Cross-posted from The Official Google Blog.
Tomorrow, September 28, European Commission President José Manuel Barroso will deliver his annual State of the Union Address. In these turbulent times, we wanted to give people a chance to make their voices heard and ask their questions about the EU. So we teamed up with broadcaster Euronews and invited President Barroso to answer your questions in a special, live YouTube World View interview that will take place on Thursday, October 6 at 10:00am Central European Time.
Starting today, we invite you to submit your questions for President Barroso via youtube.com/worldview. Questions can be on any topic, from the Euro crisis and austerity measures to growth and jobs, from foreign policy and immigration to ethnic minority issues, human rights and the environment. You can ask written or video questions—and view and vote on other people’s questions—in any of the European Union’s languages, thanks to Google Translate.
During the interview on October 6, hosted by Euronews anchor Alex Taylor, the President will answer a selection of the most popular questions, as determined by your votes. The interview will be streamed and broadcast in multiple languages on both YouTube and Euronews.
President Barroso’s interview will be the first multi-lingual livecast in the World View series, which gives anyone with an Internet connection the ability to pose questions, vote on what’s most important to them and get answers directly from senior politicians and world leaders. President Barroso’s interview follows interviews with U.S. President Obama, President Kagame of Rwanda, U.K. Prime Minister Cameron, Spanish Prime Minister Zapatero and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.
Whatever your question, President Barroso wants to hear from you. Be sure to submit your question via the World View channel before midnight CET on Wednesday October 5.
Selasa, 27 September 2011
Senin, 26 September 2011
From the desert to the web: bringing the Dead Sea Scrolls online
(Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog)
It’s taken 24 centuries, the work of archaeologists, scholars and historians, and the advent of the Internet to make the Dead Sea Scrolls accessible to anyone in the world. Today, on the eve of the new year on the Hebrew calendar, we’re celebrating the launch of the Dead Sea Scrolls online; a project of The Israel Museum, Jerusalem powered by Google technology.
Written between the third and first centuries BCE, the Dead Sea Scrolls include the oldest known biblical manuscripts in existence. In 68 BCE, they were hidden in 11 caves in the Judean desert on the shores of the Dead Sea to protect them from the approaching Roman armies. They weren’t discovered again until 1947, when a Bedouin shepherd threw a rock in a cave and realized something was inside. Since 1965, the scrolls have been on exhibit at the Shrine of the Book at The Israel Museum, Jerusalem. Among other topics, the scrolls offer critical insights into life and religion in ancient Jerusalem, including the birth of Christianity.
Now, anyone around the world can view, read and interact with five digitized Dead Sea Scrolls. The high resolution photographs, taken by Ardon Bar-Hama, are up to 1,200 megapixels, almost 200 times more than the average consumer camera, so viewers can see even the most minute details in the parchment. For example, zoom in on the Temple Scroll to get a feel for the animal skin it's written on—only one-tenth of a millimeter thick.
You can browse the Great Isaiah Scroll, the most well known scroll and the one that can be found in most home bibles, by chapter and verse. You can also click directly on the Hebrew text and get an English translation. While you’re there, leave a comment for others to see.
The scroll text is also discoverable via web search. If you search for phrases from the scrolls, a link to that text within the scroll viewers on the Dead Sea Scrolls collections site may surface in your search results. For example, search for [Dead Sea Scrolls "In the day of thy planting thou didst make it to grow"], and you may see a link to Chapter 17:Verse 11 within the Great Isaiah Scroll.
This partnership with The Israel Museum, Jerusalem is part of our larger effort to bring important cultural and historical collections online. We are thrilled to have been able to help this project through hosting on Google Storage and App Engine, helping design the web experience and making it searchable and accessible to the world. We’ve been involved in similar projects in the past, including building the Yad Vashem Holocaust photo collection. We encourage organizations interested in partnering with us in our archiving efforts to enter their information in this form. We hope you enjoy visiting the Dead Sea Scrolls collection online, or any of these other projects, and interacting with history at your fingertips.
It’s taken 24 centuries, the work of archaeologists, scholars and historians, and the advent of the Internet to make the Dead Sea Scrolls accessible to anyone in the world. Today, on the eve of the new year on the Hebrew calendar, we’re celebrating the launch of the Dead Sea Scrolls online; a project of The Israel Museum, Jerusalem powered by Google technology.
Written between the third and first centuries BCE, the Dead Sea Scrolls include the oldest known biblical manuscripts in existence. In 68 BCE, they were hidden in 11 caves in the Judean desert on the shores of the Dead Sea to protect them from the approaching Roman armies. They weren’t discovered again until 1947, when a Bedouin shepherd threw a rock in a cave and realized something was inside. Since 1965, the scrolls have been on exhibit at the Shrine of the Book at The Israel Museum, Jerusalem. Among other topics, the scrolls offer critical insights into life and religion in ancient Jerusalem, including the birth of Christianity.
