Google Public Policy Blog

Google Teacher Academy comes to D.C.

2009-12-09T19:53:00.002-05:00

Posted by Galen Panger, Global Communications and Public Affairs

Google D.C. hosted over 50 teachers in our office today for the 2009 Google Teacher Academy. Google for Educators head and Senior Product Marketing Manager Cristin Frodella explains what it was all about:

Free wireless broadband for low-income families in the District

2009-12-08T14:35:00.004-05:00

Posted by Sunil Daluvoy, New Business Development

We were at Kramer Middle School in the Anacostia neighborhood of Washington, D.C., this morning for an exciting announcement. Google has teamed up with One Economy, Qualcomm, and Cricket Wireless to deliver free wireless broadband cards and Internet service to low-income students and families in Washington, a program we're calling Project Change Access. Today we distributed the first of these wireless broadband cards, along with free computers, to several Kramer Middle School students and local residents. Over the next several weeks, up to 1,000 wireless broadband cards will be distributed through our community partners to low-income families across the District.

Today's announcement grew out of a pilot program launched last year by One Economy and Cricket to provide free wireless broadband to several hundred low-income families in Portland, Oregon. Students who previously lacked Internet access were able to online resources to help them with their homework. Their parents were able to learn English online, access online job resources, research health care information, and more.

The Internet was invented here, but millions of low-income Americans are being left out of the digital revolution. We believe that every American should have access to the immense social and economic benefits of the web. Project Change Access is a small step towards that goal.

Check back soon for photos and video from this morning's event.

UPDATE (12/9/09): Here's a photo of Kramer Middle School students and local residents alongside representatives of Project Change Access and Washington Redskins cornerback DeAngelo Hall.

FTC roundtable explores privacy in an information economy

2009-12-07T09:42:00.003-05:00

Posted by Jane Horvath, Global Privacy Counsel

What happens to privacy when new technologies are adopted by society? That's what the Federal Trade Commission is looking into today in the first of a three-part series of roundtable discussions about the privacy issues raised by our information economy and the innovations of the 21st century. During the day-long event, the FTC will be joined by dozens of experts from universities and think tanks, consumer advocacy groups, and industry organizations to talk about what happens with the collection of data when technologies such as social networking, cloud computing, and mobile marketing emerge. Today's roundtable discussions will be broken down into five different panels:

Benefits and Risks of Collecting, Using, and Retaining Consumer Data
Consumer Expectations and Disclosures
Online Behavioral Advertising
Information Brokers
Exploring Existing Regulatory Frameworks

Alan Davidson, Director of Public Policy and Government Affairs, will be representing Google on the second panel about consumer expectations. At Google, we use data to create products and services that many find useful and interesting. Our approach to privacy is to empower users with transparency and choice. We let people know what data we collect and provide meaningful choices and tools so people can make informed decisions. In the past year, we've taken several steps to underscore this commitment. With interest-based advertising, we created a tool called the Ads Preferences Manager, which gives people a say in the types of ads they see. Our Data Liberation Front makes it easier to move data in and out of Google. And most recently, we launched Google Dashboard, which lets Google Account holders view and control the data that's associated with the signed-in services they use.

There's sure to be plenty of lively discussion at today's roundtable. We'd love to hear your thoughts, too. You can watch the webcast of the event, and share your comments below.

When sources disagree: borders and place names in Google Earth and Maps

2009-12-04T14:41:00.006-05:00

Posted by Bob Boorstin, Director, Public Policy Team

Collecting and sharing the most accurate information about place names and borders is a tough task that every map maker faces. The first sources are the nations themselves, but when neighboring countries claim overlapping territories and conflicting place names, even showing the dispute on a map may be prohibited by local law. We continue to work hard on these issues, and thought it would be worth sharing our general approach on this blog.

We want to be transparent about the principles we follow in designing our mapping products, particularly as they apply to disputed regions. Last year, for example, we explained how we determine the names for bodies of water in Google Earth. For each difficult case, we gather a cross-functional group of Googlers including software engineers, product managers, GIS specialists, policy analysts, and geopolitical researchers. This process benefits from the local knowledge and experience of Googlers around the world.

We follow a hierarchy of values to inform our depictions of geopolitically sensitive regions:

Google's mission: In all cases we work to represent the "ground truth" as accurately and neutrally as we can, in consistency with Google's mission to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. We work to provide as much discoverable information as possible so that users can make their own judgments about geopolitical disputes. That can mean providing multiple claim lines (e.g. the Syrian and Israeli lines in the Golan Heights), multiple names (e.g. two names separated by a slash: "Londonderry / Derry"), or clickable political annotations with short descriptions of the issues (e.g. the annotation for "Arunachal Pradesh," currently in Google Earth only; see blog post about disputed seas).

