Public Policy Blog
Updates on technology policy issues
Taking a stand on open source and patents
Thursday, March 28, 2013
Posted by
Duane Valz, Senior Patent Counsel
Cross-posted from the
Google Open Source Blog
At Google we believe that
open systems win
. Open-source software has been at the root of many innovations in cloud computing, the mobile web, and the Internet generally. And while open platforms have faced growing
patent attacks
, requiring companies to defensively acquire ever more patents, we remain committed to an open Internet—one that protects real innovation and continues to deliver great products and services.
Today, we’re taking another step towards that goal by announcing the
Open Patent Non-Assertion (OPN) Pledge
: we pledge not to sue any user, distributor or developer of open-source software on specified patents, unless first attacked.
We’ve begun by identifying
10 patents
relating to
MapReduce
, a computing model for processing large data sets first developed at Google—open-source versions of which are now widely used. Over time, we intend to expand the set of Google’s patents covered by the pledge to other technologies.
We hope the OPN Pledge will serve as a model for the industry, and we’re encouraging other patent holders to adopt the pledge or a similar initiative. We believe it has a number of advantages:
Transparency.
Patent holders determine exactly which patents and related technologies they wish to pledge, offering developers and the public transparency around patent rights.
Breadth.
Protections under the OPN Pledge are not confined to a specific project or open-source copyright license. (Google contributes
a lot of code
under such licenses, like the
Apache
or
GNU GPL
licenses, but their patent protections are limited.) The OPN Pledge, by contrast, applies to any open-source software—past, present or future—that might rely on the pledged patents.
Defensive protection.
The Pledge may be terminated, but only if a party brings a patent suit against Google products or services, or is directly profiting from such litigation.
Durability.
The Pledge remains in force for the life of the patents, even if we transfer them.
Our pledge builds on past efforts by companies like
IBM
and
Red Hat
and the work of the
Open Invention Network
(of which Google is a member). It also complements our
efforts on cooperative licensing
, where we’re working with like-minded companies to develop patent agreements that would cut down on lawsuits.
And, in addition to these industry-driven initiatives, we continue to
support patent reforms
that would improve patent quality and reduce excessive litigation.
We hope the OPN Pledge will provide a model for companies looking to put their own patents into the service of open-source software, which continues to enable amazing innovation.
Testifying before the U.S. House of Representatives on privacy legislation
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
Posted by
Pablo Chavez, Director of Public Policy
This morning Richard Salgado, Legal Director of Law Enforcement and Information Security, will testify before a House Judiciary Subcommittee about the need to bring a key privacy law into line with how people use the web today.
The Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security and Investigations will explore whether to update the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. The 1986 law, known as ECPA, regulates how government agencies can compel companies to disclose information about users.
Richard’s testimony explains that ECPA was a well-intentioned law when passed nearly three decades ago, but it no longer provides the privacy protections that users of these services reasonably expect.
You can read his
written testimony
and this recent
blog post
outlining Google’s approach to government requests for user data.
Google Policy Fellowship applications due March 15th
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Posted by Kate Sheerin, Policy Analyst
This Friday is the last day to apply for the 2013
Google Policy Fellowship
-- all applications must be submitted by March 15, 2013 at midnight PST. Please visit the
website
for application and program details.
The Google Policy Fellowship supports students and organizations working on the critical technology policy issues of our time.
Fellows will have the opportunity to work at public interest organizations at the forefront of debates on broadband and access policy, content regulation, copyright and trademark reform, consumer privacy, open government, and more.
The Google Policy Fellowship is open to students of all levels and disciplines.
Good luck on your application!
Launching a dialogue on free expression with telecoms
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Posted by Bob Boorstin, Director, Public Policy, and Lewis Segall,
Senior Counsel, Ethics and Compliance
(Cross-posted from the
Google Europe Blog
)
We wake up every day at Google asking ourselves: how can we get more information to more people around the world? Unfortunately, officials in too many governments wake up every day asking themselves: how can we stop our people from getting more information?
Those opposing questions lay at the heart of our
decision
back in 2008 to be a founding member company of the
Global Network Initiative
(GNI). The GNI is a group of companies, human rights groups and NGOs, socially responsible investors and academics that works
to protect and advance freedom of expression and privacy in the ICT sector.
From the beginning, we hoped that the GNI would find common ground with other companies and groups around the world. And today we’re happy to report that the GNI is
entering into a two-year collaboration
with a group of eight European telecommunications firms to “find a shared and practical approach to promoting freedom of expression and privacy rights around the world.”
The eight firms — Alcatel-Lucent, France Telecom-Orange, Millicom, Nokia Siemens Networks, Telefonica, Telenor, TeliaSonera, and Vodafone — provide services and equipment in scores of countries.