Now, anyone around the world can view, read and interact with five digitized Dead Sea Scrolls. The high resolution photographs, taken by Ardon Bar-Hama, are up to 1,200 megapixels, almost 200 times more than the average consumer camera, so viewers can see even the most minute details in the parchment. For example, zoom in on the Temple Scroll to get a feel for the animal skin it's written on—only one-tenth of a millimeter thick.
You can browse the Great Isaiah Scroll, the most well known scroll and the one that can be found in most home bibles, by chapter and verse. You can also click directly on the Hebrew text and get an English translation. While you’re there, leave a comment for others to see.
The scroll text is also discoverable via web search. If you search for phrases from the scrolls, a link to that text within the scroll viewers on the Dead Sea Scrolls collections site may surface in your search results. For example, search for [Dead Sea Scrolls "In the day of thy planting thou didst make it to grow"], and you may see a link to Chapter 17:Verse 11 within the Great Isaiah Scroll.
This partnership with The Israel Museum, Jerusalem is part of our larger effort to bring important cultural and historical collections online. We are thrilled to have been able to help this project through hosting on Google Storage and App Engine, helping design the web experience and making it searchable and accessible to the world. We’ve been involved in similar projects in the past, including building the Yad Vashem Holocaust photo collection. We encourage organizations interested in partnering with us in our archiving efforts to enter their information in this form. We hope you enjoy visiting the Dead Sea Scrolls collection online, or any of these other projects, and interacting with history at your fingertips.
Jumat, 23 September 2011
Open source code meets law at Hack4Transparency
What do you call a group of talented hackers in the European Parliament for a 24-hour window, enjoying free food while improving data transparency? We call it Hack4Transparency, and it’s not your everyday hackathon. Google is proud to be one of the sponsors of this upcoming event, a code sprint this November 8-9 that, literally, brings code to law. This is the first ever hacking event within the premises of European government, taking place in the heart of Brussels and giving dedicated hackers an opportunity to bring the power of good code to the place where it can matter most.
Over the course of 24 hours, hackers will work to make data more accessible and intelligible to consumers, to government, and to anyone who’s interested in the state of Internet access and information availability around the world.
Hackers will work along two tracks. The Internet Quality track focuses on making broadband performance data meaningful to the average consumer by improving the user interfaces of existing broadband measurement tools. The Global Transparency track asks hackers to take data from existing sources including Google’s Transparency Report, the Open Net Initiative, and Herdict, and using these sources to create compelling visualizations showing what type of Internet content is available or unavailable to users.
There will be free food, free WiFi, and the opportunity to win prizes while working with a lot of cool people dedicated to making big improvements.
Applicants that are selected to attend will have their travel and accommodations covered, and winning hackers on each track will receive €3.000.
If you're an EU-based hacker and you want fun, food, a free vacation, and the opportunity to make a big impact, we invite you to apply.
The deadline for applications is Monday, October 10, noon CET.
Kamis, 22 September 2011
Igniting a Polish internet revolution
At the recent Economic Forum in Krynica, one of Central & Eastern Europe’s main economic forums, it became abundantly clear that Poland is positioning itself in the Internet fast lane.
The Polish internet economy already accounts for 2.7% of GDP and is expected to reach up to 4.9% by 2015, according to a report published by the Boston Consulting Group. This means that the Internet already accounts for more than the country’s traditional industrial leader, coal mining, and soon will drive more economic activity than such key sectors as energy, finance and health-care. (Disclosure: Google commissioned BCG’s report, though it was carried out independently).
Good news as this is, evidence shows that Poland could do even better. In the UK, the Internet already generates 7.2% of GDP, almost three times the Polish figure. According to the BCG e-Intensity Index, the main challenges to Polish online growth include the low levels of infrastructure development and the online activity of businesses. At present, only 60% of households enjoy Internet access - and only 50% of Polish businesses leverage internet tools.
At the same time, Poland boasts many advantages. In 2010, the BCG report showed that it ranked number one in Europe in terms of the number of search queries per internet user. Polish is second globally in terms of the number of entries created in Wikipedia per person speaking a given language.
The Internet presents great opportunities for both start-ups and existing small and medium businesses. At the Krynica Summit, panel members discussed how Polish entrepreneurs can take advantage of the Net to jumpstart their businesses.
Speakers called for government and private sector collaboration, and my Polish colleague Agata Waclawik-Wejman pointed to our Internet Revolution campaign. We worked with the Polish Ministry of Economy to offer advice on how Polish small and medium businesses can get online using both Google and non-Google tools, including a free package to help them establish a web domain, create a website and launch their first online advertising campaign.
The success of this initiative has exceeded all our expectations. More than 45,000 small entrepreneurs so far have signed up, a sign of just how fast and far-reaching the Polish Internet Revolution is proving to be.