Authoritative references: While no single authority has all the answers, when deciding how to depict sensitive place names and borders we use guidance from data providers that most accurately describe borders in treaties and other authoritative standards bodies like the United Nations, ISO and the FIPS. We look for the references that are the most universally recognized for each individual case. For example, in the case of "Myanmar (Burma)" ISO and FIPS each use a different name, so we include both to provide a more complete reference for our users.

Local expectations: We work to localize the user experience while striving to keep all points of view easily discoverable in our products. Google Maps has launched on 32 region domains (e.g. maps.google.ca for Canada) and Google Earth is now available in 41 languages. Each domain and language user population is most familiar with a slightly different set of place names. For example, for the "Yellow Sea" or "West Sea," Chinese speaking users are conversant with the label Huáng Hǎi or 黄海 (Mandarin), while Korean users are used to the label Sŏ Hae or 서해 (Hangul). Carefully considering Google's mission, guidance from authoritative references, local laws and local market expectations, we strive to provide tools that help our users explore and learn about their world, and to the extent allowed by local law, includes all points of view where there are conflicting claims.

Sometimes these factors compete with one another. For example, is localizing a place name inconsistent with Google's mission? What happens when an authoritative references does not seem to represent the truth on the ground? What about when local user expectations don't match international convention, or when local laws prohibit acknowledging regional conflicts? These are questions we continue to think through in our efforts to provide comprehensive, authoritative, free, and, most importantly, useful products for our users.

FTC looks at the future of news

2009-12-01T09:08:00.003-05:00

Posted by Josh Cohen, Senior Business Product Manager

For the next two days, the Federal Trade Commission will explore a subject that's central to democracy: the future of news. I'll be representing Google at the event, which the commission is calling "From Town Criers to Bloggers: How Will Journalism Survive the Digital Age?" We're an optimistic company, so maybe it's no surprise that we believe journalism will not only survive, but thrive on the Internet. And we think we can help.

Why does Google care about the future of the news? Our mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful, and journalism is an important source of the high-quality information for which our users search. It also serves a vital public service. So, as the industry goes through a wrenching period of transition, we're working with newspapers, magazines, broadcasters, web-only outlets and other news organizations that publish online to find solutions. We applaud the experiments that many publishers are trying and want to work with them to help drive even more innovation. We're focusing on helping news publishers in three key areas:

Traffic: Google makes it easy for people to find the news they're looking for and discover new sources of information. Google sends about 4 billion clicks each month, or 100,000 per minute, to news publishers via Google News, web search and other services. Each click is an opportunity for publishers to show ads, win loyal readers and register users. They can also sell online subscriptions: news publishers can charge for their work and ensure that it's discovered through Google -- these two are not mutually exclusive. Of course, news publishers have control over whether their content is made discoverable through Google.

Audience engagement: Google offers news publishers free tools to better engage with their audiences. Examples include YouTube Direct, which helps news outlets solicit and manage online video submissions from citizen reporters, and Google Maps, which publishers use to create and embed custom maps to augment their coverage. You'll see us try experiments like Google Fast Flip, which we launched in Google Labs with more than three dozen publishing partners to provide online news consumers with a "magazine-like" experience.

Revenue: Google provides a variety of advertising solutions to help publishers maximize their revenue. Two of the best-known are AdSense, for serving relevant ads on a publisher's web pages, and DoubleClick tools, for managing, serving and measuring display ads. There's still a big gap between the amount of time people spend online and the amount of advertising dollars spent online, so we're investing in interest-based advertising and other ways to make ads even more relevant (and as a result, more valuable) to publications' readers. Google is also exploring technology solutions to make paid content systems more seamless for publishers and users, such as subscription services and billing platforms.

Just as there's no single cause for the news industry's current struggles, there's no single solution. We would love your thoughts on additional ways we can help journalism thrive on the Internet. Feel free to tune in the webcast of today's proceedings on the FTC's website and share your ideas with us in the comments below.

Automatic captions on YouTube

2009-11-19T14:13:00.012-05:00

Posted by Pablo Chavez, Managing Policy Counsel

UPDATE 11/24/09: Full-length video of our announcement event in Washington, D.C. has been posted to YouTube and is embedded at the bottom of this blog post. We have included English captions using our new auto-timing feature. Enjoy.

Today, here in D.C., we announced the preliminary roll-out of automatic captioning in YouTube, an innovation that takes advantage of our speech recognition technology to turn the spoken word into text captions. We also announced that if you have a transcript of your video, you can upload it to YouTube and we'll time the captions for you.

