German Supreme Court rules that Image Search does not infringe copyright

Google's aim is to help users discover information as quickly and efficiently as possible. Sometimes the information they seek is in written or audio form, and sometimes the information they seek is visual - which may take the form of photographs, designs, artworks or other types of imagery - and we try to present the information in a way that best answers the user’s query.

With this in mind, we launched our Image Search service in 2003, which presents users with a selection of reduced-resolution thumbnail images relating to their search query. Users can then click through to the site that hosts the image to see it in full-size or to see the content around it. Millions of users find this service helpful - they can quickly find exactly what they want, and many site owners do too - it’s another means through which Internet users can discover their sites. Website owners have complete control over what Google will crawl on their site: with a simple set of tools called robots.txt they can notably tell Google (and other search engines) not to crawl the images on their site.

We are heartened by the German Supreme Court´s ruling today that Google Image Search does not infringe copyright. The case was brought to court by an artist who had uploaded photos of her work (large paintings) to her own website. She then claimed for copyright infringement against Google as the images were displayed in our image search results.

Today´s ruling makes it clear not just for Google, its users in Germany and all owners of websites containing images, but also for all providers of image search services operating in the country: showing thumbnail images within search results is legitimate and millions of users in Germany benefit from being able to discover visual information at the click of a mouse.

We still have to wait for the full reasoning behind the decision. What we know today: thousands of websites and companies in Germany will be able to benefit from Google Image Search in the future as well. News websites on the Internet, online providers of pictures and posters, artists, photographers, designers and many more who depend on the web for their livelihoods can go on using the service as a significant distribution platform.

Posted by Dr. Arnd Haller, Managing Counsel, Google Germany GmbH

Disrupting knowledge workers - e.g. lawyers

The author of a book called “The End of Lawyers?” was likely to be provocative, but when Professor Richard Susskind, OBE started his presentation at today’s Oxford Internet Institute’s Seminar on the The Internet and Legal Services by noting that ‘lawyers are knowledge workers’, my ears really pricked up.

As we’ve discussed on this blog before, the knowledge economy is genuinely different from that which we knew in the 20th century. Lawyers are indeed knowledge workers, so the suggestion that this is a sector set for transformation as a result of the Internet should not have been a surprise. Nonetheless, it was, and that was because of the extent the predicted transformation.

On the simpler side, Richard talked of the the automation of certain functions: standardising and systemetising certain client offerings, and recognising that some activities will simply become commoditised (perhaps as loss leaders for other work).

But then there is the potential to create new value, including through harnessing ‘mass collaboration’. There is real scope for open source models to enter the market, with reputation systems helping to keep the end result trustworthy - just as we see in the tech community. This could be complemented by collaborative projects within “closed client communities” where participants explicitly know who the other parties are.

I am not a lawyer, and my thoughts turned to two issues:

• Does per 6-minute billing applied by lawyers really reflect the drivers of value creation; and
• Are there barriers to those wishing to exploit the economics of the knowledge economy to disrupt the market?

Richard suggested that metered billing did remain a reasonable proxy for ‘bespoke’ lawyering but was fairly certain it would evolve for other services.

The emergence of a maverick in the legal industry would be exciting. And there certainly would be demand for it, as Tony Wales, who shared the platform, discussed the fascinating evolution of the in-house General Counsel role. Innovation is occurring rapidly there, with lawyers partnering with business developers to help tailor commercial solutions that meet their company’s needs and reflect their appetite for risk.

I wonder what the many Commission officials that attended made of it all? It will fall to some of them to ensure that companies, consumers and citizens enjoy the benefits of innovation and disruption across the EU legal profession!

Posted by Simon Hampton, Director of European Public Policy

Data collected by Google cars

[Editor's note, 5/14/10: This post contains incorrect information about our WiFi data collection (see * below). We have posted a clarification and update about our process on the Official Google Blog.]

Over the weekend, there was a lot of talk about exactly what information Google Street View cars collect as they drive our streets. While we have talked about the collection of WiFi data a number of times before--and there have been stories published in the press--we thought a refresher FAQ pulling everything together in one place would be useful. This blog also addresses concerns raised by data protection authorities in Germany.