The Polish internet economy already accounts for 2.7% of GDP and is expected to reach up to 4.9% by 2015, according to a report published by the Boston Consulting Group. This means that the Internet already accounts for more than the country’s traditional industrial leader, coal mining, and soon will drive more economic activity than such key sectors as energy, finance and health-care. (Disclosure: Google commissioned BCG’s report, though it was carried out independently).
Good news as this is, evidence shows that Poland could do even better. In the UK, the Internet already generates 7.2% of GDP, almost three times the Polish figure. According to the BCG e-Intensity Index, the main challenges to Polish online growth include the low levels of infrastructure development and the online activity of businesses. At present, only 60% of households enjoy Internet access - and only 50% of Polish businesses leverage internet tools.
At the same time, Poland boasts many advantages. In 2010, the BCG report showed that it ranked number one in Europe in terms of the number of search queries per internet user. Polish is second globally in terms of the number of entries created in Wikipedia per person speaking a given language.
The Internet presents great opportunities for both start-ups and existing small and medium businesses. At the Krynica Summit, panel members discussed how Polish entrepreneurs can take advantage of the Net to jumpstart their businesses.
Speakers called for government and private sector collaboration, and my Polish colleague Agata Waclawik-Wejman pointed to our Internet Revolution campaign. We worked with the Polish Ministry of Economy to offer advice on how Polish small and medium businesses can get online using both Google and non-Google tools, including a free package to help them establish a web domain, create a website and launch their first online advertising campaign.
The success of this initiative has exceeded all our expectations. More than 45,000 small entrepreneurs so far have signed up, a sign of just how fast and far-reaching the Polish Internet Revolution is proving to be.
Rabu, 21 September 2011
Google TechTalk: The Future of News
Google is committed to partnering with news organisations and developing new technologies that support journalism and quality content online. In February of this year, we launched One Pass, a tool that enables publishers to charge for their material online or in mobile apps and manage subscriptions. Google News is a constantly evolving product which gives publishers control over their content, drives users to their sites and enables them to experiment with new ways of earning revenue.
On September 29th at 18:00, Madhav Chinnappa, head of Google’s strategic partnerships with European news publishers, will be in Brussels for a special news-focused Google TechTalk. He’ll give his vision of how online news is developing - and outline how Google is working with the news industry as it transitions to the digital world. We look forward to seeing you there!
Madhav Chinnappa joined Google in 2010 to focus on Google News in Europe as part of the Google Strategic Partnerships team. Madhav has worked in the news industry since 1994 - first in the launch team of Associated Press Television (APTV), then in M&A at United News & Media. He subsequently spent over 9 years at BBC News, most recently as Head of Business Development & Rights.
When: Thursday, September 29th 18.00-19.30 CET
Where: Google Brussels | Chaussée d'Etterbeek 180 | 1040 Brussels [Map]
Registration: Sign up here
Need another reason to come? There will be delicious, Googley refreshments
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.
Selasa, 20 September 2011
Our commitment to the Safe Harbor privacy framework
Recently, there’s been a debate in some circles in Europe about whether the agreements that cover data flows between the US and Europe - and in particular the US-EU Safe Harbor Agreement - provide adequate privacy protections.
One of the triggers of the debate is that it is possible for the US government (and European governments) to access certain types of data via their law enforcement agencies. We agree that this kind of access to data merits serious discussion and more transparency - which is why we’ve been publishing details of law enforcement requests made to us for one and a half years now. But the reality is that the challenges around law enforcement require new, transatlantic answers, and so we applaud the efforts currently being made by the EU and the US.
At the same time, it’s important to remember that the US-EU Safe Harbor Agreement - which guides Google’s daily business operations, as well as those of more than 2,500 other US companies that also offer services in Europe - is a robust and highly successful privacy framework that has benefited consumers and our economies over many years. We've designed our privacy policies around it. We've also been subject to a Safe Harbor enforcement action and agreed to a consent decree with the FTC relating to the launch of Buzz which will guide our privacy practices for 20 years.
Here's how we describe Safe Harbor in our privacy policies:
"Google adheres to the US Safe Harbor Privacy Principles of Notice, Choice, Onward Transfer, Security, Data Integrity, Access and Enforcement, and is registered with the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Safe Harbor Program."
"Google regularly reviews its compliance with this Privacy Policy. When we receive formal written complaints, it is Google’s policy to contact the complaining user regarding his or her concerns. We will cooperate with the appropriate regulatory authorities, including local data protection authorities, to resolve any complaints regarding the transfer of personal data that cannot be resolved between Google and an individual."
Technically, the Safe Harbor framework is designed to ensure that companies can transfer personal data from the European Union to the US, while ensuring that the data remains protected according to seven core EU-like privacy principles. In practice, for us, Safe Harbor means our users in both Europe and the US can be sure they’re getting not just the same level of service, but also the same level of privacy protection.
