Public Policy Blog
Updates on technology policy issues
Getting out the vote in Ohio
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Posted by Ginny Hunt, Google Elections Team
As election day approaches on November 4, Google is working with state and local election officials across the country to make voter information as widely available and as accurate as possible. Today, we announced a big step forward in that effort with the State of Ohio.
Thanks to the leadership of Secretary of State
Jennifer Brunner
, Ohio is the first state to make comprehensive voting information available through our
U.S. Voter Info Guide
, a searchable database of election information powered by Google Search and Maps.
In addition, when voters in Ohio do a Google search for “where to vote” or “where to register," they will be directed to
maps.google.com/vote
, where they can enter their addresses and find registration information, absentee and early vote details, and their polling place.
Our guide already includes voting locations for a number of states and the District of Columbia, and we are aiming to have voting information for all 50 states added by mid-October. We hope that this tool will equip voters with the information they need to make it to the polls on election day. Don't forget to vote!
Europe embraces an open Internet
Monday, September 29, 2008
Posted by Vint Cerf, Chief Internet Evangelist
I recently returned from a trip to Europe and discovered some interesting thinking there about the Internet. Last week the European Commission
launched
a debate about whether broadband now needs to be considered part of "universal service." Today, the European Commission’s Information Society and Media department, led by Commissioner Viviane Reding, has published
a fascinating paper on the future networks and the Internet
. It is only ten pages long, so I'd suggest everyone take a look.
Commissioner Reding identifies many of the key issues facing the net and proposes realistic, pragmatic solutions. Her bottom line is simple: the Internet will thrive only by remaining free and open. And she recognizes that there are a variety of dangers that could close the net.
The Commissioner reiterates the powerful statement she made last June in Seoul at the
OECD conference
about the need for open networks. This paper restates the danger of internet service providers using their "traffic management" powers "for anti-competitive practices such as unfairly prioritizing some traffic or slowing it down, and, in extreme cases, blocking it." In order to prevent such a negative development, Commissioner Reding suggests legislation is required to ensure that Internet traffic is treated fairly and not blocked or slowed down. I've
spoken out about this issue
of net neutrality in the U.S.
In the paper, the Commission vows to help forge new copyright solutions to enable new business models to emerge. We're looking closely at this issue.
The paper also makes a compelling case for open standards. It acknowledges the danger of "dominant players" leveraging "proprietary standards to lock consumers into their products or to extract very high royalties from market players, ultimately slowing innovation and foreclosing market entry by new players." She promises that the Commission will use its regulatory powers to prevent such players from putting a brake on the web.
What impresses me most of all is how the Commission recognizes that an Open Internet requires a combination of these three points. For Europe to keep up in the global online race, it needs to sprint ahead powered by an openness recipe encompassing a neutral network, users rights, and open standards. I'm delighted that Europe’s policymakers stress the successful ingredients to promoting a robust, healthy Internet. As usual, I am especially impressed by Commissioner Reding's clarity and energy. If she is successful in this effort, the Internet community in Europe will have much for which to thank her.
Video: "White spaces" explained
Friday, September 26, 2008
Posted by Richard Whitt, Washington Telecom and Media Counsel
If you're one of the many folks not familiar with the basics of
white spaces
(don't worry, it is complicated), the folks at the
People's Production House
have put together a new video that explains the issues for non-techies. Check it out:
New website: Facts about our Yahoo! ad deal
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Posted by Adam Kovacevich, Senior Manager, Global Communications and Public Affairs
Some people have questions about our advertising agreement with Yahoo! and there are some misconceptions about it. So today we are putting facts about the deal on a new website,
www.yahoogooglefacts.com
, to provide more information on the agreement and why it is good for consumers, advertisers and website publishers. We'll be updating the site regularly so check back when you have additional questions.
Which blogs does Canada’s next Prime Minister read?
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Posted by Jacob Glick, Canada Policy Counsel
During this federal election campaign in Canada, the leaders of four of Canada’s political parties – Stephen Harper, Stéphane Dion, Jack Layton and Elizabeth May – are giving users an insight into how they use blogs, news sites and other online sources to stay informed. Along with leading Canadian journalists they are using
Google Reader
to share and comment on new items, opinion pieces and blog postings.
We worked closely with leading Conservative blogger
Stephen Taylor
to make this happen.
Go to
www.google.ca/powerreaders
and click to subscribe to your favourite Power Reader’s feed – or subscribe to them all.
Combined with Canadian Edition of
Google In Quotes
and the
Canadian Election section in Google News
, Canadians have amazing tools to harness the power of the social web to better inform themselves on the issues and decide among the candidates.
