Bringing the Dutch constitution online

Some documents are drilled deep into the fibre of country’s identity, but few citizens actually get to see the originals. In the Netherlands, the 1814 Constitution turned the country into a constitutional monarch and is considered to be the basis of the country’s modern government. Now, partnering with Dutch National Archive and the National Committee for the Kingdom's Bicentenary, we are making the original available to the public in a new Google Cultural Institute exhibition on the Bicentenary of the Dutch Constitution.

The Dutch constitution is only the latest part of our wide Constitute project, providing searchable access to 187 constitutions, ranging from the Afghanistan to Zambia. Tagged passages of each constitution with a topic — “right to privacy” or “equality regardless of gender” — allow users to find relevant excerpts on a particular subject. Want to view results for a specific region or time period? You can limit your search by country or by date using the buttons under the search bar.

The new Dutch exhibition marks the 200th anniversary of the Dutch Constitution, making it one of the oldest constitutions still in existence, second only to the American Constitution. The National Committee for the Kingdom's Bicentenary marked this exceptional and festive anniversary as the perfect occasion to organise its second national event, the Constitution Festival.

In addition to the Dutch Constitution, the exhibition includes eight other important documents, ranging from the 1839 Treaty of London separating the Netherlands and Belgium to the 1854 Charter for the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

Posted by Mark Jansen, Head of Communications, Google Benelux

A new YouTube melody for European musicians

If you are of my generation and love Jacques Brel, it's a great day. For my kids, who adore Selah Sue and fantasy character Mega Mindy, it's also a great day. From now on, videos of these Belgian artists will become easier to find on YouTube. For the first time, these Belgian artists and their estates will receive payments for allowing music lovers to listen to their music on YouTube.



This breakthrough stems from the licensing agreement signed today between collecting society SABAM and YouTube. SABAM was founded in 1922; it represents 36,000 composers, lyricists, publishers, and music video makers.

Throughout Europe over the past two years, YouTube has secured similar agreements with associations representing artists and authors in countries shown in blue: the UK, France (SACEM, SACD, SCAM, ADAGP), Netherlands, Spain, Italy, Ireland, the Czech Republic, and Poland.



These agreements end old arguments about copyright, replacing them with win-win arrangements. For Europe’s musicians, YouTube has become an indispensable tool in reaching audiences. Artists are compensated when advertisements are displayed against YouTube partner’s videos.

The deals demonstrate our commitment to to promoting local European cultural creation. YouTube is innovating to help artists protect and manage their rights. Our state-of-the-art Content ID technologies let rights owners identify user-uploaded videos that contain their work and choose, in advance, what they want to happen when those videos are found. They can block them from YouTube altogether, or keep them up. The vast majority of right owners agree to keep their material online - and share in the revenue generated by advertising displayed against it.

Until now, when Belgians visited YouTube, they were taken to our global site. The launch of YouTube in Belgium means Belgians will see a home page featuring a wealth of content from their home country. Partners are welcome to join us and we’re happy to learn that large Belgian media companies such as broadcaster RTBF are interested in having parts of their archives appear. For my part, I plan to catch up on Jacques Brel videos.

Posted by Julien Blanchez, Marketing Manager, Belgium

Sizing and seizing the Internet economy

Strange as it might sound, given all the buzz about the digital economy, few concrete numbers exist measuring the Internet’s economic impact. The scarcity of hard data has allowed many to portray the Internet (at worst) as a negative force, destroying jobs, or (at best) as marginal to a country’s economic success.

In the past year Google has worked with a variety of partners to begin filling in this data gap. The Boston Consulting Group researched a series of country-specific reports. The first found that the digital economy accounts for more than seven percent of GDP in the UK. BCG, McKinsey, and Deloitte followed up by analyzing the impact of the Internet on local economies for instance in France, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Netherlands, Czech Republic, Israel, Hong Kong and Australia.

BCG partners David Dean and Paul Zwillenberg recently were in Brussels to present a new study - not commissioned by Google - called Turning Local: From Madrid to Moscow, the Internet is Going Native. It builds on the previous country reports, and adds additional BCG research, to describes the Internet's impact on 50 economies around the globe. BCG drew up an e-Intensity IndexTM which measures countries' Internet infrastructure, the amount of online expenditure and how enthusiastically businesses, consumers and governments engage with new technologies. By 2015, BCG projects, the Internet will contribute 7.3 percent of Danish GDP. Other countries will experience even bigger jumps during the next years. By 2015, the Internet will account for four percent of Spanish GDP, almost double 2009’s figure of 2.2 percent.




If anything, these GDP measures may underestimate the Internet’s true impact—something BCG, McKinsey and Deloitte all acknowledge. For example, in many countries between five and 10 percent of retail sales are researched online before the consumer makes an informed purchase in a physical store, and the cost savings from shopping on the web can be substantial, amounting to almost £1,000 per household in the UK. Similarly, consumers benefit from using free, advertising supported services like email that they would otherwise have to pay to enjoy. McKinsey and IAB Europe found consumers enjoy €100 billion in consumer surplus—almost three times the revenue online advertising companies receive—none of which traditional GDP measures captures.

Earlier this year, McKinsey specifically researched the externalities around Internet search, with collaboration and support from Google. Their independent report, Impact of Internet Technologies: Search, states that search technologies—including but not limited to Google—create over $780 billion of value for the global economy, of which only four percent accrues to the search engines themselves.

Google and other members of the Business and Industry Advisory Committee BIAC last month participated in an expert roundtable at the OECD exploring current and future methods for measuring the impact of the Internet on the global economy. The roundtable will be followed by a report sponsored by Google that will measure the impact of the Internet on OECD member countries.

For BCG, their studies represent only a first step. The goal is to help jumpstart a global conversation on the economic value of the Internet. In Brussels, Dean and Zwillenberg were clear in presentations made to European think tank Bruegel (of which Google is a member) that SME’s are one of the biggest groups of beneficiaries in Europe. Their research, which included a survey of over 9,000 companies, concludes that businesses using the web intensively grow significantly faster than businesses that don't. That’s a theme that we, and BCG, will be revisiting in coming weeks and months.

Posted by Patricia Wruuck, Policy Analyst and Betsy Masiello, Policy Manager