What information are your cars collecting?
We collect the following information--photos, local WiFi network data and 3-D building imagery. This information enables us to build new services, and improve existing ones. Many other companies have been collecting data just like this for as long as, if not longer, than Google.

• Photos: so that we can build Street View, our 360 degree street level maps. Photos like these are also being taken by TeleAtlas and NavTeq for Bing maps. In addition, we use this imagery to improve the quality of our maps, for example by using shop, street and traffic signs to refine our local business listings and travel directions;
• WiFi network information: which we use to improve location-based services like search and maps. Organizations like the German Fraunhofer Institute and Skyhook already collect this information globally;
• and 3-D building imagery: we collect 3D geometry data with low power lasers (similar to those used in retail scanners) which help us improve our maps. NavTeq also collects this information in partnership with Bing. As does TeleAtlas.

What do you mean when you talk about WiFi network information?

WiFi networks broadcast information that identifies the network and how that network operates. That includes SSID data (i.e. the network name) and MAC address (a unique number given to a device like a WiFi router).

Networks also send information to other computers that are using the network, called payload data, but Google does not collect or store payload data.*

But doesn’t this information identify people?
MAC addresses are a simple hardware ID assigned by the manufacturer. And SSIDs are often just the name of the router manufacturer or ISP with numbers and letters added, though some people do also personalize them.

However, we do not collect any information about householders, we cannot identify an individual from the location data Google collects via its Street View cars.

Is it, as the German DPA states, illegal to collect WiFi network information?
We do not believe it is illegal--this is all publicly broadcast information which is accessible to anyone with a WiFi-enabled device. Companies like Skyhook have been collecting this data cross Europe for longer than Google, as well as organizations like the German Fraunhofer Institute.

Why did you not tell the DPAs that you were collecting WiFi network information?
Given it was unrelated to Street View, that it is accessible to any WiFi-enabled device and that other companies already collect it, we did not think it was necessary. However, it’s clear with hindsight that greater transparency would have been better.

Why is Google collecting this data?
The data which we collect is used to improve Google’s location based services, as well as services provided by the Google Geo Location API. For example, users of Google Maps for Mobile can turn on “My Location” to identify their approximate location based on cell towers and WiFi access points which are visible to their device. Similarly, users of sites like Twitter can use location based services to add a geo location to give greater context to their messages.

Can this data be used by third parties?
Yes--but the only data which Google discloses to third parties through our Geo Location API is a triangulated geo code, which is an approximate location of the user’s device derived from all location data known about that point. At no point does Google publicly disclose MAC addresses from its database (in contrast with some other providers in Germany and elsewhere).

Do you publish this information?
No.

But wouldn’t GPS enable you to do to all this without collecting the additional data?
Yes--but it can be much slower or not available (e.g. when there is no view of the sky; when blocked by tall buildings). Plus many devices don’t have GPS enabled. GPS is also expensive in terms of battery consumption, so another reason to use WiFi location versus GPS is to conserve energy.

How does this location database work?
Google location based services using WiFi access point data work as follows:

• The user’s device sends a request to the Google location server with a list of MAC addresses which are currently visible to the device;
• The location server compares the MAC addresses seen by the user’s device with its list of known MAC addresses, and identifies associated geocoded locations (i.e. latitude / longitude);
• The location server then uses the geocoded locations associated with visible MAC address to triangulate the approximate location of the user;
• and this approximate location is geocoded and sent back to the user’s device.

How do your cars collect this WiFi data?

Visibly attached to the top of the car is a commercially available radio antenna. This antennae receives publicly broadcast WiFi radio signals within range of the vehicle. The equipment within the car operates passively, receiving signals broadcast to it but not actively seeking or initiating a communication with the access point.

Why didn’t you let the German DPA see the car?
We offered to let them examine it last year --it is totally untrue to say we would not let them see the car. They are still welcome to do so.

How do you collect 3-D building imagery?
We collect 3D geometry data with low power lasers (similar to those used in retail scanners).

Is this safe?
Yes.

You can also read the WiFi submission we made today to several national data protection authorities.