Don’t forget to vote on October 14!
Larry Page to FCC: Free the "white spaces" spectrum by election day
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Posted by Richard Whitt, Washington Telcom and Media Counsel
Following a
previous visit
to D.C. earlier this year, Google co-founder Larry Page
hit Capitol Hill today
with a simple message to the Federal Communications Commission: after five years of testing and discussion, it is time to free the vacant "white spaces" spectrum for affordable, nationwide high-speed wireless Internet connectivity.
With the FCC likely to release its report on the field testing process shortly, Larry called on the FCC to issue a final order regarding the vacant spectrum by election day in early November. And, he noted, it's
not just technology companies
like Google,
Microsoft
and
Dell
who care about putting the unused spectrum to use for broadband. Larry announced that as of this week, more than 16,000 citizens have sent petitions to the FCC through
Free The Airwaves
, our campaign to bring Internet users together around this important issue (if you haven't yet
signed the petition
, I hope that you'll join us in sending a clear message to the FCC).
Facing a room full of congressional staff as well as demonstrations from companies like
Motorola
and
Shared Spectrum Company
, Larry highlighted the tremendous
potential
that this spectrum holds for improving communications and boosting our economy. This spectrum, which can cover vast distances, could be used to connect underserved rural and urban communities to the Internet, at perhaps a tenth of the cost of today's municipal wi-fi projects. Additionally, the FCC could unleash considerable economic activity -- both in R&D as well as greater broadband connectivity -- by allowing innovaters to tap this underutilized resource.
Finally, Larry addressed the ways in which TV broadcasters and wireless microphone companies have unfortunately injected politics into the FCC's testing process, referring to August tests at FedEx Field just outside of D.C. and at the Majestic Theater in New York City. Those tests were intended to assess whether white space device prototypes could sense the presence of wireless microphone signals. However actions suggest that wireless microphone operators actually transmitted not on their normal channels but instead on channels occupied by TV broadcast signals. For instance during the Fed Ex Field test, wireless microphones were improperly used on the very station that carried the broadcast of the game.
As a result, the white spaces devices naturally could not detect the microphone signals, as they were hidden by the much more powerful TV signals.
The White Spaces Coalition, of which Google is a member, offered a
filing
with the FCC in late August pointing out
what had happened
in the test.
The time for discussion and testing is coming to a close, and the time for action is now.
Update
: Check out the video of Larry's talk.
Supporting families, searching for online safety solutions
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Posted by Patricia Moll, International Policy Manager
As Vint Cerf
wrote
last December, "Google is dedicated to supporting parents' efforts to educate and protect their children when they go online." Through policies like
YouTube's Community Guidelines
and easy-to-use technologies like
SafeSearch
, Google helps families safely enjoy the freedom of expression that is so essential to the Internet.
And we cannot do it alone. Last Wednesday and Thursday, we hosted several events for the
Family Online Safety Institute
(FOSI) at our headquarters in Mountain View. We have been working with FOSI for nearly two years, and in 2007, Vint was a keynote speaker at FOSI's annual conference in Washington, DC. In April of this year, Pablo Chavez of the Google policy team became a member of FOSI's Board of Directors, and we have continued to find opportunities to work with other industry stakeholders, policymakers, and non-profit organizations that care about this issue.
The events this past week are a great example of this kind of cooperation. We kicked off with a screening of the renowned PBS Frontline documentary,
Growing Up Online
, introduced by Google's Director of Global Public Policy Andrew McLaughlin. After the screening, representatives from organizations such as
Common Sense Media
,
ConnectSafely
, and
Web Wise Kids
participated in a discussion with the film's producer, Rachel Dretzin. Questions focused on changing the conversation about child safety away from the sensationalism of television shows like "To Catch a Predator" to focus instead on how the online lives of our children are extensions of normal adolescent behavior: trying on identities, pushing against authority, and, yes, taking risks.
A key message from the filmmakers is that adolescents do understand the messages about "stranger danger" online and generally have adopted safe practices. The producers cited their own example of not being able to get children to reply to their emailed requests for interviews because the kids wouldn't respond to someone they didn't know. Parental involvement in the online lives of their children remains an essential tool in helping families have safe Internet experiences. You can watch the
entire discussion
here:
In the afternoon, FOSI CEO Stephen Balkam moderated an invitation-only roundtable, "Searching for Online Safety Solutions." In addition to Google and YouTube, participating organizations included AT&T, Facebook, Loopt, MySpace, Ning, SecondLife, and Yahoo!. Anne Collier, President and Editor of
NetFamilyNews
and Co-Director of ConnectSafely, provided a sensible introduction to the fast-changing landscape of online safety. Micah Schaffer of YouTube's policy team and I added Google's perspective to the three-hour discussion, in which several speakers called on participants to base their approach to child safety on current research and statistics rather than on political pressures. The practice of partnering with child safety organizations, law enforcement agencies, and education groups has created strong coalitions, and as our work becomes more well-known, we expect to see even greater improvements in safe surfing practices and technologies.
