Breaking the language barrier for Europe’s innovators

Get ready for a tongue twister. You’re an Estonian entrepreneur who has just dreamed up a revolutionary new product. How do you find out if a Portuguese or Polish inventor - indeed any other inventor anywhere - has filed a patent on a similar idea in their native language? Locating and understanding a patent lodged in a foreign language can be a time-consuming and costly affair.

Last week, however, Google and the European Patent Office partnered to break down this linguistic barrier. Starting later this year, the Munich-based EPO will use Google Translate technology to offer translation of patents on its website between any of 28 European languages, as well as Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Russian. The various languages will be added to the site gradually, and the project should be finalised by the end of 2014.

Pictured are: EPO President Benoît Battistelli (l) and Google's Head of Public Policy in Brussels, Antoine Aubert (r) at the signing of the agreement. Photo: EPO / Didier Vandenbosch

The EPO will provide Google with access to their complete corpus of patents on a non-exclusive basis, allowing us to optimise our machine translation technology for the technical language used in patent registrations. Machine translation technology analyses existing parallel texts (eg the same document translated into multiple languages) in order to make accurate guesses about how to translate new texts. The more inputs, the better the translations. In return, Google will offer the improved translation service free of charge to the EPO.

The partnership is a big win for Europe’s entrepreneurs and inventors too, as they will benefit from free, real-time translation of millions of patents granted in European countries, China, Japan, Korea and Russia. Whilst the translations made by Google Translate will not be legally binding, they will offer a practical way for anybody to gain improved access to the technical information contained in patents across all EPO languages simultaneously.

We’re excited to be working with the EPO on this great example of how machine translation can improve access to important technical information across language barriers - and how public-private partnership can result in pragmatic solutions that support Europe’s innovators.

Posted by Antoine Aubert, Head of Public Policy, Google Brussels

Google TechTalk: Trusting the cloud

UPDATE 23/03/2011: Due to unforeseen circumstances, the date of this TechTalk is changing by one day. It will now take place on Wednesday 30th March, same time, same place. Our apologies for the inconvenience to those who have already signed up, we will be contacting you shortly to re-confirm your attendance.

At the World Economic Forum in Davos in January of this year, Commissioner Neelie Kroes stated that she would like to “make Europe not just “cloud-friendly” but “cloud-active”. Being active in the cloud basically means moving every-day information, tools and processes online and the benefits of that shift are hard to deny: reduced costs, faster innovation and the convenience of accessing information virtually anytime and from anywhere.

As with any new technology shift, movement to the cloud is a subject of lively debate, in particular on the questions of data security, data governance and privacy. As a company “born in the cloud” - and one of the biggest corporate users of our own products - Google has always had a strong focus on engineering cloud services that deliver the highest possible standards of security, availability and resilience.

On March 29th, our Senior Global Trust PM, John Collins, will be in Brussels to give a Tech Talk on the theme of cloud security and privacy at Google. He’ll discuss our overall approach, and highlight some of the security features and privacy controls available to users of our cloud applications.

John has spent the past 10 years building and operating some of the world's biggest and most popular Internet services, and at Google, he leads our Enterprise's global trust effort.

When: Tuesday, March 29th 12.30-14.30 CET
Where: Google Brussels | Chaussée d'Etterbeek 180 | 1040 Brussels
Registration: Please register here
Need another reason to come? There will be a delicious, Googley lunch (!)

About our Tech Talks: Ever wondered how exactly Google is tackling the big technology problems that the online world faces? Want to take a look behind the curtain of our engineering operations and learn from the people who actually work on the Google products and services day-in, day-out? Here's your chance: The Google Brussels TechTalks.

Posted by Angela Steen, Policy Analyst, Google Brussels

Keeping counterfeits out of ads

Thanks to the Internet, it’s never been easier to start a business and reach a huge audience, at an incredible scale. Unfortunately, some people misuse legitimate online services to try to market counterfeit goods. Of course, this isn’t a problem unique to the online world, but as the Web has grown, so have attempts to sell counterfeits online.

With over one million advertisers using AdWords in over 190 countries, how do we weed out the bad actors who violate our clear policies against advertising counterfeits? In the last six months of 2010 alone, we shut down approximately 50,000 AdWords accounts for attempting to advertise counterfeit goods. But there’s no silver bullet here. Instead, it’s a cat-and-mouse game, where we are constantly working to improve our practices and tune our systems to keep out the bad guys.