Posted by Peter Fleischer, Global Privacy Counsel

** Added additional sentence to first bullet point.

Social Campaigning on YouTube

I had the pleasure last week to represent Google and YouTube at an award ceremony in the Italian Parliament in Rome to celebrate the winning short films in a competition titled Action for Women. This initiative was jointly organised by the Parliament and the Council of Europe to raise awareness of human rights and, in this case, specifically of women’s rights and violence against women.

YouTube served as the platform for the competition and aspiring film directors competed by uploading their short-film entries to Action for Women’s YouTube channel. A prestigious panel of judges, including the Venice Film Festival’s Enrico Magrelli and film directors such as Francesca Comencini and Jaco Van Dormael then shortlisted the entries, with YouTube viewers voting online to select the final three. The powerful winning films, shown during the ceremony, were:










First-prize winner, Corrado Ceron, has been awarded a screening during the forthcoming Venice Film Festival in September. But just as important, all the eligible videos remain available through the Action for Women YouTube Channel, and therefore go on raising public awareness about the personal and societal damage caused by violence and aggression against women.

During the ceremony, I spoke about how the Internet can help underpin fundamental human rights and raise awareness for social campaigns. Action for Women is a great example of this - a creative initiative that reached out to a global audience, mobilised public participation, engaged proactively with the wider community and which can now incorporate user feedback to inform future similar campaigns.

As Gianfranco Fini, President of the Italian Lower House, underlined during the ceremony, the Internet is a fundamental tool for enabling democratic participation. Deborah Bergamini MP - behind the original idea for Action for Women - added that the Internet is an important space for women in particular to express themselves freely. Giorgia Meloni, Italian Youth Minister, called on political institutions to look at how they can take advantage of the Internet’s great communication opportunities rather than just focusing on its challenges.

For our part, we were of course delighted to partner with this initiative - which brought together 516 films and generated more than six million channel views. We look forward to seeing more individuals and organisations make use of internet platforms such as YouTube to promote good causes and advance respect for human rights.

Posted by Susan Pointer, Director, Public Policy & Government Relations, Southern & Eastern Europe, Middle East & Africa

Greater transparency around government requests

Article 19 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights states that "everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." Written in 1948, the principle applies aptly to today's Internet -- one of the most important means of free expression in the world. Yet government censorship of the web is growing rapidly: from the outright blocking and filtering of sites, to court orders limiting access to information and legislation forcing companies to self-censor content.

So it's no surprise that Google, like other technology and telecommunications companies, regularly receives demands from government agencies to remove content from our services. Of course many of these requests are entirely legitimate, such as requests for the removal of child pornography. We also regularly receive requests from law enforcement agencies to hand over private user data. Again, the vast majority of these requests are valid and the information needed is for legitimate criminal investigations. However, data about these activities historically has not been broadly available. We believe that greater transparency will lead to less censorship.

We are today launching a new Government Requests tool to give people information about the requests for user data or content removal we receive from government agencies around the world. For this launch, we are using data from July-December, 2009, and we plan to update the data in 6-month increments. Read this post to learn more about our principles surrounding free expression and controversial content on the web.

We already try to be as transparent as legally possible with respect to requests. Whenever we can, we notify users about requests that may affect them personally. If we remove content in search results, we display a message to users. The numbers we are sharing today take this transparency a step further and reflect the total number of requests we have received broken down by jurisdiction. We are also sharing the number of these content removal requests that we do not comply with, and while we cannot yet provide more detail about our compliance with user data requests in a useful way, we intend to do so in the future.

As part of our commitment to the Global Network Initiative, we have already agreed to principles and practices that govern privacy and free expression. In the spirit of these principles, we hope this tool will shine some light on the scale and scope of government requests for censorship and data around the globe. We also hope that this is just the first step toward increased transparency about these actions across the technology and communications industries.

Posted by David Drummond, SVP, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer

Boosting the Russian Internet

Since I first visited Moscow three decades ago, the Russian capital has undergone a thorough transformation. Range Rovers and Land Cruisers now clog once empty boulevards. Glittering shopping malls featuring Louis Vuitton and Chanel have replaced grey, empty storefronts. Restaurants feature haute cuisine, not black bread and borscht.