We're happy to see that in so many areas, Google continues to provide positive examples for the industry, and we look forward to continuing our association with FOSI and other organizations to protect online speech while we protect children online. Our engineers will keep working and iterating on innovative tools like SafeSearch that empower parents to choose what's appropriate for their families to see while searching. For more online safety tips and resources, be sure to check out
FOSI's YouTube channel
and Google's
Tips for Online Safety
.
Event this Wednesday: Larry Page to push for white spaces on Capitol Hill
Monday, September 22, 2008
Posted by Richard Whitt, Washington Telecom and Media Counsel
Earlier this year Google co-founder Larry Page was in our nation's capital to talk about
Google's vision of "wi-fi on steroids."
At an event sponsored by the
New America Foundation
, he explained that the unused airwaves
between broadcast TV channels
("white spaces") have the potential to provide affordable, nationwide high-speed wireless Internet connectivity.
This Wednesday, September 24, Larry will return to Washington to address lawmakers and urge action on white spaces.
"Broadband for the Future Event"
Keynote Speaker: Google Co-Founder Larry Page
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
11:30 am - 1:00 pm ET
Room SD-G50, Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
Larry will join white space supporters from across the U.S. to discuss how these airwaves hold the potential to spur innovation, deploy affordable broadband, and create new applications for all Americans.
Members of the
Wireless Innovation Alliance
will be on-hand throughout the program to discuss white space technology and answer questions.
We hope you can join us on Wednesday.
Facts about our Yahoo! ad deal and competition
Friday, September 19, 2008
Posted by Tim Armstrong, President, Advertising and Commerce, North America
Yesterday I
wrote
about the impact of our
recent advertising agreement with Yahoo!
on advertising prices. There have also been some questions posed about the deal's impact on competition in the online advertising industry. Here are the facts:
Question:
Is this agreement bad for competition?
Answer:
Just the opposite. This agreement - unlike Microsoft's proposed acquisition of Yahoo! - means that Yahoo! will remain an independent company in the business of search and advertising. Yahoo! has stated that it will reinvest the additional revenue from this agreement into improving its user services and competing vigorously against Google, Microsoft and other companies. This is similar to other standard business practices where competitors share components. In addition, the agreement is non-exclusive, meaning Yahoo! could make a similar deal with another company.
Question:
Some claim that Google and Yahoo! will have a combined 90% of the search advertising market. Is this true?
Answer:
No. This agreement is not a merger. This is about expanding the pie, not dividing it differently. Yahoo! will continue to run its own search engine and advertising system. Yahoo! will benefit from Google ads in areas where they have low ad inventory and maintain control over how much and what inventory they make available to Google. Yahoo! will invest additional revenue in remaining a viable competitor in advertising.
Question:
Will Google benefit from access to Yahoo!'s user data?
Answer:
No. We have taken steps in the Yahoo! agreement to make sure that neither company has access to personally identifiable user information from the other company.
Question:
Over time, will Yahoo! just outsource more and more of its ads to Google and cease to exist as an independent ad platform?
Answer:
Yahoo! has made clear that it will still use its own system to serve ads, and it will use extra revenue from this deal to improve its ad platform. The arrangement only covers the U.S. and Canada, and does not cover the fast-growing mobile segment. Yahoo! also has a strong economic incentive to keep serving as many of their own ads as possible, since they get to keep all of the revenue from those ads, while Yahoo! will only receive a part of the revenue from ads served by Google. In addition, Yahoo! has a leading position in display advertising, and will be able to offer advertisers a unique combination of advertising opportunities.
Question:
Once the deal is implemented, why would advertisers keep advertising on Yahoo!?
Answer:
Yahoo! will make the sole decisions about when to use Google ads. They have stated that their plan is show them primarily on pages where few or no ads currently appear. The only way for an advertiser to guarantee placement for their ads on Yahoo! is to advertise through the Yahoo! platform itself.
The online advertising space is a competitive environment, and we believe that this agreement only furthers that competition. Consumers will see more relevant ads, advertisers will have new ways to reach customers more efficiently, and website publishers will benefit from our ad matching technology.
Update (9/19):
This post was updated to remove an analogy that we have learned is incorrect.