This is useful for anyone who is deaf or hearing impaired, but it will have broader effects as well. For example, YouTube captions can be automatically translated, making video more accessible across languages. And while we've had the ability to manually caption videos for a while, automatic captions and automatically timed transcripts lower the barriers and, we hope, helps open YouTube to everyone.

Indeed, with 20 hours of video uploaded to YouTube every minute, captioning YouTube through purely manual means would be very difficult. That's why we're excited about today's announcement. Please note that only 13 YouTube channels will feature automatic captions at this time so that we can gather feedback, but all video owners will be able to upload transcripts and automatically time them. Ken Harrenstien, the software engineer who led this project, describes today's announcements in more detail on the Official Google Blog.

Visit our Picasa photo album for more pictures from the event.
This morning's introductions were also exciting because over 60 accessibility leaders from the National Association of the Deaf, Gallaudet University, AAPD and other organizations joined us to be the first to learn about these new features. We made the announcement in our Washington office, in fact, just so that they could be here to give our engineers their direct feedback.

Have a look at the video below to learn more about what was announced today, and check back here tomorrow for full video from the event. You can bet it'll be captioned—we'll be uploading the transcript of the event to YouTube, which will turn it into captions that are timed just right.

Virtual Vint in Egypt

2009-11-18T11:46:00.004-05:00

Posted by Susan Pointer, Director of Public Policy and Government Relations, and Maximilian Senges, Policy Analyst

(Cross-posted from the European Public Policy Blog)

It's been an exciting week here in sunny Sharm El Sheikh at the Internet Governance Forum. A highlight for us on the final day here in Egypt was when our chief Internet Evangelist Vint Cert participated via video. In his presentation, Vint emphasized how the forum brings together "a remarkable assembly of people concerned about the Internet and its use on a global scale." He spoke about the huge advantages in human knowledge fostered by the Net - and warned of the many dangers, from spam to outright fraud, that threaten to undermine its true potential.

We laid out our positive conclusion of this international gathering in a blog posted yesterday. At today's 'Taking Stock' session, the overwhelming sentiment in the room was one of strong support for continuation of this multilateral Internet stakeholder forum beyond its current 5-year term. Vint regretted for his "inability" to attend this year's meeting and forcing the delegates to "put up with Virtual Vint." But he vowed to be present in person at next year's Forum. We too are looking forward to participating in next year's Forum in Lithuania, and we commend Kenya for having offered to host a 2011 Forum.

A status check on the Internet Governance Forum

2009-11-17T12:06:00.003-05:00

Posted by Vint Cerf, Chief Internet Evangelist

Delegates from around the world are in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, this week for the annual Internet Governance Forum. This is the fourth year of the IGF, meetings started by the United Nations, the mandate of which is to encourage discussion about cross-cutting international Internet policies. The big question is whether this forum ought to carry on beyond its five-year trial run, which ends next year. We think it should.

Some say that because IGF talks are non-binding, they're ineffective. We think the opposite is true. The unfettered nature of the IGF, while sometimes chaotic, gives it real power. It encourages active participation and free and open discussion. It's this openness and robustness that makes the IGF valuable.

Not that it's always easy, of course. Anyone can attend, anyone can speak, a government official has the same access to the microphone as a civil society representative, a small business as a diplomat. Multiple panel sessions run simultaneously, with delegates choosing the issues that deserve their attention, attendance and time. In fact very much like the internet with no central control but an open platform with choice of direction in the hands of the user and participant.

The IGF thus fosters a textured debate that can serve as an early warning system, alerting stakeholders to important emerging issues. At Google we've used these exchanges to influence our thinking and improve our services. But we've also seen debate influence specialized institutions like ICANN.

We find the healthy debate at the IGF invaluable. We hope it will continue to be a critical forum for important Internet policy issues like open access, Internet abuse, free expression and privacy.

Modifications to the Google Books Settlement

2009-11-13T23:54:00.001-05:00

Posted by Dan Clancy, Google Books Engineering Director

Last year, we joined with a broad class of authors and publishers to announce a settlement agreement that would make millions of out-of-print books available to students and readers in every part of the U.S., while forging new opportunities for rightsholders to sell access to their books. Tonight we submitted an amended version of the Google Books settlement agreement to the court.

We've traveled all over the world together with the authors and publishers to talk with people about our agreement, and over the last two months, we've read the many letters and briefs written to the court. We've also had discussions with the Department of Justice about the settlement.

The changes we've made in our amended agreement address many of the concerns we've heard (particularly in limiting its international scope), while at the same time preserving the core benefits of the original agreement: opening access to millions of books while providing rightsholders with ways to sell and control their work online. You can read a summary of the changes we made here, or by reading our FAQ.