My trip was fashioned around a conference about media and the Net held in the opulent Ritz Carlton and sponsored by the Russian equivalent (complete with the salmon colored pages) of the Financial Times, Vedmosti. Although many speakers from publishing echoed concern about the net driving readers to free online content, most expressed confidence that the transition will be smoother (and perhaps slower) than in the West.

Despite a recent financial-crisis induced blip in economic growth, the Internet is gaining traction. More than 36% of Russians now surf the net. According to MForum Analytics, sales of smartphones grew by 28% last year to 4.4m smartphones worth $1.6 billion.

Russians love the newest technology. When I showed off my Nexus phone, not yet available in Russia, and its features ranging from voice search to Google Goggles, the audience responded with enthusiasm. Later that day, I tested Goggles, taking the picture shown here of Red Square – and the new service that identifies landmarks led me right to the Wikipedia web page about the square.

For Google, Russia represents a challenge. Yandex, a local search engine, leads the market and has often beaten us to introduce cool products. It already has launched a version of StreetView in Moscow and St. Petersburg, before we have even begun filming for our own version. Unlike us, our Russian competitor doesn’t blur faces or license plates. Seemingly, few Russians demand such privacy controls.

President Dimitry Medvedev is a fervent fan of the Net. He has launched his own blog and You Tube channel, hosted a group of Silicon Valley executives, and sponsored several intriguing initiatives designed to promote foreign and Russian web investment. The president seems to accept the openness that accompanies the growth in the Internet as a central building block of a prosperous, modern society.

The Kremlin even envisions establishing a Russian Silicon Valley outside of Moscow. It’s an idea that intrigues us and we are considering how best to participate. Russia certainly boasts a first-class educational system that produces the engineering firepower needed to drive dozens of successful tech startups. Google alone employs about 200 Russian engineers around the globe.

The key to Silicon Valley’s success lies in the alchemy between high-level academic inquiry and skills, abundant venture capital funding combined with legal certainty, and a free flow of information. A massive governmental effort could help transform a fuels-based economy into a high-tech one, particularly if it establishes a regulatory and legislative environment favorable to entrepreneurialism. At Google, we hope to play our part in boosting the Russian Internet.

Posted by Bill Echikson, Head of Communications, Southern, Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa

Controversial content and free expression: a refresher

Two and a half years ago, we outlined our approach to removing content from Google products and services. Our process hasn’t changed since then, but our recent decision to stop censoring search on Google.cn has raised new questions about when we remove content, and how we respond to censorship demands by governments. So we figured it was time for a refresher.

Censorship of the web is a growing problem. According to the Open Net Initiative, the number of governments that censor has grown from about four in 2002 to over 40 today. In fact, some governments are now blocking content before it even reaches their citizens. Even benign intentions can result in the specter of real censorship. Repressive regimes are building firewalls and cracking down on dissent online -- dealing harshly with anyone who breaks the rules.

Increased government censorship of the web is undoubtedly driven by the fact that record numbers of people now have access to the Internet, and that they are creating more content than ever before. For example, over 24 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute of every day. This creates big challenges for governments used to controlling traditional print and broadcast media. While everyone agrees that there are limits to what information should be available online -- for example child pornography -- many of the new government restrictions we are seeing today not only strike at the heart of an open Internet but also violate Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

We see these attempts at control in many ways. China is the most polarizing example, but it is not the only one. Google products -- from search and Blogger to YouTube and Google Docs -- have been blocked in 25 of the 100 countries where we offer our services. In addition, we regularly receive government requests to restrict or remove content from our properties. When we receive those requests, we examine them to closely to ensure they comply with the law, and if we think they’re overly broad, we attempt to narrow them down. Where possible, we are also transparent with our users about what content we have been required to block or remove so they understand that they may not be getting the full picture.

On our own services, we deal with controversial content in different ways, depending on the product. As a starting point, we distinguish between search (where we are simply linking to other web pages), the content we host, and ads. In a nutshell, here is our approach:

Search is the least restrictive of all our services, because search results are a reflection of the content of the web. We do not remove content from search globally except in narrow circumstances, like child pornography, certain links to copyrighted material, spam, malware, and results that contain sensitive personal information like credit card numbers. Specifically, we don’t want to engage in political censorship. This is especially true in countries like China and Vietnam that do not have democratic processes through which citizens can challenge censorship mandates. We carefully evaluate whether or not to establish a physical presence in countries where political censorship is likely to happen.