Facts about our Yahoo! ad deal and ad prices
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Posted by Tim Armstrong, President, Advertising and Commerce, North America
As Hal Varian
wrote
earlier this week, there's been some recent discussion about the impact of our
recent advertising agreement with Yahoo!
. While Hal addressed a recent study about the deal's potential impact, today I wanted to address of a few of the questions that advertisers and others have raised about the deal's impact on ad prices. Here are the facts:
Question:
Will the Google-Yahoo! agreement raise ad prices?
Answer:
Neither Google nor Yahoo! set ad prices. Ads are priced by an auction where an advertiser only bids what an ad is worth to them. Furthermore, ad price is only one part of the story. A more important measure for advertisers large and small is the return on investment of their advertising dollar. The Google-Yahoo! agreement will help advertisers convert more clicks into customers by showing more relevant ads on Yahoo!, giving advertisers a better return for every dollar they invest.
Question:
Yahoo! claims they will make an extra $800 million from this deal. Does that money come out of advertisers’ pockets?
Answer:
There are two main reasons Yahoo! is likely to earn more revenue. One, the deal will allow Yahoo! to show more ads on pages where they previously showed no ads or only a few ads. Two, advertisers will get more clicks on ads because the quality and relevance of those ads will be better. As is true today, advertisers are ultimately in control of how much they spend because they only pay what an ad is worth to them. So consumers will see more relevant ads and advertisers will attract more customers as a result.
Question:
Can Yahoo! pick whose ads to show based on who has the highest price?
Answer:
No. Under the terms of our agreement Yahoo! won't be able to see the current auction prices for Google ads, and Google won't be able to see Yahoo!'s prices.
Question:
Can Google and Yahoo! use minimum bids to set a unified price floor for ads?
Fact:
No. Google and Yahoo! will continue to set minimum bids in their auctions independently. Google uses minimum bids to help advertisers know what they need to bid in order to have a realistic hope of having their ads shown. Minimum bids also help deter low quality spam ads. Google has never based minimums on what competitors are doing and this agreement won’t change our approach to minimum bids in any way.
Question:
Does Google's quality score effectively raise prices for ads?
Facts:
A quality score helps ensure that users see the most relevant ads not just the most expensive. All the major search engines, including Yahoo! and Microsoft, assign quality scores. Quality score is a formula that reflects which ads consumers prefer based on how they respond to the ads. By including quality score in our advertising system, smaller companies can more effectively compete with larger businesses by creating highly relevant ads and websites.
Tomorrow we'll address some of the questions and misconceptions about the deal's impact on competition.
Partnering with GE on clean energy
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Posted by Michael Terrell, Google.org
(Cross-posted from the
Official Google Blog
)
Today we announced that we're
joining forces
(PDF file) with GE to use technology, information and corporate resources to drive the changes necessary to empower consumers with better energy choices. We will focus on improving power generation, transmission and distribution – a combination of technologies that could be known as the "
smart grid
." (It would be fair to refer to electricity technologies in common use today as a "grid of only average intelligence.")
The existing U.S. infrastructure has not kept pace with the digital economy and the hundreds of technology opportunities that are ready for market. In fact, the way we generate and distribute electricity today is essentially the same as when Thomas Edison built the first
power plant
well over one hundred years ago. Americans want to drive more fuel efficient cars – or even electric cars - and manage their home energy use to reduce costs, and buy power from cleaner sources, or even generate their own power for sale to the grid.
We all receive an electricity bill once a month that encourages little except prompt payment. What if, instead, we had access to real-time information about home energy use? What if our flat screen TVs, electronic equipment, lights and appliances were programmed to automatically adjust to save money and cut energy use? What if we could push a button and switch the source of our homes' electricity from fossil fuels to renewable energy? What if the car sitting in our garage ran on electricity – the equivalent of $1 per gallon gasoline – and was programmed to charge at night when electricity is cheapest?
This vision is what unites Google and GE. We’ll start by working together in Washington, D.C. to mount a major policy effort to enable large-scale deployment of renewable energy generation in the United States. We’ll also work on development and deployment of the “smart” electricity grid that will empower consumers, utilities, and technology innovators to manage electricity more efficiently and lower their carbon footprint. Finally, we'll collaborate on advanced energy technologies, including technologies to enable the large-scale integration of
plug-in vehicles
into the grid and new geothermal energy technologies known as
enhanced geothermal systems
(EGS).
Eric Schmidt with GE's CEO Jeff Immelt at Google's Zeitgeist conference
(We'll update the post later with a video of their talk.)