As a reminder, the world’s major privacy frameworks have all had dual goals: protecting privacy and facilitating cross-border flows of data - and the economic, social and cultural benefits they enable. Both goals are at the heart of both the OECD Privacy Guidelines and the EU Data Protection Directive. And the same applies for the US-EU Safe Harbor Agreement,
Before Safe Harbor, there were very limited mechanisms for the transfer of personal data from the EU to the US. On the Internet, such transfers - in both directions - are ubiquitous and instantaneous. Before Safe Harbor, people could wonder whether there was an adequate legal basis for all those transfers.
Today, as a long-term privacy practitioner, I cannot think of a single international privacy framework that has done more to raise the standards of privacy practices by US companies over the last decade than Safe Harbor. It's hard to drive compliance in the face of dozens of contradictory privacy regimes, with overlapping jurisdiction and conflicting applicable laws. It's far more practical to rely on Safe Harbor, with one comprehensible, consistent framework for protecting privacy, and to create a compliance program to back it up, as the European Commission noted in a letter sent to the United States government.
In fact, Safe Harbor has become the global framework by which many multinationals organize their global privacy compliance efforts, extending its reach far beyond the narrow explicit confines of data transfers from Europe to the US. Or as Damon Greer, the US government official currently responsible for Safe Harbor, recently put it in an eloquent rebuttal of the critiques of the program, “safe harbour has been a resounding success … facilitating the recognition by US business that privacy is a critical factor to success in the global marketplace.”
Speaking from experience, we couldn’t agree more.
One of the triggers of the debate is that it is possible for the US government (and European governments) to access certain types of data via their law enforcement agencies. We agree that this kind of access to data merits serious discussion and more transparency - which is why we’ve been publishing details of law enforcement requests made to us for one and a half years now. But the reality is that the challenges around law enforcement require new, transatlantic answers, and so we applaud the efforts currently being made by the EU and the US.
At the same time, it’s important to remember that the US-EU Safe Harbor Agreement - which guides Google’s daily business operations, as well as those of more than 2,500 other US companies that also offer services in Europe - is a robust and highly successful privacy framework that has benefited consumers and our economies over many years. We've designed our privacy policies around it. We've also been subject to a Safe Harbor enforcement action and agreed to a consent decree with the FTC relating to the launch of Buzz which will guide our privacy practices for 20 years.
Here's how we describe Safe Harbor in our privacy policies:
"Google adheres to the US Safe Harbor Privacy Principles of Notice, Choice, Onward Transfer, Security, Data Integrity, Access and Enforcement, and is registered with the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Safe Harbor Program."
"Google regularly reviews its compliance with this Privacy Policy. When we receive formal written complaints, it is Google’s policy to contact the complaining user regarding his or her concerns. We will cooperate with the appropriate regulatory authorities, including local data protection authorities, to resolve any complaints regarding the transfer of personal data that cannot be resolved between Google and an individual."
Technically, the Safe Harbor framework is designed to ensure that companies can transfer personal data from the European Union to the US, while ensuring that the data remains protected according to seven core EU-like privacy principles. In practice, for us, Safe Harbor means our users in both Europe and the US can be sure they’re getting not just the same level of service, but also the same level of privacy protection.
As a reminder, the world’s major privacy frameworks have all had dual goals: protecting privacy and facilitating cross-border flows of data - and the economic, social and cultural benefits they enable. Both goals are at the heart of both the OECD Privacy Guidelines and the EU Data Protection Directive. And the same applies for the US-EU Safe Harbor Agreement,
Before Safe Harbor, there were very limited mechanisms for the transfer of personal data from the EU to the US. On the Internet, such transfers - in both directions - are ubiquitous and instantaneous. Before Safe Harbor, people could wonder whether there was an adequate legal basis for all those transfers.
Today, as a long-term privacy practitioner, I cannot think of a single international privacy framework that has done more to raise the standards of privacy practices by US companies over the last decade than Safe Harbor. It's hard to drive compliance in the face of dozens of contradictory privacy regimes, with overlapping jurisdiction and conflicting applicable laws. It's far more practical to rely on Safe Harbor, with one comprehensible, consistent framework for protecting privacy, and to create a compliance program to back it up, as the European Commission noted in a letter sent to the United States government.
In fact, Safe Harbor has become the global framework by which many multinationals organize their global privacy compliance efforts, extending its reach far beyond the narrow explicit confines of data transfers from Europe to the US. Or as Damon Greer, the US government official currently responsible for Safe Harbor, recently put it in an eloquent rebuttal of the critiques of the program, “safe harbour has been a resounding success … facilitating the recognition by US business that privacy is a critical factor to success in the global marketplace.”
Speaking from experience, we couldn’t agree more.