We firmly believe in the promise of the agreement, as do our many supporters. As Sergey Brin recently wrote in a recent op-ed, "even if our cultural heritage stays intact in the world’s foremost libraries, it is effectively lost if no one can access it easily."

We're disappointed that we won't be able to provide access to as many books from as many countries through the settlement as a result of our modifications, but we look forward to continuing to work with rightsholders from around the world to fulfill our longstanding mission of increasing access to all the world's books.

If you'd like to hear more, you can join Chairman of the American Association of Publishers Richard Sarnoff, Authors Guild Executive Director Paul Aiken and me for a public conference call at 9:15 PM Pacific/12:15 AM Eastern to discuss our amended agreement.

You can find more perspectives on the agreement from authors and publishers here and here.

UPDATE (2:40AM ET): For a replay of the call, use the following phone number and passcode:

Toll free: 888-203-1112
Replay Passcode: 3915040

We've removed the outdated conference call number from the post.

Locking SafeSearch

2009-11-12T17:58:00.004-05:00

Posted by Pete Lidwell, Product Manager and Aaron Arcos, Engineer

(Cross-posted from Official Google Blog)

When you're searching on Google, we think you should have the choice to keep adult content out of your search results. That's why we developed SafeSearch, a feature that lets you filter sexually explicit web sites and images from your search results. While no filter is 100% accurate, SafeSearch helps you avoid content you may prefer not to see or would rather your children did not stumble across. We think it works pretty well, but we're always looking for ways to improve the feature.

Today we're launching a feature that lets you lock your SafeSearch setting to the Strict level
of filtering. When you lock SafeSearch, two things will change. First, you'll need to enter your password to change the setting. Second, the Google search results page will be visibly different to indicate that SafeSearch is locked:

Even from across the room, the colored balls give parents and teachers a clear visual cue that SafeSearch is still locked. And if you don't see them, it's quick and easy to verify and re-lock SafeSearch.

To use SafeSearch lock, go to the "Search Settings" page on Google. For detailed instructions, check out this video.

We hope you and your family find exactly what you’re looking for in Google search results — and nothing more.

Making health-related ads more useful

2009-11-12T16:34:00.007-05:00

Posted by Pablo Chavez, Managing Policy Counsel

This afternoon we're taking part in the Food and Drug Administration's public hearing to discuss the online advertising of regulated medical products on the Internet. The two day hearing - being live cast and Tweeted - is intended to help guide the FDA's policy decisions, especially in the areas of social media tools and search.

We think it's an important conversation and we share their goal of better understanding how to promote medical products online in a non-misleading and balanced manner. That's why at today's FDA hearing, we proposed a new Google ad design for FDA-related approved products that highlights an extra line of text clearly stating important risks, with a link to even more information for consumers. We think this new format will help set a clear standard for advertisers and give users important information.

The Internet, and how people use it, has changed a lot since the FDA last examined access to online health information in 1996. On Google alone, we've seen health condition searches increase several times over. What this tells us is that people find health related searches - and the ads they return - useful. We think this new ad proposal for FDA-approved products will make those searches even more helpful.

Apply for a summer 2010 Google Policy Fellowship

2009-11-11T15:41:00.002-05:00

Posted by Joe Sexton, Fellowship Coordinator

Internet policy wonks are different. When the weather gets colder and most people think about planning their July beach vacation, we think about what's going to be on July's docket at the FCC, or what tech legislation will be moving through Congress. Good news is, we're not the only ones.

Every year Google helps place aspiring Internet policy thought leaders with organizations that are leading the debate on big ideas like spreading broadband access, protecting free speech, closing the digital divide, and keeping users safe online.

If you're in college or grad school and you're like us, you won't want to miss the chance to become a summer 2010 Google Policy Fellow.

Fellows spend ten weeks working on policy issues critical to the future of the Internet and its users at one of our outstanding host organizations, including: American Library Association, Cato Institute, Center for Democracy and Technology, Competitive Enterprise Institute, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Internet Education Foundation, Media Access Project, New America Foundation, Public Knowledge, Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, The Citizen Lab, Creative Commons, Future of Music Coalition, Progress and Freedom Foundation, Technology Policy Institute. We're also thrilled to welcome for 2010: The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies and National Hispanic Media Coalition.

You can take a look at some of the great work these groups have planned for this summer and learn more about the program at our website.

We can't wait to hear from you, so get going on your application, which is due Monday, December 28.

World Bank public data, now in search

2009-11-11T15:18:00.004-05:00

Posted by Chung Wu, Software Engineer

(Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog.)