The firms, known collectively as the
Telecommunications Industry Dialogue
, have been meeting among themselves since 2011 to discuss freedom of expression and privacy rights in their sector, and have developed a set of guiding principles. Under the new partnership, they are not joining GNI — but the GNI will house the Industry Dialogue’s work and provide a place where members of both groups can learn from each other, develop new ideas, and collaborate in protecting and advancing user privacy and freedom of expression.
For the Industry Dialogue, we hope the arrangement will give the eight companies the chance to see the advantages we’ve found in an alliance that goes beyond industry and includes NGOs and others. For the GNI — a group born of the conviction that there is strength in numbers and a diverse membership — the arrangement marks a concrete step to building a broader and more global platform to help protect user rights.
Working together to reduce patent litigation
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
Posted by Eric Schulman, Legal Director
We’ve been
encouraged
by recent proposals for legislation and other reforms aimed at addressing the growing harm that patent trolls are inflicting on U.S. consumers and small businesses. We also think that companies can work together to help curb excessive patent litigation, so we’ve launched a new
cooperative licensing website
laying out some of our ideas and
soliciting feedback
from interested companies.
The problem of lawsuits brought by patent trolls—companies that don't make any products—is
huge and getting worse
.
Additionally, in a growing trend, companies are selling patents to trolls that then use those patents to attack other companies. In some cases, those companies arrange to get a cut of revenue generated from the trolls’ suits.
We think
companies should cooperate to reduce patent litigation—what’s been compared to
nuclear arms control for the patent world
. On our
site
, we outline several networked, standardized, royalty-free patent licensing agreements that increase companies’ freedom to operate while reducing patent assertions, especially by trolls.
For example, in a
License on Transfer (LOT) Agreement
, participating companies agree that when a patent is transferred (other than as part of a legitimate spin-out), the transferred patent automatically becomes licensed to other participating companies. Participants are thus protected from any future attacks if the patent was sold to a troll.
The more companies that unite in these kinds of agreements, the more beneficial the agreement becomes to its members, especially companies that don’t regularly sell patents or don’t want to spend money or time defending against trolls.
Take a look at the description of the LOT Agreement and the other approaches on our
website
and, if you’re interested or have feedback,
let us know
.
Transparency Report: Shedding more light on National Security Letters
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
Posted by Richard Salgado, Legal Director, Law Enforcement and Information Security
(Cross-posted from the
Official Google Blog
)
Our users trust Google with a lot of very important data, whether it’s emails, photos, documents, posts or videos. We work exceptionally hard to keep that information safe—hiring some of the best security experts in the world, investing millions of dollars in technology and baking security protections such as
2-step verification
into our products.
Of course, people don’t always use our services for good, and it’s important that law enforcement be able to investigate illegal activity. This may involve requests for personal information. When we receive these requests, we:
scrutinize them carefully to ensure they satisfy the law and our policies;
seek to narrow requests that are overly broad;
notify users when appropriate so they can contact the entity requesting the information or consult a lawyer;
and require that government agencies use a search warrant if they’re seeking search query information or private content, like Gmail and documents, stored in a Google Account.
When conducting national security investigations, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation can issue a National Security Letter (NSL) to obtain identifying information about a subscriber from telephone and Internet companies. The FBI has the authority to prohibit companies from talking about these requests. But we’ve been trying to find a way to provide more information about the NSLs we get—particularly as people have voiced concerns about the increase in their use since 9/11.
Starting today, we’re now including data about NSLs in our Transparency Report. We’re thankful to U.S. government officials for working with us to provide greater insight into the use of NSLs. Visit our page on
user data requests
in the U.S. and you’ll see, in broad strokes, how many NSLs for user data Google receives, as well as the number of accounts in question. In addition, you can now find answers to some common questions we get asked about NSLs on our
Transparency Report FAQ
.
You'll notice that we're reporting numerical ranges rather than exact numbers. This is to address concerns raised by the FBI, Justice Department and other agencies that releasing exact numbers might reveal information about investigations. We plan to update these figures annually.
Identifying available spectrum
Monday, March 4, 2013
Posted by Alan Norman, Principal, Access
Cross-posted from the
Official Google.org blog
Today, there are billions of phones, tablets, laptops and other mobile devices connecting to the Web wirelessly. Meanwhile, people living in parts of the world without wired infrastructure rely on wireless broadband for their last mile connection. As more people go online and the number of wireless devices grows, so does the need for spectrum.
There is available spectrum out there -- but it can be hard to find if you don't know where to look. One way we're trying to help researchers and other stakeholders identify available spectrum is through dynamic spectrum sharing. Spectrum sharing allows devices to use spectrum when it is not in use by someone else simply by checking a data base. We're in the process (with
several others
) of
becoming a certified
database administrator for a band of spectrum called the
TV white spaces
.