Putting free flow of information on the global trade agenda
The World Trade Organisation this week holds its annual Public Forum. Policymakers, NGOs, and others from around the globe will be in Geneva to, as the WTO itself puts it, “seek answers to global trade challenges.”
Google will be participating to help ensure future trade agreements protect the free flow of information across national borders. Until now, the WTO and other trade organizations have concentrated on bringing down barriers for physical goods. We believe they should also look at protecting and fostering the flow of data and other information online.
Let there be no doubt - Google believes free expression is a human rights issue and the protection of human rights is all by itself a more than sufficient reason to ensure open networks stay open and free. That said, a compelling economic case exists for open networks. Moves by many countries to block services and disrupt data are one of the largest potential obstacles and opportunities to increasing trade and development in the 21st Century.
This issue extends far beyond Internet companies. A wide range of industries -- from finance to media to manufacturing -- depend upon free flows of information to deliver their services and products across borders. Increasingly, however, governments around the world are taking steps to restrict such flows. The number of governments that control the Internet in one way or another has grown to more than 40, up from about four in 2002. More and more governments are building firewalls, restricting Internet content and attempting to place domestic requirements on the storage and processing of data. Countries will use various justifications for these actions such as citing the need to increase local employment, economic stimulus, or for national security.
The WTO can do much to stop this negative trend - we hope that it and other trade bodies will put the principle of free flow of information at the heart of all future trade agreements.
Google will be participating to help ensure future trade agreements protect the free flow of information across national borders. Until now, the WTO and other trade organizations have concentrated on bringing down barriers for physical goods. We believe they should also look at protecting and fostering the flow of data and other information online.
Let there be no doubt - Google believes free expression is a human rights issue and the protection of human rights is all by itself a more than sufficient reason to ensure open networks stay open and free. That said, a compelling economic case exists for open networks. Moves by many countries to block services and disrupt data are one of the largest potential obstacles and opportunities to increasing trade and development in the 21st Century.
This issue extends far beyond Internet companies. A wide range of industries -- from finance to media to manufacturing -- depend upon free flows of information to deliver their services and products across borders. Increasingly, however, governments around the world are taking steps to restrict such flows. The number of governments that control the Internet in one way or another has grown to more than 40, up from about four in 2002. More and more governments are building firewalls, restricting Internet content and attempting to place domestic requirements on the storage and processing of data. Countries will use various justifications for these actions such as citing the need to increase local employment, economic stimulus, or for national security.
The WTO can do much to stop this negative trend - we hope that it and other trade bodies will put the principle of free flow of information at the heart of all future trade agreements.
Jumat, 16 September 2011
Supporting Europe's efforts for more cloud adoption
In May, the European Commission launched a Public Consultation on cloud computing to collect stakeholders’ input on opportunities and barriers to the adoption of cloud computing. Ms. Neelie Kroes, the Vice President of the European Commission and European Digital Agenda Commissioner, summarised Europe’s ambition quite well when she declared in a recent speech, that “the goal is to make Europe not just cloud-friendly but also cloud-active.”
At Google, we fully support the European Commission’s efforts in this area. Cloud computing is gaining traction in Europe and elsewhere. The cloud saves users money and it creates jobs. According to a recent study from Professor Federico Etro of the University of Venice, cloud computing in the EU will contribute 0.4% of GDP and create a million jobs by 2016. Similarly, in the United States Vivek Kundra, previously the Obama administration’s Chief Information Officer, recently pointed out in the New York Times that U.S. government agencies can gain significant economic benefits by moving their IT services to the cloud. And, as we said in July, the United States has reached out to industry for input. We’re thrilled that governments in Europe and the United States are so enthusiastic about cloud computing.
For these reasons, Google has submitted its contribution to this important debate in Europe. In particular, we have provided our point of view on what we consider key issues, namely:
- The legislative framework: We suggest proposals to facilitate cloud adoption and to remove the legislative and administrative barriers service providers are facing in Europe, and still preserve consumer values and data protection.
- Embracing interoperability and data portability: Google has put a lot of effort into tools and solutions aimed at giving users control over their data in the cloud and making data genuinely portable.
- Public sector clouds: the public sector should lead by example in important fields like security and procurement, at the EU, national and local levels (similar to the “Cloud First” strategy in the United States).
- Global solutions for global problems: one of the advantages of the cloud is scalability, which needs to be fostered by setting global standards, in particular in the areas of data protection and security.
Selasa, 13 September 2011
A new option for location-based services
Every day millions of people around the world use location-based services, which rely on a user’s estimated location to provide a better product experience. Google Maps for Mobile, for example, helps people find themselves on a map and then locate places nearby.
Estimating the location of someone using a service can be done in several different ways. As GPS is not always available and locations derived from cell towers aren’t very accurate, Google (like other Internet companies) uses publicly broadcast Wi-Fi data from wireless access points to improve our location-based services. By using signals from access points, smart phones are able to fix their general location quickly without using too much power.