When we first launched public data on Google.com, we wanted to make statistics easier to find and to encourage debate based on facts rather than intuition. The day after we launched, a friend who worked at the World Bank called me, her voice filled with enthusiasm, "Did you know that the World Bank also just released an API for their data?" Excited, I checked it out, and found an amazing treasure trove of statistics for most economies in the world. After some hard work and analysis, today we're happy to announce that 17 World Development Indicators(list below*) are now conveniently available to you in Google search.

With today's update, you can quickly access more data with a broad range of queries. Search should be intuitive, so we've done the work to think through queries where public data will be most relevant to you. To see the new data, try queries like [gdp of indonesia], [life expectancy brazil ], [rwanda's population growth], [energy use of iceland], [co2 emissions of iceland] and [gdp growth rate argentina]. For example, if you search for [internet users in the united states], you will see the following chart at the top of the results page:

Clicking on the result will bring you to an interactive chart where you can compare the United States with other regions around the world. We've also added a new feature to enable you to embed these charts in your own website or blog by clicking on the "Link" button in the upper right-hand corner of the chart page. You have the option to either embed the chart with static data, or you can also set the chart to update dynamically when new data becomes available. To give you a sense of what these charts look like, we've embedded the chart below comparing Internet users in the United States and South Korea:

We hope this new data and our new embedding feature will help facilitate quick and easy access to public statistics. There are still many other data sets and sources out there, and we're excited about the possibilities for the future. If you're a data publisher interested in making your data more easily discoverable in Google, please contact us.

* Complete list of World Bank indicators currently available: CO2 emissions per capita,Electricity consumption per capita, Energy use per capita, Exports as percentage of GDP,Fertility rate, GDP deflator change, GDP growth rate, GNI per capita in PPP dollars, Gross Domestic Product, Gross National Income in PPP dollars, Imports as percentage of GDP,Internet users as percentage of population, Life expectancy, Military expenditure as percentage of GDP, Mortality rate, under 5, Population, and Population growth rate.

Google Voice invitations for Blue Star Families

2009-11-10T16:18:00.001-05:00

Posted by Jason Toff, Associate Product Marketing Manager

(Cross-posted on Google Voice blog)

Military families face dozens of challenges every day. The life of a military spouse and a military family is never easy. It's a life of sacrifice and patience, but it's also one of pride and patriotism.

To help families better stay in touch with their loved ones, this Veterans Day we're partnering with Blue Star Families to give priority Google Voice invitations to the families of U.S. service members involved in the organization. Blue Star Families is a group of military spouses from all over the country who work hard to educate civilian communities and leaders about the hardships faced by military families.

Military families encounter unique challenges and frequent separations, so staying in touch is vitally important. With one Google Voice number, families won't have to worry about missing calls from service members abroad.

Google Voice can make communication one less worry for these families, and hopefully bring them a little bit closer to their loved ones.

Remembering the Fall of the Berlin Wall

2009-11-09T16:56:00.002-05:00

Posted by Dorothy Chou, Policy Analyst

If you used Google today you may have noticed we highlighted a LIFE Photo Archive slideshow commemorating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Check it out, if you haven't already. The photos are a powerful reminder of how the Berlin Wall stood as both a physical and symbolic boundary between communist East Germany and democratic West Germany.

Debating the future of innovation at the Supreme Court

2009-11-09T16:06:00.004-05:00

Posted by Michelle Lee, Deputy General Counsel and Head of Patents and Patent Strategy

This afternoon the U.S. Supreme Court considered oral arguments in Bilski v. Kappos, a potential landmark case in intellectual property law that will determine what kinds of business methods and software processes deserve patent protection.

The case has to do with two businessmen who sued the Patent and Trademark Office after it denied them a patent on a method for hedging risks in energy commodities trading. In a 9-3 decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled against the plaintiffs, holding that abstract ideas and mental processes are not eligible for patent protection. Under the law, a patentable method must either be tied to a particular machine, or transform an article from one state to another.

This case is critical to the future of innovation in the United States. A recent flood of patents on business methods and abstract software processes has contributed to uncertainty and an explosion of expensive lawsuits. The Constitution permits Congress to create patent laws "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts," and we support patent rules that effectively further that goal. But awarding patents on abstract ideas and processes, like the claim at issue in the Bilski case, poses a serious threat to innovation, job creation, and economic growth.

An editorial in Sunday's New York Times hits the nail on the head:

"Patents perform a useful function, promoting innovation by ensuring inventors the right to profit from their creations for a period of time. But overprotection through patents is as dangerous as under protection. It can stifle competition... Not every bright idea should be protected as a property right."