That’s why today we’re announcing three improvements designed to further improve our collaboration with brand owners to address the problem and prevent counterfeiters from abusing our services:

• We’ll act on reliable AdWords counterfeit complaints within 24 hours. In 2009, we announced a new complaint form to make it fast and easy for brand owners to notify us of misuse. For brand owners who use this form responsibly, we’ll reduce our average response time to 24 hours or less.

• We will improve our AdSense anti-counterfeit reviews. We have always prohibited our AdSense partners from placing Google ads on sites that include or link to sales of counterfeit goods. We will work more closely with brand owners to identify infringers and, when appropriate, expel them from the AdSense programme.

• We’ve introduced a new help centre page for reporting counterfeits. That way, we aim to make it easier for users and brand owners to find forms to report abuse.

These steps are our ways of facilitating co-operation with brand owners, which is absolutely essential in tackling the sale of counterfeits online. AdWords is just a conduit between advertisers and consumers and we can’t know whether any particular item out of the millions advertised is counterfeit or not.

Of course, we do more than simply respond to brand owners’ removal requests. We use their feedback to help us tune a set of sophisticated automated tools, which analyse thousands of signals along every step of the advertising process and help prevent bad ads from ever seeing the light of day. We devote significant engineering and machine resources in order to prevent violations of ads policies, including counterfeiting.

In fact, we invested over $60 million last year alone, and, in the last 6 months of 2010, more than 95% of accounts removed for counterfeits came down based on our own detection efforts. No system is perfect, but brand owner feedback has helped us improve over time - as our system gets more data about ads it has misclassified before, it gets better at counteracting new ways that bad guys try to cloak their behaviour.

While our systems get better over time, counterfeiting remains a complex challenge, and we keep investing in anti-counterfeiting measures. After all, a Google user duped by a fake is far less likely to click on another Google ad in the future. Ads for counterfeits aren't just bad for the real brand holder - they're bad for users who can end up unknowingly buying sub-standard products, and they're bad for Google too.

Posted by Kent Walker, Senior Vice President and General Counsel, Google

Tunisian bloggers win annual Net freedom award

Last week we blogged about the annual 2011 Reporters Without Borders Netizen Prize, which recognises bloggers or Internet activists who defend freedom of expression on the Net. This year’s prize went to Nawaat, a group of Tunisian bloggers.

The independent jury of press specialists agreed that Nawaat’s online reporting played a significant part in helping to depose Tunisia’s longtime dictator, Zine el Abidine Ben Ali. It chose Nawaat as the winner from a strong field of finalists from Bahrain, Belarus, Thailand, China and Vietnam.

Created in 2004, Nawaat.org is an independent collective blog operated by Tunisian bloggers as a platform for all “committed citizens.” The bloggers played a crucial role in covering the social and political unrest in Tunisia that began on December 17. Nawaat recently created a special page for the WikiLeaks revelations about Tunisia, and another one about the recent events in Sidi Bouzid, which were not covered in the traditional media. The site also warns Internet users about the dangers of being identified online and offers advice about circumventing censorship.

Photo © Mat Beaudet

Pictured above from left to right are: Jean-François Julliard, Secretary General of Reporters Without Borders; Former French Foreign Minister and founder of Doctors Without Borders, Bernard Kouchner; and Nawaat co-founder Riadh Guerfali, accepting the awards at a ceremony in Paris’ Salon des Mirroirs.

“We are deeply honoured by this prize. It will help to strengthen the citizen journalism that we have been practising for years at Nawaat, despite all the risks involved,” Guerfali said in his acceptance speech. “This award is not only a tribute to Nawaat but to all our fellow journalists who often risk their lives to keep working in countries where freedom of expression is suppressed.”

Google sponsors the annual Netizen prize. First awarded in 2010, it forms part of our commitment to support the free flow of information and free expression online. Last year, Iranian women’s rights activists Change for Equality became the first recipient.

Posted by William Echikson, Head of Free Expression, Europe, Middle East and Africa

Recognising defenders of free expression online

See also: Google France Blog

Events in the Middle East have sparked a global discussion on the importance of free expression and underline the role the Internet can play in giving voice to the once-silent. And with 1.6 billion people online worldwide, people now have the ability to access and share information at a scale unprecedented in human history.

At the same time, governments around the world are increasingly taking action to prevent free information flow, both online and offline. Repressive regimes are becoming more and more sophisticated - both politically and technically - in restricting people's access to the net. Reporters Without Borders counts 119 online activists around the globe who are jailed for expressing their views freely online.