These signals can make products much more useful - by enabling public transport authorities to show you when a bus is expected to arrive at your nearest bus stop, for example.
Even though the wireless access point signals we use in our location services don’t identify people, we think we can go further in protecting people’s privacy. At the request of several European data protection authorities, we are building an opt-out service that will allow an access point owner to opt out from Google's location services. Once opted out, our services will not use that access point to determine users’ locations.
We’ll be making this opt-out available globally, and we’ll release more detailed information about it when it’s ready to launch later this autumn.
Estimating the location of someone using a service can be done in several different ways. As GPS is not always available and locations derived from cell towers aren’t very accurate, Google (like other Internet companies) uses publicly broadcast Wi-Fi data from wireless access points to improve our location-based services. By using signals from access points, smart phones are able to fix their general location quickly without using too much power.
These signals can make products much more useful - by enabling public transport authorities to show you when a bus is expected to arrive at your nearest bus stop, for example.
Even though the wireless access point signals we use in our location services don’t identify people, we think we can go further in protecting people’s privacy. At the request of several European data protection authorities, we are building an opt-out service that will allow an access point owner to opt out from Google's location services. Once opted out, our services will not use that access point to determine users’ locations.
We’ll be making this opt-out available globally, and we’ll release more detailed information about it when it’s ready to launch later this autumn.
Senin, 12 September 2011
Germany stands up for free expression
Google has long promoted the cause of free expression in Germany, holding a Breaking Borders ceremony two years ago and organising the 361 Tolerance campaign. We are also supporting third party initiatives, most recently by sponsoring the prestigious M100 Sanssouci Colloquium, in Potsdam, just outside of Berlin.
Sanssouci awarded its annual M100 prize for press freedom to Chinese blogger Michael Anti. Born Jing Zhao in 1975, he took the pseudonym Michael Anti. After working as a reporter in Iraq and as an assistant in the Beijing bureau of The New York Times, he now is a freelancer and one of the country’s most read independent bloggers, with more than two million subscribers. He accepted the Sanssouci award at the event’s concluding dinner, given in the opulent palace of 18th century Prussian king Frederick the Great. “Freedom of Speech is not a privilege of the United States,” he declared. “It is for all of us.”
Anti’s award came at the end of a fascinating day of discussion and debate attended by activist bloggers from Belarus to Tunisia and beyond, and by leading German editors-in-chief and media professionals. Under the heading Global Democracy - A Triumph for Social Networks? the high-profile participants discussed the importance of blogs and social networks. Most participants concluded that the Internet is not the cause for unrest, merely a conduit for expressing a population’s already felt grievances. “There was no Internet and the trade union Solidarity still counted 10 million members a month after it was born in 1981,” noted Grzegorz Jankovski, editor-in-chief of the Polish daily Fakt.
Many participants were surprised when I explained how the protections for Internet platforms operating at scale in the EU’s E-Commerce Directive are being chipped away at by the courts, including obligations to review material as it is uploaded. An Italian judge last year convicted three Google employees for a video uploaded to a Google platform, even though they have never produced, approved or even seen the video. The forum proved a good opportunity to explain Google’s support for freedom of expression, for example by ensuring that the number of requests made of by governments are available on our Transparency Report. I also described our participation in the Global Network Initiative.
Participants pointed to a number of pressing issues, starting with Europe's debt crisis, as reasons behind government failure to pay better attention to free expression. Some in the audience suggested that Germany’s strong business ties to China and Russia have precluded most criticism of these countries. The Sanssouci organisers took a stand against these trends in making their freedom award to a Chinese blogger and in hosting Russia activists. We look forward to participating again next year in this exciting debate.
Sanssouci awarded its annual M100 prize for press freedom to Chinese blogger Michael Anti. Born Jing Zhao in 1975, he took the pseudonym Michael Anti. After working as a reporter in Iraq and as an assistant in the Beijing bureau of The New York Times, he now is a freelancer and one of the country’s most read independent bloggers, with more than two million subscribers. He accepted the Sanssouci award at the event’s concluding dinner, given in the opulent palace of 18th century Prussian king Frederick the Great. “Freedom of Speech is not a privilege of the United States,” he declared. “It is for all of us.”
Anti’s award came at the end of a fascinating day of discussion and debate attended by activist bloggers from Belarus to Tunisia and beyond, and by leading German editors-in-chief and media professionals. Under the heading Global Democracy - A Triumph for Social Networks? the high-profile participants discussed the importance of blogs and social networks. Most participants concluded that the Internet is not the cause for unrest, merely a conduit for expressing a population’s already felt grievances. “There was no Internet and the trade union Solidarity still counted 10 million members a month after it was born in 1981,” noted Grzegorz Jankovski, editor-in-chief of the Polish daily Fakt.