Earlier this year we joined a number of companies in filing an amicus curiae brief, asking the Supreme Court to uphold the lower court's decision and the original intent and language of the law. The revolution in information technology should be built on innovation, not litigation.

Investing in a mobile future with AdMob

2009-11-09T12:32:00.003-05:00

Posted by Susan Wojcicki, Vice President, Product Management and Vic Gundotra, Vice President, Engineering

(Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog)

We're happy to announce today that we have signed an agreement to acquire AdMob, a mobile display advertising company based in San Mateo, CA. AdMob is a great Silicon Valley story — founded in 2006 by Omar Hamoui when he couldn't find good ways to generate traffic for his mobile site. Over the past few years, Omar and his talented team have built a thriving company with great mobile advertising products, and we are looking forward to having them join the Google team and work with us on the future of mobile advertising.

We've written in the past about how mobile phones are becoming an increasingly indispensable part of our daily lives, and we continue to see how great devices with full Internet browsers and vibrant app marketplaces are driving an explosion of usage. In fact:

iPhone and Android users browse the Internet more often than anyone else [Morgan Stanley], contributing to Google's 5x mobile search growth over the past two years
And a quarter of these same iPhone and Android users spend nearly 90 minutes per day using applications on their devices [AdMob]

Despite the tremendous growth in mobile usage and the substantial investment by many businesses in the space, the mobile web is still in its early stages. We believe that great mobile advertising products can encourage even more growth in the mobile ecosystem. That's what has us excited about this deal.

For publishers of mobile websites and applications, this deal will mean better products and tools and more effective monetization of their content — allowing them to focus more on their users and less on how to generate revenue.

For advertisers who want to reach users when they are engaged with mobile content, this deal will bring better, more relevant ads and greater reach. It will also mean more interesting, engaging ad formats.

Last, but certainly not least, we believe users will benefit from this deal — through more mobile content and through better mobile ads that deliver useful information. And that's good for all of us. For more information, check out this site that we've set up about the deal.

Transparency, choice and control - now complete with a Dashboard!

2009-11-05T09:50:00.004-05:00

Posted by Alma Whitten, Software Engineer, Yariv Adan, Product Manager, and Marissa Mayer, VP of Search Products and User Experience

(Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog.)

Today, we are excited to announce the launch of Google Dashboard. Have you ever wondered what data is stored with your Google Account? The Google Dashboard offers a simple view into the data associated with your account — easily and concisely in one location.

Over the past 11 years, Google has focused on building innovative products for our users. Today, with hundreds of millions of people using those products around the world, we are very aware of the trust that you have placed in us, and our responsibility to protect your privacy and data. In the past, we've taken numerous steps in this area, investing in educating our users with our Privacy Center, making it easier to move data in and out of Google with our Data Liberation Front, and allowing you to control the ads you see with interest-based advertising. Transparency, choice and control have become a key part of Google's philosophy, and today, we're happy to announce that we're doing even more.

In an effort to provide you with greater transparency and control over their own data, we've built the Google Dashboard. Designed to be simple and useful, the Dashboard summarizes data for each product that you use (when signed in to your account) and provides you direct links to control your personal settings. Today, the Dashboard covers more than 20 products and services, including Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Web History, Orkut, YouTube, Picasa, Talk, Reader, Alerts, Latitude and many more. The scale and level of detail of the Dashboard is unprecedented, and we're delighted to be the first Internet company to offer this — and we hope it will become the standard. Watch this quick video to learn more and then try it out for yourself at www.google.com/dashboard.

Next steps in cyber security awareness

2009-11-02T15:39:00.001-05:00

Posted by Eric Davis, Head of Anti-Malvertising

Last week I joined several industry experts to speak at a cyber security panel on Capitol Hill organized by Congresswoman Yvette Clarke and sponsored by the Committee on Homeland Security. The conversation focused on things everyday Internet users can do to help protect their computers and stay safe online. Given that we just wrapped up our observation of National Cyber Security Awareness Month, I thought I'd share some of the key recommendations from the panel:

What are the most important things we all need to do to protect our computers and mobile devices?
You should have the same expectations when using the Internet as you would when exploring a city: you don't give your credit card to the person selling watches on the street just because you recognize the brand, you don't let your kids wander around by themselves and you don't give personal information unless you know who's getting it. If an offer is "urgent" or seems too good to be true, take a step back and research the offer. Add a password to your mobile phone, and browse cautiously on open WiFi networks as you would when using a computer.

What are the most common misconceptions about cyber security?
Many dangerous websites are not designed to be dangerous. In fact, most of the sites that serve malware (malicious software) are innocent sites that have been compromised in one way or another. Your computer isn't necessarily safe just because you're avoiding sites that contain adult content or pirated software. Use reputable anti-virus and anti-spyware programs, and keep your computer operating system and applications updated with the latest software versions.

