content, were not removed because they do not violate our Community Guidelines.
Senator Lieberman stated his belief, in a
letter
sent today, that all videos mentioning or featuring these groups should be removed from YouTube -- even legal nonviolent or non-hate speech videos. While we respect and understand his views, YouTube encourages free speech and defends everyone's right to express unpopular points of view. We believe that YouTube is a richer and more relevant platform for users precisely because it hosts a diverse range of views, and rather than stifle debate we allow our users to view all acceptable content and make up their own minds. Of course, users are always free to express their disagreement with a particular video on the site, by leaving comments or their own response video. That debate is healthy.
We appreciate Senator Lieberman alerting us to videos that violated our policies -- and encourage our users to continue to do the same through the flagging tool. And while we disagree with him about the details of our policies, we respect his views and thank him for giving us the chance to respond to his concerns.
Using geolocation to prevent interference in the TV white spaces
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Posted by Phil Gossett, Senior Staff Engineer
We've
blogged
before about the vast potential of "
white spaces
" -- the unused portion of the TV spectrum between channels. In a March
filing with the FCC
, we showed how this waste could be converted to huge economic and social gain, providing broadband internet to more Americans, particularly for underserved rural areas and first responders. We believe it's possible to marry the benefits of mobile devices for consumers with the protection of fixed devices for TV broadcasters and other incumbent users of this spectrum (including wireless microphones) -- in part by using
geolocation technology
that would prevent a white space device from transmitting over channels that are in use.
Some observers, particularly in the public interest community, have asked whether geolocation might compromise the promise of the TV white spaces, particularly with regard to "
mesh networks.
" Happily, this need not be the case. In a
new white paper
, we explain how our proposals can provide the protections afforded to incumbent users by geolocation, without significantly limiting the promise of mesh networks. We also describe how this technology can support use by the public service community in times of natural disasters and in other emergency situations.
We firmly believe that the TV white spaces can be used to bring the Internet to more Americans, while at the same time protecting existing uses of this spectrum from interference.
How auctions set ad prices
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Posted by Adam Kovacevich, Senior Manager, Global Communications and Public Affairs
Some people think that Google manually controls prices for the ads that appear on our site. But Google -- like all the major search engines -- actually uses auctions to price ads, meaning that prices are determined by advertisers. Check out our chief economist Hal Varian's
explanation
over on the Official Google Blog of why it would be impossible for Google to set all these prices by hand.
Investing in the future of the open Internet
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Posted by Larry Alder, Product Manager
(Cross-posted from the
Official Google Blog
)
As
you may have read
, Google, Comcast, Intel Capital, Time Warner Cable, Bright House Networks and Trilogy Equity Partners have entered into an agreement to invest $3.2 billion in a new wireless broadband company. The new company will combine Clearwire's existing consumer WiMAX business with Sprint's broadband infrastructure and 2.5 GHz spectrum to create a new nationwide wireless broadband network. In addition to our $500 million contribution as part of the investment group, we will provide search and applications to the network's users, and will work with Clearwire to offer additional services and applications. This will include jointly creating an open Internet protocol to work with mobile broadband devices (including
Android
-powered devices) and implementing other open network practices and policies.
We believe that the new network will provide wireless consumers with real choices for the software applications, content and handsets that they desire. Such freedom will mirror the openness principles underlying the Internet and enable users to get the most out of their wireless broadband experience. As we've supported open standards for spectrum and wireless handsets, we're especially excited that Clearwire intends to build and maintain a network that will embrace important openness features. In particular, the network will: (1) expand advanced high speed wireless Internet access in the U.S., (2) allow consumers to utilize any lawful applications, content and devices without blocking, degrading or impairing Internet traffic and (3) engage in reasonable and competitively-neutral network management.
We're looking forward to seeing the Clearwire network take shape and begin to deliver benefits to users, and we will continue to look for new partners to promote openness and bring compelling applications and services to end users. There's more information on Clearwire and the transaction on
Clearwire's site
.
Public policy and the new mobile marketplace
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Posted by Pablo Chavez, Senior Policy Counsel
As mobile devices increasingly become the way that consumers access the web, what questions should policymakers be keeping in mind? The Federal Trade Commission today began a two-day
town hall
looking at the mobile web entitled "Beyond Voice: Mapping the Mobile Marketplace."
The town hall is meant to explore consumer protection issues implicated by the growing mobile web. Among the many topics on the
agenda
are consumers' ability to control mobile apps, finding ways to provide appropriate disclosure on small screens, and security issues involving mobile devices.
During this morning's session, Rich Miner, Google's group manager for mobile platforms, gave an outline of
Android
, an open source platform for mobile devices developed by Google and other partners. Rich noted the fact that mobile devices today are essentially as powerful as desktop PCs, and affirmed Google's view that openness on the mobile web will result in more innovation and more choice -- both of which will result in great benefits to consumers.
Here's
a link to the FTC's transcript and webcast of the event.
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