Many participants were surprised when I explained how the protections for Internet platforms operating at scale in the EU’s E-Commerce Directive are being chipped away at by the courts, including obligations to review material as it is uploaded. An Italian judge last year convicted three Google employees for a video uploaded to a Google platform, even though they have never produced, approved or even seen the video. The forum proved a good opportunity to explain Google’s support for freedom of expression, for example by ensuring that the number of requests made of by governments are available on our Transparency Report. I also described our participation in the Global Network Initiative.
Participants pointed to a number of pressing issues, starting with Europe's debt crisis, as reasons behind government failure to pay better attention to free expression. Some in the audience suggested that Germany’s strong business ties to China and Russia have precluded most criticism of these countries. The Sanssouci organisers took a stand against these trends in making their freedom award to a Chinese blogger and in hosting Russia activists. We look forward to participating again next year in this exciting debate.
Kamis, 08 September 2011
How our cloud does more with less
(Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog)
We’ve worked hard to reduce the amount of energy our services use. In fact, to provide you with Google products for a month—not just search, but Google+, Gmail, YouTube and everything else we have to offer—our servers use less energy per user than a light left on for three hours. And, because we’ve been a carbon-neutral company since 2007, even that small amount of energy is offset completely, so the carbon footprint of your life on Google is zero.
We’ve learned a lot in the process of reducing our environmental impact, so we’ve added a new section called “The Big Picture” to our Google Green site with numbers on our annual energy use and carbon footprint.
We started the process of getting to zero by making sure our operations use as little energy as possible. For the last decade, energy use has been an obsession. We’ve designed and built some of the most efficient servers and data centers in the world—using half the electricity of a typical data center. Our newest facility in Hamina, Finland, opening this weekend, uses a unique seawater cooling system that requires very little electricity.
Whenever possible, we use renewable energy. We have a large solar panel installation at our Mountain View campus, and we’ve purchased the output of two wind farms to power our data centers. For the greenhouse gas emissions we can’t eliminate, we purchase high-quality carbon offsets.
But we’re not stopping there. By investing hundreds of millions of dollars in renewable energy projects and companies, we’re helping to create 1.7 GW of renewable power. That’s the same amount of energy used to power over 350,000 homes, and far more than what our operations consume.
Finally, our products can help people reduce their own carbon footprints. The study (PDF) we released yesterday on Gmail is just one example of how cloud-based services can be much more energy efficient than locally hosted services helping businesses cut their electricity bills.
Visit our Google Green site to find out more.
We’ve worked hard to reduce the amount of energy our services use. In fact, to provide you with Google products for a month—not just search, but Google+, Gmail, YouTube and everything else we have to offer—our servers use less energy per user than a light left on for three hours. And, because we’ve been a carbon-neutral company since 2007, even that small amount of energy is offset completely, so the carbon footprint of your life on Google is zero.
We’ve learned a lot in the process of reducing our environmental impact, so we’ve added a new section called “The Big Picture” to our Google Green site with numbers on our annual energy use and carbon footprint.
We started the process of getting to zero by making sure our operations use as little energy as possible. For the last decade, energy use has been an obsession. We’ve designed and built some of the most efficient servers and data centers in the world—using half the electricity of a typical data center. Our newest facility in Hamina, Finland, opening this weekend, uses a unique seawater cooling system that requires very little electricity.
Whenever possible, we use renewable energy. We have a large solar panel installation at our Mountain View campus, and we’ve purchased the output of two wind farms to power our data centers. For the greenhouse gas emissions we can’t eliminate, we purchase high-quality carbon offsets.
But we’re not stopping there. By investing hundreds of millions of dollars in renewable energy projects and companies, we’re helping to create 1.7 GW of renewable power. That’s the same amount of energy used to power over 350,000 homes, and far more than what our operations consume.
Finally, our products can help people reduce their own carbon footprints. The study (PDF) we released yesterday on Gmail is just one example of how cloud-based services can be much more energy efficient than locally hosted services helping businesses cut their electricity bills.
Visit our Google Green site to find out more.
Gmail: It’s cooler in the cloud
(Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog)
Cloud computing is secure, simple, keeps you productive and saves you money. But the cloud can also save energy. A recent report by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) and Verdantix estimates that cloud computing has the potential to reduce global carbon emissions by millions of metric tons. And Jonathan Koomey, a consulting professor at Stanford who has led several studies on data center energy use, has written that for many enterprises, the cloud “is significantly more energy efficient than using in-house data centers.”
Because we’re committed to sustainability, we sharpened our pencils and looked at our own services to see how they stack up against the alternatives.
We compared Gmail to the traditional enterprise email solutions it’s replaced for more than 4 million businesses. The results were clear: switching to Gmail can be almost 80 times more energy efficient than running in-house email. This is because cloud-based services are typically housed in highly efficient data centers that operate at higher server utilization rates and use hardware and software that’s built specifically for the services they provide—conditions that small businesses are rarely able to create on their own.