Some democratically-elected governments in Europe and elsewhere do have national laws that prohibit certain types of content. Our policy is to comply with the laws of these democratic governments -- for example, those that make pro-Nazi material illegal in Germany and France -- and remove search results from only our local search engine (for example, www.google.de in Germany). We also comply with youth protection laws in countries like Germany by removing links to certain material that is deemed inappropriate for children or by enabling Safe Search by default, as we do in Korea. Whenever we do remove content, we display a message for our users that X number of results have been removed to comply with local law and we also report those removals to chillingeffects.org, a project run by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, which tracks online restrictions on speech.

Platforms that host content like Blogger, YouTube, and Picasa Web Albums have content policies that outline what is, and is not, permissible on those sites. A good example of content we do not allow is hate speech. Our enforcement of these policies results in the removal of more content from our hosted content platforms than we remove from Google Search. Blogger, as a pure platform for expression, is among the most open of our services, allowing for example legal pornography, as long as it complies with the Blogger Content Policy. YouTube, as a community intended to permit sharing, comments, and other user-to-user interactions, has its Community Guidelines that define its own rules of the road. For example, pornography is absolutely not allowed on YouTube.

We try to make it as easy as possible for users to flag content that violates our policies. Here’s a video explaining how flagging works on YouTube. We review flagged content across all our products 24 hours a day, seven days a week to remove offending content from our sites. And if there are local laws where we do business that prohibit content that would otherwise be allowed, we restrict access to that content only in the country that prohibits it. For example, in Turkey, videos that insult the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Ataturk, are illegal. Two years ago, we were notified of such content on YouTube and blocked those videos in Turkey that violated local law. A Turkish court subsequently demanded that we block them globally, which we refused to do, arguing that Turkish law cannot apply outside Turkey. As a result YouTube has been blocked there.

Finally, our ads products have the most restrictive policies, because they are commercial products intended to generate revenue.

These policies are always evolving. Decisions to allow, restrict or remove content from our services and products often require difficult judgment calls. We have spirited debates about the right course of action, whether it’s about our own content policies or the extent to which we resist a government request. In the end, we rely on the principles that sit at the heart of everything we do.

We’ve said them before, but in these particularly challenging times, they bear repeating: We have a bias in favor of people's right to free expression. We are driven by a belief that more information means more choice, more freedom and ultimately more power for the individual.

Posted by Rachel Whetstone, Vice President, Global Communications and Public Affairs

The Oxford Internet Institute @ Google EU: Legal Services and the Internet

The internet has brought change to almost every area of business and daily life. Amongst other things, it's a catalyst for economic reform, it gives consumers a more choice, it promotes competition on a global stage and it sees services - including professional services - delivered faster and more efficiently than ever before.

On 27th April, at 12:30, the Oxford Internet Institute will be holding its second seminar (details of the first are here) at the EU Googleplex, next to Park Leopold.

Tony Wales will examine the changing role of the lawyer and legal services within corporations, and Professor Richard Susskind, OBE, will discuss the future role of lawyers and the administration of justice in a society.

You can find more information on the OII's website, including details on how to register.

We look forward to welcoming you to the Google office next week!

Posted by Simon Hampton, Director of European Public Policy

TechTalk: liberating data in the internet cloud

It's fair to say that the most popular applications and services that exist today are all to be found in the internet cloud - rather than actually on your computer, as installed applications. Think social networks, email, photosharing, online documents, blogs - and much more of course.

These services are constantly being improved, and new services appear all the time. Users switch services or try out new ones all the time too, perhaps because their friends are using a different service, because there’s better functionality or faster performance elsewhere, or because they just want better service.

So let’s imagine you’ve been using a particular service for a while, and - for whatever reason - you decide to switch to a different provider. A lot of your data is now stored in the service - your photo collection maybe, your status updates, your contacts, your emails and so on. Which raises the question:

How on earth do I get all of my data out of this service and transfer it the new one?