My visit to Pakistan
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Posted by Rishi Jaitly, Policy Analyst, South Asia
How do we develop points of view about places we have not seen and people we have not met?
Newspapers, TV networks, film studios, radio broadcasters, and book publishers have, of course, exerted significant influence over our assumptions for years. Today, thanks to the Internet, our views about far away peoples and places are also informed by a countless group of peers spanning the globe. But no matter how powerful and instructive a
blog
,
Wikipedia article
, or
YouTube video
may be, no technology will ever replace real immersion -- live and in person.
I recently had the opportunity to visit Pakistan, which just celebrated 61 years as an independent state. Before my visit, my views about Pakistan had largely been shaped by Western media -- and these days, it's difficult to open a newspaper without coming across a story highlighting the country's "tumultuous" sociopolitical environment.
But do these depictions represent the entire truth? Do they credibly tell the whole story of a nation of
more than 160 million people
? Surely not. For instance, did you know that the
Karachi Stock Exchange
has been among Asia's top performers this decade -- and was named the "
World's Top-Performing Market
" by BusinessWeek and Bloomberg a few years ago? Probably not.
I was invited to Pakistan on the occasion of the launch of "
CIO Magazine Pakistan
" and spent time in Karachi, Islamabad, and Lahore. This was the first "official" visit to Pakistan by a Googler and I was able to interact extensively with ordinary Internet users,
media organizations
, business houses, and government officials - including the
IT Secretary
, the
Pakistan Software Export Board
, the
National Response Centre for Cyber Crimes
, and the
National ICT R&D Fund
.
I left Pakistan with a single thought: that there is enormous potential for this nation to emerge as a leading center of growth and innovation.
During my visit, Pakistan's blogging community expressed impressive passion for the Internet medium, media organizations demonstrated a propensity for serious journalism, business leaders conveyed a track record of innovation, and government officials offered a refreshing
receptiveness
to new ideas.
It's an especially exciting time for information and communication technologies in the country: Pakistan's rapidly-growing Internet population of
17 million
and sizeable mobile phone subscriber base of
89 million
present innumerable opportunities for all those interested in delivering empowering services for Pakistani users.
Of course, we at Google will not achieve our own
mission
unless we deepen our relationships with Pakistani users and institutions. Though we're delighted that
google.com.pk
is
Pakistan's top web site
and that nearly one third of blogs registered with Pakistan's
first blog aggregator
are registered with our free blogging service
Blogger
, we know we have a long way to go as we strive to meet the unique needs of Pakistani users.
Importantly, Pakistan's
Ministry of Information Technology & Telecommunications
has recently initiated an open consultation to revise the country's National IT Policy. This represents a significant opportunity for all stakeholders to ensure that the Internet in Pakistan develops as a free and open platform for information, communication, and innovation. I, for one, thank the government for formally inviting Google to participate in this policy making process.
As an American of Indian origin (with some ancestral roots in what is now Pakistan), my remaining emotions, observations, and recommendations are too many to list in this single post. I will say, though, that I am grateful to have had the opportunity to visit Pakistan and develop my own point of view about one of the most important places in our world.
The SearchIgnite study on ad prices and the Yahoo-Google deal
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
Posted by Hal Varian, Chief Economist
There has been some recent discussion in the press about the potential impact of
our advertising agreement with Yahoo!
on ad pricing, and we wanted to help clear up a few misconceptions.
Some of those misconceptions appear to be based, in part, on a July
report
by SearchIgnite that
concluded
, among other findings, that once the agreement is implemented, keyword prices on Yahoo! might increase by an average of 22%.
After taking a close look at the study, I believe it makes several flawed assumptions and uses questionable methodology. The paper suggests that advertisers will be getting the same performance from the same ads, just at higher prices. We believe that advertisers will be getting significantly
better
performance at prices that reflect that improved performance.
Let's take a look at some problems with the SearchIgnite report.
First and most importantly, the report fails to acknowledge that
ad prices are not set by Yahoo! or Google, but by advertisers themselves
, through the auction process. Since advertisers set prices themselves via an auction, the prices must ultimately reflect advertiser values. That process will remain completely unchanged by our agreement.
Second, the report mistakenly claims that for any given keyword, Yahoo! will have the ability to see whose ads are priced higher -- Yahoo's or Google's -- and then decide which ads to serve. In fact, under our agreement
Yahoo! won't be able to see the current auction prices for Google ads
, just as Google won't be able to see Yahoo's prices.