How do I know if my computer or network has been compromised?
First, disconnect it from the Internet. Take note of any slowness, and if you're not sure how to proceed, get someone with technical expertise to check your network logs for high traffic appearing during times when you're not using the computer. When in doubt, contact a computer support expert.

As President Obama recently stated, cyber security is a shared responsibility. At Google, we recognize how important awareness and education are because many online security threats can only be avoided if we work together.

We spent the month of October exploring cyber security and talking about how to use Google products in a more secure manner. If you haven't seen them already, take a look at the posts we've released over the last month:

Be sure to share the tips you find most helpful with others, and remember to stay safe online.

Bridging the digital literacy gap

2009-11-02T11:03:00.001-05:00

Posted by Dorothy Chou, Policy Analyst

It's important that parents and educators help kids to develop healthy, safe, and responsible online habits. But this can be a challenge, even for the tech-savviest families.

That's why we're launching a tour with iKeepSafe to help parents and educators across the country become more involved in kids' online activities. To kick-off the tour, we're sponsoring a panel discussion on Capitol Hill to address some of the key issues around digital media literacy, including how to talk to kids about maintaining their online reputations.

Over the past year, we've been working with the PointSmart.ClickSafe. Task Force to help policy leaders get up to speed on many online safety topics. This initiative is a direct outcome of the recommendations the group released in July.

"Playing and Staying Safe Online"
An expert panel discussion on how to help kids become responsible members of the digital community.

Panelists:

Dr. Michael Rich, Director of the Center on Media and Child Health at Children's Hospital Boston, Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health
Dr. Harry Bloom, Director, California Technology Assistance Project
Lt. Joe Laramie, Director, Missouri ICAC Task Force
Darlene Faster, COO, Center for Social and Emotional Education

Moderator:

Marsali Hancock, iKeepSafe President

With special presentations from Google and WoogiWorld.

When: Tuesday, November 3, Noon - 1:30pm
Where: Room B-354, Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, D.C.

Lunch will be served.

Please click here to RSVP.

We look forward to seeing you tomorrow on Capitol Hill. Stay tuned for more announcements about when we'll be coming to your local community -- and in the meantime, check out our new instructional videos to about how to help your family stay safe on the Web:

A price on carbon -- necessary but not sufficient

2009-10-29T18:05:00.001-04:00

Posted by Dan Reicher, Director of Climate Change & Energy Initiatives

The need to address the climate crisis provides us with an unprecedented opportunity to rebuild our energy system with vast economic, security, and environmental benefits. By putting significant limits on carbon emissions –- and adopting strong complementary energy policies -- we can create millions of new U.S. jobs, reduce our dangerous dependence on foreign energy, and protect ourselves from a global climate crisis. Yesterday I testified on just this subject before the U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.

Google published a scenario last year called Clean Energy 2030, which outlines one potential path to a clean energy future. The Clean Energy 2030 proposal would reduce U.S. CO2 emissions about 50% below the baseline projection, while creating 9 million new jobs and net savings of $800 billion.

The ability of the U.S. to seize this historic economic opportunity will be influenced, to a large extent, by actions taken by government to put a significant price on carbon emissions. But a significant price on carbon, while absolutely necessary, is not sufficient to address the climate problem and will not put the U.S. in the position to seize the extraordinary opportunities that will come with rebuilding the global energy economy.

There are four complementary energy policy mechanisms that will be critical to taking advantage of these opportunities:

First, we must significantly increase public funding of research and development of advanced energy technologies. In 1980 ten percent of the total government R&D investment was in energy. Today, it is only two percent.
Second, we must increase the capital available to deploy these advanced technologies at commercial scale.
Third, we must build a smarter and bigger electric grid to better harness energy efficiency and renewable energy. A smarter grid will let us see and understand our energy use, measure it, price it and manage it -- to get the most out of every watt. And a bigger grid will allow us to tap our nation's vast clean energy resources and deliver them where needed.
Fourth, we must set national standards to accelerate the uptake of cleaner and more efficient technologies.

Check out video of my opening testimony below, or read it here. You can also view an archived webcast of the full hearing on the Committee's website.

Our response to the FCC on Google Voice

2009-10-28T17:43:00.003-04:00

Posted by Richard Whitt, Washington Telecom and Media Counsel

In our response today to the FCC's inquiry about Google Voice, we announced that our engineers have developed a tailored solution for restricting calls to specific numbers engaged in what some have called high-cost "traffic pumping" schemes, like adult chat and "free" conference call lines.