The free flow of information is very much part of Google's core mission, and that's why we've teamed up Reporters Without Borders and are sponsoring a Netizen Prize which will recognise blogger or Internet activist who defends freedom of expression on the Net.

The award will be made at 6:30pm at a ceremony in Paris on the eve of the World Day Against Cyber-Censorship. Speakers at the event will include Reporters without Borders President Dominique Gerbaud; Google’s South, East, Middle East and Africa President, Carlo d'Asaro Biondo; Secretary General Jean-Francois Julliard; and Doctors Without Borders founder and former French Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner.

In 2010, the award went to Iranian cyberfeminists behind the website Change for Equality.

We are proud to work with Reporters Without Borders, an organisation that combines a sense of justice with compassion and practical know-how. Above all, we salute the courage of men and women around the globe who fight every day for free expression and the free flow of information.

2011 Netizen Award Nominees

Nawaat, Tunisia:
Independent Tunisian bloggers created a group blog Nawaat.org in 2004. It played a crucial role in the coverage of Tunisia’s recent social and political unrest.

Ali Abduleman, Bahrain:
Bahraini netizens consider this blogger one of the Gulf’s Internet pioneers. Ali Abdulemam has been imprisoned in Manama since September 4, 2010 on a charge of disseminating false information on Bahrain Online, a forum that gets more than 100,000 visitors a day despite being blocked within Bahrain.

Jiew, Prachatal, Thailand:
Known as Jiew, Chiranuch Premchaiporn is the editor and webmaster of Prachatai, a Thai alternative news website. She has repeatedly been arrested and is currently being prosecuted on several charges under the criminal code and the Computer Crimes Act including defaming the royal family. She faces the possibility of up to 82 years in prison.

Tan Zuoren, China:
A contributor to the 64Tianwang human rights blog, Tan Zuoren is serving a five-year sentence on a charge of inciting subversion of state authority. The website’s editor Huang Qi is serving a three-year sentence. After the May 2008 earthquake in the southwestern province of Sichuan, Tan urged fellow netizens to come to the province to help document the plight of the families of the victims.

Pham Hoang Minh, Vietnam / France:
A blogger with dual French and Vietnamese citizenship, Pham Minh Hoang was arrested on August 13, 2010 in Ho Chi Minh City, where he was teaching at the Institute of Technology. He was formally charged on September 20 with “activities aimed at overthrowing the government” (article 79 of the criminal code) and membership of a “terrorist organisation” (the banned Viet Tan party).

Natalia Radzina, Charter 97, Belarus:
Journalist Natalia Radzina is the editor of Charter 97, a news website that covers cases of arrests, physical attacks and harassment involving traditional and online journalists and human rights activists She was arrested on December 20, 2010, one day after the recent presidential election. Charter 97’s founder, Oleg Bebenin, was found "hanged" in September.

Posted by William Echikson, Head of Free Expression, Europe, Middle East and Africa

100 years of celebrating women

Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog

As today’s doodle shows, we’re very excited to celebrate the centenary of International Women’s Day. Late last month we teamed up with Women for Women International to announce the Join me on the Bridge campaign, a celebration of the achievements of women taking place on bridges around the world. Since then almost 300 bridge events in more than 50 countries have been added to the map. I’ve found it inspiring to watch all of those little red pins pop up, knowing that each of them represents a group of women and their supporters coming together to let the world know how far we’ve come.

In addition to the flagship events happening throughout the day on the Brooklyn Bridge (New York), the Millennium Bridge (London) and the Golden Gate Bridge (San Francisco), women and men are gathering in places as far-flung as Brussels, Belgium; Kabul, Afghanistan; La Paz, Bolivia; and Sydney, Australia.

It’s not too late to join the celebrations and show your support — simply find an event on the map. Remember to “check in” to the event on the map before the end of the day, and if you have photos or videos of an event, it’s easy to share them with the world: just click on the pin for the event you attended (or want to support virtually) and start uploading.

We hope you’ll also consider donating to one of the more than 40 incredible women’s organizations participating in our celebration. You can learn more and make a donation at google.com/iwd2011.

Plus, when you use Google Maps on March 8, you’ll notice that Pegman, Street View’s trusted guide, has a new friend. He invited his colleague Pegwoman to join him on the map today to celebrate International Women’s Day!

Posted by Claire Hughes Johnson, VP, Global Online Sales, and Chair, Google Women’s Professional Community