Third, the report
mistakenly assumes that Yahoo! will serve Google ads for as many of its search queries as possible
. This contradicts Yahoo's own statements that
their plan
is to serve Google ads on search results pages where they have few relevant ads to serve. Yahoo! also has a strong economic incentive to keep serving as many of their own ads as possible, since they get to keep all of the revenue from those ads, while Yahoo! only receives a part of the revenue from ads served by Google.
Fourth, the report includes a
misplaced focus on cost per click (CPCs)
rather than the more important measure for advertisers --
return on investment of their advertising dollar
. One of the reasons Google's ad system has performed so well for advertisers is that our ads tend to be highly relevant to user queries, which makes it more likely that a user will click on an ad and purchase the advertiser's product. We have found that advertisers are generally willing to pay more per click so long as those clicks result in more sales. We anticipate that our agreement with Yahoo! will bring more relevant ads to Yahoo! users -- which is better for both advertisers and users.
Finally, the report suffers from a number of methodology flaws. For one, the study fails to take into account that fact that
Yahoo! shows significantly more ads per page than Google
. Since both search engines tend to show higher cost-per-click ads in higher positions, showing more ads automatically tends to reduce the
average
cost-per-click. Also, the study's
terms are vaguely defined
. Its authors discuss "head" and "tail" keywords, for example, but never clearly define what they mean. Are those terms that appear less often than once a day? Or once a week? There's a big difference.
As we have
said before
, Google doesn't set advertising prices -- advertisers do. Prices must reflect how much a sale is worth to an advertiser, and that will continue to be the case after our agreement with Yahoo! is implemented.
Google invests in O3b Networks
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Posted by Larry Alder, Product Manager
(Cross-posted from the
Official Google Africa Blog
)
An important aspect of Google's mission is to make information universally accessible. Unfortunately, in many less developed areas of the world, particularly countries in Africa, access to the Internet is scarce and expensive. Today, we are pleased to let you know about one way we're helping to address this problem: by investing in
O3b Networks
. O3b's mission is to provide high-speed, low-cost Internet connectivity to the "other 3 billion" people in emerging markets in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East.
Most of today's developed countries are linked by thousands of kilometers of submarine fiber optic cables to carry core Internet traffic. This is a very cost-effective solution, once the fiber is in place; but in many developing and remote areas, fiber isn't available due to economic and sometimes political roadblocks. Though existing geo-synchronous satellites are able to reach theses areas, they provide slow Internet connectivity because of their distance from the Earth - and they're expensive and often fully subscribed. O3b plans to deliver fiber-like Internet backhaul service using a constellation of medium-orbit satellites. This means data can be quickly transmitted to and from even the most remote locations such as inland Africa or small Pacific islands.
The O3b satellite constellation will provide high-speed, low-latency backhaul services at speeds reaching into the gigabits per second. The satellites will orbit the earth at about one-third the altitude of a geo-synchronous satellite, which means it takes less time for data to travel up and back. This low latency translates into better voice connections as well as a snappier web experience.
O3b is currently planning to begin service beginning in late 2010. We are very excited about the prospects for O3b and its shared mission of bringing access to those parts of the world that need it most.
At the Republican Convention: Politics in the cloud and on the ground
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Posted by Niki Fenwick and Jake Parillo, Republican Convention Team
(Cross-posted from the
Official Google Blog
)
After
Hurricane Gustav
blew through and Americans started
searching for Sarah Palin
, the Google and YouTube teams got down to business at the Republican Convention.
A large part of Google's work with the convention lived in the clouds. Delegates registered and stayed informed through a
cloud-based system
that combined SalesForce and Google technology. The new system mean simpler, faster communication with delegates when it mattered most - as the convention had to quickly inform large delegations about the latest updates on Hurricane Gustav.
Members of the media were able to search schedules, speeches, releases, bios and video put out by the Convention on their
News and Media Portal powered by Google
. The site put a range of Google tools to use - from Picasa to Calendar to Site Search - to give reporters fast access to information coming out of the Xcel Center.
Google hosted two blogger brunches with
RedState.com
. At the first, Fred Thompson gave a rousing talk the morning of his convention speech about the changes that needed to be made in Washington, conservative values and strengths of both Senator McCain and Governor Palin. At the second, Google CEO Eric Schmidt emphasized the importance of conservative bloggers and rise of new media this election cycle.
Meanwhile, the YouTube team was quite busy collecting videos throughout the week. At upload booths stationed in the Xcel Energy Center, and on a mobile camera roving through the Convention hall, nearly 500 RNC attendees took the opportunity to post their thoughts onto YouTube. Among those to upload from the Convention were actor
Jon Voight
, former congressman
Tom Delay
, and former House Speaker
Dennis Hastert
, CNN's
Jon King
, and former Virginia
Senator George Allen
:
In addition, the GOP staff uploaded all of the major
speeches
from the Convention to their
YouTube Channel
, including both
McCain
and
Palin's
acceptance speeches, as well as
behind-the-scenes footage
and videos from
events
around the Convention center.