We went to work on this fix because earlier this year, we noticed an extremely high number of calls were being made to an extremely small number of destinations. In fact, the top 10 telephone prefixes -- the area code plus the first three digits of a seven digit number, e.g., 555-555-XXXX -- generated more than 160 times the expected traffic volumes, and accounted for a whopping 26 percent of our monthly connection costs.

To prevent these schemes from exploiting the free nature of Google Voice -- making it harder for us to offer this new service to users -- we began restricting calls to certain telephone number prefixes. But over the past few weeks, we've been looking at ways to do this on a more granular level. We told the FCC today that Google Voice now restricts calls to fewer than 100 specific phone numbers, all of which we have good reason to believe are engaged in traffic pumping schemes.

While we've developed a fix to address this problem, the bottom line is that we still believe the Commission needs to repair our nation's broken carrier compensation system. The current system simply does not serve consumers well and these types of schemes point up the pressing need for reform.

Smart grid stimulus is big win for consumers

2009-10-27T20:53:00.001-04:00

Posted by Michael Terrell, Energy Policy Counsel

President Obama today announced $3.4 billion in federal stimulus funding to build a "smarter" electricity grid. The funds are the largest single energy grid modernization investment in U.S. history, according to the Department of Energy, and are expected to create tens of thousands of jobs.

We're excited because the vast majority of the projects will benefit consumers directly by giving them tools and information to save energy and cut utility bills. For example, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District will receive $127 million to install 600,000 smart meters and 50,000 programmable thermostats and home energy management systems. Oklahoma Gas and Electric Company will receive $130 million to provide 771,000 meters to 100% of its customers. These technologies will enable consumers to receive direct feedback on their energy use, which can lead to energy savings of up to 15% on average. Altogether the awards will fund the installation of 18 million smart meters, 1 million in-home energy displays and 170,000 smart thermostats.

With the advent of smart meters and other information technologies, we have the opportunity to rebuild the electricity grid, which still uses century-old technology in places. Most importantly, we can make the grid work better for consumers. Today's announcement is an ambitious step toward that goal.

Energy Secretary Chu visits Googleplex

2009-10-27T12:03:00.003-04:00

Posted by Michael Terrell, Energy Policy Counsel

(Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog.)

Secretary of Energy Dr. Steven Chu joined us at the Google campus yesterday to talk about how the U.S. can build a prosperous economy powered by clean energy.

During a fireside chat with Googlers and our CEO Eric Schmidt, Secretary Chu talked about what it will take to create a clean energy revolution. When it comes to clean tech investments, he said, the Department of Energy is trying to "hit home runs, not base hits." He noted that there are many proposed solutions to climate change out there, and we need to pursue all of them. "The scale of what we need to do is enormous," said Secretary Chu, and "putting the world on a carbon diet" and dramatically bringing down the cost of clean energy and should be top priorities. If we succeed, it will "drive a new industrial revolution."

Secretary Chu also heard from Googlers about some of our own clean energy projects including Google PowerMeter, which gives consumers access to their energy use information, developing renewable energy that is cheaper than coal (REdatacenters the most energy efficient in the world. "More companies need to get on board and make this part of their business plan," said the Secretary.

While in Mountain View, Secretary Chu announced $151 million in funding for 37 breakthrough energy projects in technologies like renewable power, energy efficiency and electric cars. The funding is being made available through the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), a newly-launched organization within the Department of Energy (DOE) created to support high-risk, high-reward research into innovative energy technologies. ARPA-E is modeled on the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the agency that funded research that eventually led to the creation of the Internet.

(We'll post the full video of the Secretary's talk soon — check back later to watch!)

Update (10-29): Check out the video below.

Helping Virginians vote

2009-10-26T17:25:00.000-04:00

Posted by Dan Berlin, Public Sector Engineering Manager

(Cross-posted from the Google Public Sector Blog.)

Last year we worked with partners to launch tools that made it easier to find basic voting information like when to register, where to vote, and how to contact your local election office.

We're back at it this year, helping Virginians vote in the upcoming 2009 general election with the Virginia Voting Info Map and gadget, which uses a data feed built by the Virginia State Board of Elections.

If you vote in Virginia, you can enter the home address where you're registered and receive the following information:

Your polling place address and directions to get there
Candidates on your ballot, along with a link to their websites (when available)
Absentee voting information
Your local election office address and phone number

Here's a working version for you to try out:

You can easily add the gadget to your site, as the Bob McDonnell campaign has done.

The Voting Information Project, founded by the Pew Center on the States and Google, works with election officials to organize voting data across the United States, giving voters and developers easier access to useful election information. Stay tuned to learn about ways you can help bring the project to your county or state in preparation for the 2010 elections.