At Google, that’s a question we take very seriously, so seriously, that we have a special team of engineers who spend their time doing nothing else but making sure that it is easy to stop using Google services, and easy to take your data with you, using open standards and formats.

The name of that team is the Data Liberation Front (and yes, for anyone who had spotted the oblique reference, they are Monty Python fans).

On Tuesday 20th of April, Brian Fitzpatrick, the founder of the Data Liberation Front, will be in Brussels to give a Google TechTalk. He’ll explain what "liberating data" actually means, why he thinks it's so important for internet users, for the future of the Internet, and for Europe.

As usual, the TechTalk will take place over lunchtime (there will be food available of course!), at the Google office.

We hope you can make it along. If you’d like to attend, please register here.

When: Tuesday, April 20, 12:15 - 13:45 hours CET (Sandwich lunch provided).
Where: Google Brussels - Chaussée D'Etterbeek 180 - Steenweg op Etterbeek 180, 2nd floor, 1040 Brussels

Brian Fitzpatrick started Google's Chicago engineering office in 2005. An open source contributor for over 10 years, Brian is the engineering manager for several Google products, a member of both the Apache Software Foundation and the Open Web Foundation, a former engineer at Apple and CollabNet, a Subversion developer, a co-author of "Version Control with Subversion", and a resident of Chicago.

Alain Van Gaever
Policy Manager - Google Europe

Working with European academics #2

At Google, whether you're in engineering, product marketing, accounting or public policy, we all try to be as innovative as possible in our work. So it was a real pleasure for us last week to work together with the University of Glasgow and co-host a meeting that took a new and innovative approach to debating and mapping "the impact of online information in the political, economic and social sphere". Too often, public policy is made on the back of politics rather than deep research and evidence - and we're keen to help reduce the gap between policy and research by bringing together some of the people in the UK for whom robust evidence is a way of life.

Academics from 13 different institutions across the UK gathered recently at the Google office in London to discuss their work. The new and innovative approach, according to several of the participants, was that the meeting brought together Googlers with academics from many different disciplines - social scientists, engineers and computer scientists - to debate each other's work. Although everyone brought different perspectives to the discussion, the common themes and areas of research were striking. Freedom of expression was one common area of research, examining whether new technology was really challenging traditional power bases or not.

Other big questions tackled included what values people attach to their personal data, the right level of Government intervention in improving digital inclusion and whether online campaigning is doing anything to change the nature of politics. We also uncovered a great deal of common ground between the academics and the Googlers about how we do our jobs. At Google we analyse data patterns to understand how to improve our search algorithims: at universities, data crunching is also at the heart of good research. We discovered we had more in common than we at first realised.

Professor Sarah Oates from the Politics Department at the University of Glasgow curated the programme and invited the participants. Professor Rachel Gibson (University of Manchester) spoke about the Online Electorate and Web 2.0, Ashley Lloyd (Edinburgh Business School) presented on Bridging Technological Gaps and Professor Angus Laing (Loughborough) and Dr Debbie Keeling (Manchester) on how patients seek health information online.

As you'd hope from a gathering of Britain's top academics, the day generated much food for thought. For example, the research on health and the internet challenged many assumptions about how people use technology. We sometimes assume that technology offers people an emotionless, inhuman way of interacting, especially when compared with the 'real world' alternatives of doctors and nurses. But the research that Professor Laing and Dr Keeling presented suggests that people attribute all kinds of human characteristics to the technology tools they use when diagnosing and treating their own illnesses. Users often grow very attached, for example, to the chatrooms and online support groups they visit when they are ill. We shouldn't be too quick to dismiss technology as 'second best' when it comes to helping people cope with their conditions.

Of course, with only a day's discussion, we didn't manage to solve all the tricky questions raised. As everyone who thinks deeply about the future of the internet knows, the answers to the big policy questions are not easy. But we think proper, robust research has a crucial role to play in helping Governments and regulators try to find answers - and we look forward to hosting more multi-discipline academic debates in the future.

Posted by Sarah Hunter, UK Senior Policy Manager