To celebrate the closing night of the convention,
we partnered with Vanity Fair to throw a party
for press, celebrities, political leaders and executives in attendance. Guests grabbed a few treats from the open candy bar and enjoyed catering from Wolfgang Puck at the Walker Art Center.
If both conventions were any indication of the general election, the Republicans and Democrats will go head to head in their use of technology and the Internet to reach voters, spread their message and bring more Americans into the election. You can stay up to date on the Google's election efforts on our
US Election page
.
Event at our D.C. office this Friday: cloud computing and users
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Posted by Dan Martin, D.C. Public Affairs Team
Earlier this year we launched a series of "Google D.C. Talks" in our new Washington office, with the goal of informing the D.C. community -- congressional staff, Administration officials, think tank and trade association reps, and journalists -- about Internet policy issues (see the photo at right of our
last talk
, on the "state of the Internet economy").
This Friday, September 12, we invite you to join our
next talk
, which looks at "cloud computing" -- the movement of computer applications and data storage from the desktop to remote servers -- and issues for policymakers to consider.
Google D.C. Talks Presents
"Cloud Computing: Navigating the next frontier"
Friday, September 12, 2008
10:00 AM - 11:30 AM ET
Google Washington Office
1101 New York Avenue, NW, Second Floor
Washington, D.C. 20005
RSVP Here
As part of the talk, the
Pew Internet & American Life Project
will present a new research report on the "Use of Cloud Computing Applications and Services," examining consumer attitudes and experiences with cloud computing. Experts from
Salesforce.com
,
Georgetown University
, and the
Center for Democracy and Technology
will respond to the new report and share their own views on this new computing model.
D.C. denizens -- we hope you can join us this Friday.
Another step to protect user privacy
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Posted by Peter Fleischer, Global Privacy Counsel; Jane Horvath, Senior Privacy Counsel; and Alma Whitten, Software Engineer
(Cross-posted from the
Official Google Blog
)
Today, we're announcing a new logs retention policy: we'll anonymize IP addresses on our server logs after 9 months. We're significantly shortening our previous 18-month retention policy to address regulatory concerns and to take another step to improve privacy for our users.
Back in March 2007, Google became the first leading search engine to
announce
a policy to anonymize our search server logs in the interests of privacy. And many others in the industry quickly followed our lead. Although that was good for privacy, it was a difficult decision because the routine server log data we collect has always been a critical ingredient of innovation. We have published a
series
of blog posts explaining how we use logs data for the benefit of our users: to make
improvements to search quality
,
improve security
,
fight fraud
and
reduce spam
.
Over the last two years, policymakers and regulators -- especially in Europe and the U.S. -- have continued to ask us (and others in the industry) to explain and justify this shortened logs retention policy. We responded by
open letter
to explain how we were trying to strike the right balance between sometimes conflicting factors like privacy, security, and innovation. Some in the community of EU data protection regulators continued to be skeptical of the legitimacy of logs retention and
demanded detailed justifications
for this retention. Many of these privacy leaders also highlighted the risks of litigants using court-ordered discovery to gain access to logs, as in the recent Viacom suit.
Today, we are filing
this response
(PDF file) to the EU privacy regulators. Since we announced our original logs anonymization policy, we have had literally hundreds of discussions with data protection officials, government leaders and privacy advocates around the world to explain our privacy practices and to work together to develop ways to improve privacy. When we began anonymizing after 18 months, we knew it meant sacrifices in future innovations in all of these areas. We believed further reducing the period before anonymizing would degrade the utility of the data too much and outweigh the incremental privacy benefit for users.
We didn't stop working on this computer science problem, though. The problem is difficult to solve because the characteristics of the data that make it useful to prevent fraud, for example, are the very characteristics that also introduce some privacy risk. After months of work our engineers developed methods for preserving more of the data's utility while also anonymizing IP addresses sooner. We haven't sorted out all of the implementation details, and we may not be able to use precisely the same methods for anonymizing as we do after 18 months, but we are committed to making it work.
While we're glad that this will bring some additional improvement in privacy, we're also concerned about the potential loss of security, quality, and innovation that may result from having less data. As the period prior to anonymization gets shorter, the added privacy benefits are less significant and the utility lost from the data grows. So, it's difficult to find the perfect equilibrium between privacy on the one hand, and other factors, such as innovation and security, on the other. Technology will certainly evolve, and we will always be working on ways to improve privacy for our users, seeking new innovations, and also finding the right balance between the benefits of data and advancement of privacy.