Today, we’ve reached a milestone in the certification process: our
database
is beginning a
public trial
with the FCC. Our trial site allows industry stakeholders (broadcasters, cable, wireless microphone users, licensed spectrum holders) to test and provide feedback on the database. The trial site also allows anyone to find out how much TV white spaces spectrum is available at any location, such as your home or office.
Google Earth visualization of available TV whitespace spectrum.
The completion of the trial will bring us all one step closer to freeing up more spectrum, which in turn will help the industry bring new wireless technologies to market and enable people to get wireless Internet access when and where they need it.
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 fighti
ng 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
)
Have you ever gotten a plea to wire money to a friend stranded at an international airport? An oddly written message from someone you haven’t heard from in ages? Compared to five years ago, more scams, illegal, fraudulent or spammy messages today come from someone you know. Although spam filters have become very powerful—in Gmail, less than 1 percent of spam emails make it into an inbox—these unwanted messages are much more likely to make it through if they come from someone you’ve been in contact with before. As a result, in 2010 spammers started changing their tactics—and we saw a large increase in fraudulent mail sent from Google Accounts. In turn, our security team has developed new ways to keep you safe, and dramatically reduced the amount of these messages.
Spammers’ new trick—hijacking accounts
To improve their chances of beating a spam filter by sending you spam from your contact’s account, the spammer first has to break into that account. This means many spammers are turning into account thieves. Every day, cyber criminals break into websites to steal databases of usernames and passwords—the online “keys” to accounts. They put the databases up for sale on the black market, or use them for their own nefarious purposes. Because many people re-use the same password across different accounts, stolen passwords from one site are often valid on others.
With stolen passwords in hand, attackers attempt to break into accounts across the web and across many different services. We’ve seen a single attacker using stolen passwords to attempt to break into a million different Google accounts every single day, for weeks at a time. A different gang attempted sign-ins at a rate of more than 100 accounts per second. Other services are often more vulnerable to this type of attack, but when someone tries to log into your Google Account, our security system does more than just check that a password is correct.
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
Every time you sign in to Google, whether via your web browser once a month or an email program that checks for new mail every five minutes, our system performs a complex risk analysis to determine how likely it is that the sign-in really comes from you. In fact, there are more than 120 variables that can factor into how a decision is made.
If a sign-in is deemed suspicious or risky for some reason—maybe it’s coming from a country oceans away from your last sign-in—we ask some simple questions about your account. For example, we may ask for the phone number associated with your account, or for the answer to your security question. These questions are normally hard for a hijacker to solve, but are easy for the real owner. Using security measures like these, we've dramatically reduced the number of compromised accounts by 99.7 percent since the peak of these hijacking attempts in 2011.
Help protect your account
While we do our best to keep spammers at bay, you can help protect your account by making sure you’re using a
strong, unique password
for your Google Account,
upgrading your account
to use 2-step verification, and
updating the recovery options
on your account such as your secondary email address and your phone number. Following these three steps can help prevent your account from being hijacked—this means less spam for your friends and contacts, and improved security and privacy for you.
Labels
Accessibility
5
Ad
2
Advertising
11
AdWords
2
Anti-defamation league
1
Book Search
16
Broadband
11
Business Issues
26
Buzz
1
buzzemail
1
Canada
1
Child Safety
18
Chrome
1
Cloud Computing
2
Competition
19
Congress
10
Constitute
1
copyright
7
Cuba
1
Cybersecurity
9
D.C. Talks
16
Digital Due Process
1
Digital Playbook
1
Economic Impact
5
Economy
13
ECPA
4
Elections
24
email
1
Energy Efficiency
29
Europe
2
FCC
7
fellowship
2
Fighting Human Trafficking
1
Free Expression
54
Geo
1
Gmail
1
GNI
2
Good to Know
5
Google Fellow
2
Google for Entrepreneurs
1
Google Ideas
2
Google Maps
1
Google Policy Fellowship
1
Google Tools
78
Government Transparency
33
Hate Speech
1
Health
5
How Google Fights Piracy
1
Human trafficking
1
Identity theft
1
Immigration
1
Intellectual Property
19
International
46
Journalists
1
Malware
1
Maps
1
National Consumer Protection Week
1
Net Neutrality
24
Patents
5
piracy. ad networks
2
Politicians at Google
11
Politics
23
Privacy
93
Public Policy
1
Public Policy Blog
806
Safe Browsing
3
scams
1
search
3
Security
17
Small Businesses
3
spectrum
4
State Issues
5
Surveillance
6
Technology for Good
1
Telecom
71
Trade
3
Transparency Report
4
White Spaces
23
WiFi Network
1
Workforce
5
Yahoo-Google Deal
5
YouTube
4
YouTube for Government
1
Archive
2016
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
2015
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2014
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2013
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2012
Dec
Nov
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2011
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2010
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2009
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2008
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2007
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Feed
Follow @googlepubpolicy
Give us feedback in our
Product Forums
.