If you’re more of a romantic than a businessperson, think of it this way: It takes more energy to send a message in a bottle than it does to use Gmail for a year, as long as you count (PDF) the energy used to make the bottle and the wine you drank.
We ran a similar calculation for YouTube and the results are even more striking: the servers needed to play one minute of YouTube consume about 0.0002 kWh of energy. To put that in perspective, it takes about eight seconds for the human body to burn off that same amount. You’d have to watch YouTube for three straight days for our servers to consume the amount of energy required to manufacture, package and ship a single DVD.
In calculating these numbers, we included the energy used by all the Google infrastructure supporting Gmail and YouTube. Of course, your own laptop or phone also consumes energy while you’re accessing Google, so it’s important to choose an efficient model.
There’s still a lot to learn about the global impacts of cloud computing, but one thing we can say with certainty: bit for bit, email for email, and video for video, it’s more efficient in the cloud.
Cloud computing is secure, simple, keeps you productive and saves you money. But the cloud can also save energy. A recent report by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) and Verdantix estimates that cloud computing has the potential to reduce global carbon emissions by millions of metric tons. And Jonathan Koomey, a consulting professor at Stanford who has led several studies on data center energy use, has written that for many enterprises, the cloud “is significantly more energy efficient than using in-house data centers.”
Because we’re committed to sustainability, we sharpened our pencils and looked at our own services to see how they stack up against the alternatives.
We compared Gmail to the traditional enterprise email solutions it’s replaced for more than 4 million businesses. The results were clear: switching to Gmail can be almost 80 times more energy efficient than running in-house email. This is because cloud-based services are typically housed in highly efficient data centers that operate at higher server utilization rates and use hardware and software that’s built specifically for the services they provide—conditions that small businesses are rarely able to create on their own.
An illustration of inefficient server utilization by smaller companies compared to efficient utilization in the cloud.
If you’re more of a romantic than a businessperson, think of it this way: It takes more energy to send a message in a bottle than it does to use Gmail for a year, as long as you count (PDF) the energy used to make the bottle and the wine you drank.
We ran a similar calculation for YouTube and the results are even more striking: the servers needed to play one minute of YouTube consume about 0.0002 kWh of energy. To put that in perspective, it takes about eight seconds for the human body to burn off that same amount. You’d have to watch YouTube for three straight days for our servers to consume the amount of energy required to manufacture, package and ship a single DVD.
In calculating these numbers, we included the energy used by all the Google infrastructure supporting Gmail and YouTube. Of course, your own laptop or phone also consumes energy while you’re accessing Google, so it’s important to choose an efficient model.
There’s still a lot to learn about the global impacts of cloud computing, but one thing we can say with certainty: bit for bit, email for email, and video for video, it’s more efficient in the cloud.
Jumat, 02 September 2011
Making Copyright Work Better Online: A Progress Report
In December, we announced four initiatives to tackle the problem of copyright infringement online. We’ve made considerable progress on each front, and we will continue to evolve our efforts in all four areas in the months to come.
- Acting on reliable copyright takedown requests within 24 hours. We promised to build tools to make it easier for rightsholders to submit DMCA takedown requests for Google products (starting with Blogger and Web Search), and to reduce our average response time to 24 hours or less for submissions using these new tools. We built the tools earlier this year, and they are now being successfully used by more than a dozen content industry partners who together account for more than 75% of all URLs submitted in DMCA takedowns for Web Search. Our response time for these partners is now well below the 24 hour target. In the coming months, we will be making these tools available more broadly to those who have established a track record of submitting valid takedown requests.
- Preventing terms that are closely associated with piracy from appearing in Autocomplete. Beginning in January, we started filtering terms closely associated with infringement from Google Autocomplete, our feature that predicts search queries based on popular searches from other users.
- Improving our AdSense anti-piracy review. We have always prohibited the use of our AdSense program on web pages that provide infringing materials, and we routinely terminate publishers who violate our policies. In recent months, we have worked hard to improve our internal enforcement procedures. In April, we were among the first companies to certify compliance in the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s (IAB’s) Quality Assurance Certification program, through which participating advertising companies will take steps to enhance buyer control over the placement and context of advertising and build brand safety. In addition, we have invited rightsholder associations to identify their top priority sites for immediate review, and have acted on those tips when we have received them.
- Improving visibility of authorized preview content in search results. We have launched Music Rich Snippets, which allow legitimate music sites to highlight content in the snippets that appear in Google’s Web Search results. Rhapsody and MySpace are among the first to implement this feature, which has been developed using open web markup standards, and we are looking forward to more sites and search engines marking up their pages. We hope that authorized music sites will take advantage of Music Rich Snippets to make their preview content stand out in search results.
There is plenty more to be done, and we look forward to further refining and improving our processes in ways that help both rightsholders and users.
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