Denver recap and St. Paul update
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Posted by Rick Klau and Brittany Bohnet, Google Elections Team
(Cross-posted from the
Official Google Blog
)
The general election season officially kicked off last week as delegates gathered in Denver for the Democratic National Convention - and Google and YouTube were there to enable and promote the use of the Internet to bring voters and candidates closer than ever before. People across the U.S. were able to keep up with the latest convention news and action using YouTube, Picasa and Election News - centralized and featured on our
Conventions site
.
On the ground, delegates and attendees got a taste of Google at our Google Retreat in the
Big Tent
, where they were able to drink refreshing smoothies, enjoy free massages and sample our newest election products, including our
2008 U.S. Elections site
, the
Google Maps Election Gallery
and
Power Readers in Politics
.
Many of our Democratic guests took the time to post video nominations of Senator Barack Obama and at YouTube booths in the Google Retreat and inside the Pepsi Center. Our goal was to allow those in attendance to express their enthusiasm for the Party on video - and allow voters at home a more robust and diverse view of the proceedings in Denver than ever before. We collected over
500
such videos from delegates on hand. In addition, party and political leaders – among them
Governor Mark Warner
,
Senator Harry Reid
,
Governor Bill Richardson
,
Governor Brian Schweitzer
,
Mayor Gavin Newsom
, and
Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin
– and celebrities like
John Legend
,
Charles Barkley
, and
Louis Gossett Jr.
took the opportunity to speak directly to the YouTube community and/or to talk about why they are nominating Obama. Their videos, and a whole lot more, including
Senator Obama's acceptance speech
, are available on the our 2008 Conventions
YouTube channel
.
Along the 16th Street Mall, visitors stepped into our Google Maps voting booths to find how to register and where to cast their ballots with our
US Voter Info Guide
.
CEO Eric Schmidt participated in a
townhall discussion
moderated by Rachel Maddow on technology's role in modern politics, from the
Macaca incident
to the next administration.
We even showcased Google Maps on a Jumbotron before Barack Obama's stadium speech in an effort to illustrate Americans' top concerns for 2008. See the live map on the
DNC website
.
And to celebrate the closing night of the convention, we partnered with Vanity Fair to throw a party for press, celebrities, political leaders and executives in attendance. Our guests challenged each other to tennis matches in the hallway of Wiis and performed their favorite hits in the Rock Band.
This week we're in St. Paul for the Republican National Convention, which of course has taken a muted tone in the face of Hurricane Gustav. Thankfully, so far the damage has been less than predicted and the convention proceedings may be able to resume. In the meantime delegates are using YouTube to upload messages of support via video, Google Earth to
track Gustav's progress
, and Google Maps to
display evacuation sites and hurricane forecasts
. Plus this week we're excited to be able to stream the convention live each night on
Google News
thanks to Ustream, the official streaming provider of the RNC. When we're not showing live coverage, we'll have highlights from the previous day's activities.
Live Streaming by Ustream
13,000 people (so far) stand up to "free the airwaves"
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
Posted by Richard Whitt, Washington Telecom and Media Counsel
Two weeks ago, we launched
Free the Airwaves
, an effort to bring together Internet users to open up
unused airwaves
between broadcast TV channels
("white spaces") for affordable, nationwide high-speed wireless Internet connectivity. I'm excited to say that your initial response to this campaign has been overwhelming.
As
Ars Technica reports today
, more than 13,000 of you already have signed the online petition asking the Federal Communications Commission to allow unlicensed use of this unused spectrum. Your comments are being filed formally with the FCC's
public comment system
(just type in the proceeding number, 04-186).
It's great to see so many people standing up for more wireless broadband options, but we can't rest on our laurels. A few entrenched D.C. interests -- including TV broadcasters, wireless microphone manufacturers, and cell phone carriers -- don't want to see the vacant spectrum be used for unlicensed broadband access, and you can bet that they'll be working hard to get Congress and the FCC to see things their way. With an FCC vote on this issue expected as soon as this fall, the time is now to show your public support for freeing the airwaves.
So what can you do to get involved?
Get five friends to
sign the petition
at
Free The Airwaves
Become a supporter of Free the Airwaves on
Facebook
Place a
phone call to Congress
(it's free!)
Submit
your own video
through YouTube (like
this one
)
Write a blog post about this effort
The potential of white spaces is real. Check out Inez Gonzalez from the National Hispanic Media Coalition talking about how this vacant spectrum can help bring the Internet to underserved communities:
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