Google Public Policy Blog: February 2013

How you, and Google, can help prevent identity theft

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Posted by Pablo Chavez, Director, Public Policy

Yesterday, the Federal Trade Commission released its annual list of the top categories of consumer complaints received by the agency. In 2012, for the thirteenth year in a row, complaints about identity theft topped the list.

Identity theft has real consequences for consumers. It enables fraudsters to open lines of credit, drain banking, savings, and retirement accounts, file false tax returns, and falsify medical records. Victims often incur significant out-of-pocket expenses, spend considerable time trying to fix the problems created by the theft, and experience emotional stress as they attempt to repair the damage to their lives.

Keeping our users’ information safe and secure is among our highest priorities at Google, and we are continuously adjusting our security practices as threats from identity thieves and account hijackers evolve.

In 2010, we turned SSL encryption on by default for Gmail users to protect their messages from being snooped on by others, and have since extended this security measure to services like Google Search and Google Drive as well. In 2011, we made our 2-step verification service available for all Google Accounts so users could add an extra layer of security and protection to their account.

And as we noted last week when we saw spammers start to focus their attention on breaking into legitimate Google accounts in 2010, our security team further strengthened the Google Account sign-in process. This allowed us to reduce the number of accounts compromised by those specific kinds of attacks by 99.7 percent.

You can read more about how Google helps protect you from identity theft, and steps that you can take to help protect yourself and keep your family safe online on our Good to Know site. We encourage anyone concerned about online safety or identity theft to take five minutes today and do the following:

Make sure you are using strong, unique passwords for each of your important online accounts;

Make sure your account recovery options are up-to-date to help services contact you if there is a problem with your account; and

Turn on 2-step verification for your Google Account.

We’ll continue to work hard to protect our users and help make the Internet a safer place for everyone from threats like identity theft and online fraud. And to keep identity theft from making the consumer complaint list for a fourteenth year in a row, we look forward to working with other companies, NGOs, and the public sector on identifying emerging security threats and improving consumer education efforts.

Let’s defend innovators against patent trolls

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Posted by Suzanne Michel, Senior Patent Counsel
Patent trolls are hurting consumers and small businesses. Patent trolls don’t make anything of value to consumers, but rather extract profits from lawsuits against productive companies. Suits brought by trolls have quadrupled since 2005. They now account for 60% of all patent litigation and are disproportionately targeted at small businesses. In 2011 alone, companies spent $29 billion fighting trolls. That’s money that should have gone towards building great products, or creating hundreds of thousands of jobs.

There is no silver bullet when it comes to solving the troll problem, but Congress and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) are taking steps in the right direction.

The trolls’ weapons of choice—used in 85% of their suits—are software patents, many of which are vague, overbroad and invalid. The PTO should improve patent quality by requiring better descriptions and clearer claims. Today at a PTO-sponsored event in New York, I spoke on how better application of established legal principles can help to curb the issuance of overbroad software patents.

We’ve also been encouraged by the PTO’s new partnership with the software community and its recent call for public comment on improving patent quality. The Federal Trade Commission and Department of Justice are also looking at the serious threat posed by trolls to both innovation and competition. As President Obama explained in his recent Fireside Hangout, trolls “don't actually produce anything themselves, they're just trying to essentially leverage and hijack somebody else's idea and see if they can extort some money out of them.”

Congress should also make it easier for companies to recover money spent defending against frivolous troll suits. Legislation, such as the bipartisan SHIELD Act re-introduced this week in the House, can do much to reduce troll litigation. And expanding the covered business method program of the America Invents Act to include more patents would create a robust alternative to litigation.

We look forward to continuing to work with the PTO, Congress and the software industry to find ways to improve patent quality, end the growing troll problem, and protect innovation and job growth.

Congress encourages the next generation of computer scientists

Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Posted by Susan Molinari, Vice President, Public Policy and Government Affairs
Any student in the country could be the creator of the next big website or the next cool app. That’s why we’re excited that yesterday the House of Representatives passed H. Res. 77, a near-unanimous resolution highlighting the importance of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) — especially computer science — and establishing an annual, nationwide academic competition in these fields.

STEM disciplines are a source of jobs and innovation, and they are necessary for our workforce to match the fast pace of technological change. For example, an estimated 1.4 million new jobs will require computing skills by 2020. Yet the US still lags in this area; only a small percentage of middle schoolers show proficiency in math and science, and only one third of bachelor’s degrees earned in this country are in a STEM field. For this reason, energizing students at an early age is crucial.

The competition established by the House resolution could engage students in various ways. To start, it calls for a challenge to create new apps for a range of platforms. Developing an app is a great way for students to gain hands-on experience in computer science, the next wave of opportunity in today’s economy. As technology advances, the competition may evolve to focus on different fields.

We believe it’s crucial to help kids and teens around the country move from being great consumers of technology to being great creators of technology — and competitions like this one can help drive that evolution. By reaching out to budding technologists in their districts, Members of Congress can foster a deeper enthusiasm for computer science. We hope this opportunity for students to showcase their creativity will spark interest in the STEM fields for years to come.

Apply for a 2013 Google Policy Fellowship

Wednesday, February 20, 2013

Posted by Nicklas Lundblad, Director, Public Policy
The Internet policy world is ripe with fascinating issues. From cybercrime to government surveillance and security, to public procurement, trade and open access to information, there has never been a more exciting time to get involved. We’re excited to launch the 6th summer of the Google Policy Fellowship, with new opportunities to work with organizations from Africa, Europe and Latin America in addition to ones in U.S. and Canada. Applications are open today, and students of all levels and disciplines are welcome to apply before March 15, 2013.
Fellows will spend ten weeks this summer working on a broad portfolio of topics at a diverse set of organizations, including:
Africa

ILab Africa

Kofi Annan Centre for Excellence in IT

Europe

Bruegel

ECIPE (European Centre for International Political Economy)

OpenForum Europe (OFE)

The Lisbon Council

Latin America

Asociasc ón por los Derechos Civiles

Derechos Digitales

North America

American Library Association

Center for Democracy and Technology

Competitive Enterprise Institute

Creative Commons

EFF

Future of Music Coalition

Institute for Public Representation

Internet Education Foundation

Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies

Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

National Consumer League

National Hispanic Media Coalition

New America Foundation

Public Knowledge

Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy & Public Interest Clinic

TechFreedom

Technology Policy Institute

The Citizen Lab

US Hispanic Chamber of Commerce

You can learn about the program, application process and host organizations on the Google Public Policy Fellowship website.

An update on our war against account hijackers

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Posted by Mike Hearn, Google Security Engineer
(Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog)Spammers’ new trick—hijacking accounts

Legitimate accounts blocked for sending spam: Our security systems have dramatically reduced the number of Google Accounts used to send spam over the past few years

How Google Security helps protects your account

Help protect your accountstrong, unique passwordupgrading your accountupdating the recovery options

Safer Internet Day: How we help you stay secure online

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Posted by Alma Whitten, Director of Privacy, Product and Engineering
Technology can sometimes be complicated, but you shouldn’t have to be a computer scientist or security expert to stay safe online. Protecting our users is one of our top priorities at Google. Whether it’s creating easy-to-use tools to help you manage your information online or fighting the bad guys behind the scenes, we’re constantly investing to make Google the best service you can rely on, with security and privacy features that are on 24-7 and working for you.

Last year, we launched Good to Know, our biggest-ever consumer education campaign focused on making the web a safer, more comfortable place. Today, on Safer Internet Day, we’re updating Good to Know to include more tips and advice to help you protect yourself and your family from identity theft, scams and online fraud. You can also learn how to make your computer or mobile device more secure, and get more out of the web—from searching more effectively to making calls from your computer. And you can find out more about how Google works to make you, your device and the whole web safer.

For example, we encrypt the Gmail and Google Search traffic between your computer and Google—this protects your Google activity from being snooped on by others. We also make this protection, known as session-wide SSL encryption, the default when you’re signed into Google Drive. Because outdated software makes your computer more vulnerable to security problems, we built the Chrome browser to auto-update to the latest version every time you start it. It gives you up-to-date security protection without making you do any extra work.

Even if you don’t use Google, we work hard to make the web safer for you. Every day we identify more than 10,000 unsafe websites—and we inform users and other web companies what we’ve found. We show warnings on up to 14 million Google Search results and 300,000 downloads, telling our users that there might be something suspicious going on behind a particular website or link. We share that data with other online companies so they can warn their users.

We know staying safe online is important to you—and it is important to us too. To emphasize the importance of American’s online safety, Google will join the US Department of Education’s Office of Educational Technology, the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI), the National Cyber Security Alliance, The Project to Get Older Adults onLine (GOAL), and the National PTA at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. to discuss the importance of Safer Internet Day, how people’s commitment to keeping themselves and the Internet safer doesn’t stop after 24 hours, and resources that can help families stay safe on February 5th and every day. Watch live at 11am EST.

Please take some time today to make your passwords stronger and turn on 2-step verification to protect your Google Account. Talk with friends and family about Internet safety. And visit our new Good to Know site to find more tips and resources to help you stay safe online.

Public Policy Blog

How you, and Google, can help prevent identity theft

Let’s defend innovators against patent trolls

Congress encourages the next generation of computer scientists

Apply for a 2013 Google Policy Fellowship

An update on our war against account hijackers

Safer Internet Day: How we help you stay secure online

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