Europe Blog
Our views on the Internet and society
Meeting a royal leader in Belgium
Thursday, April 26, 2012
It’s not everyday that you meet a crown prince to discuss the future of the Internet. We had the privilege this week to address Belgium’s
Prince Philippe
.
Each year, the Prince’s
foundation
invites 16 aspiring young journalists between the age of 20 and 25 to compete in a journalism contest called
Belgodyssee
- Belgian Odyssey.
Winners are picked in December. Importantly, the contestants come from all the Belgian’s three (French, Dutch and German) language communities and they are obliged to work together.
Before the competition begins, the contestants attend series of master class courses on journalism. Google was invited to speak about freedom of speech, alongside Belgium's top-notch journalists Alain Gerlache of French-speaking RTBF and Luc Rademakers, the editor in chief of Flemish national television VRT. In addition to this year’s contestants, more than 100 participants in previous years attended the event at the Residence Palace in Brussels.
All three lectures focused on journalistic responsibility in dealing with new social media and on freedom of expression on the net. We presented our approach to these issues. The debate was animated and the Prince himself intervened with a question about the limits of free expression. As a company with the explicit mission to “make all the world’s information universally accessible and useful” - we explained how we protect our users’ privacy in the face of government demands for information and how we grapple with the tough question of how much speech is too much speech.
Right now we are standing at a critical crossroads in ensuring human rights and civil liberties for people around the world. Its good to know that royal leaders are taking note and the next generation of journalists is taking interest.
Posted by Tineke Meijerman, Communications, Benelux
Launching an Internet lecture program
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
In March, Belgium’s Prime Minister
Elio Di Rupo
visited our Brussels headquarters to celebrate our
partnership
with the Mundaneum, a pioneering 1920's Belgian project that we see as, in many ways, an ancestor of Google.
This month marked the launch of our joint lecture series, with an evening exploring linguistic diversity on the Web.The Mundaneum’s headquarters in the southern Belgian city of Mons was packed for the first Google-sponsored lecture. I was privileged to introduce the main speaker
Louis Pouzin
, the inventor of the
datagram
and designer of an early
packet
communications network.
From Google’s perspective, the Net offers fantastic possibilities to promote local languages. Our
Google Translate
now serves 53 languages, from Afrikaans to Yiddish, including Basque, Gujarati, and Swahili. At the click of a computer mouse, web pages can be instantaneously translated, allowing anybody, anywhere, to understand a web page.
In other ways, too, Google is committed to reviving and promoting local culture. Our partnership with Mundaneum is part of a larger project to revive the memory of Europe’s computing pioneers. The next lecture at the Mundaneum is scheduled for this autumn.
Robert Cailliau
, a Belgian computer scientist who, together with
Sir Tim Berners-Lee
, developed the
World Wide Web
. We look forward to seeing you in Mons.
Posted by Thierry Geerts, Managing Director, Belgium
Honoring and supporting Belgian Internet pioneers
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
It’s not everyday that a Prime Minister visits your office. Today, Googlers in our Brussels office were honoured by a visit from Belgium’s
Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo
to celebrate and revive the memory of two unique Belgian inventors and pioneers.
Decades before the creation of the World Wide Web,
Paul Otlet
and
Henri La Fontaine
envisaged a paper archival system of the world’s information. They built a giant international documentation centre called
Mundaneum
, with the goal of preserving peace by assembling knowledge and making it accessible to the entire world. For us at Google, this mission sounds familiar.
The two Mundaneum founders met in 1895 and created the modern library
universal decimal classification system
, building from John Dewey’s early work. When La Fontaine won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1913 for his work as an activist in the international peace movement, he invested his winnings into the Mundaneum project, which was already underway. La Fontaine and Otlet collected 3-by-5 inch index cards to build a vast paper database which eventually contained some 16 million entries, covering everything from the history of hunting dogs to finance. The Belgian government granted them space in a government building and Otlet established a fee-based research service that allowed anyone in the world to submit a query via mail or telegraph. Inquiries poured in from all over the world.
World War II and the deaths of La Fontaine in 1943 and Otlet in 1944 slowed the project. Although many of these archives were stored away, some of them in the Brussels subway, volunteers kept the dream alive. In 1998, Belgium’s French community government revived the Mundaneum’s memory, bringing most of the archives to a beautiful Art Deco building in the city of Mons.
That brings us to today. The Prime Minister came to our office to announce a major partnership with the Mundaneum and the University of Ghent. Google will sponsor and partner in both the upcoming exhibition at the Mundaneum headquarters in Mons and a speaker series on Internet issues at the Mundaneum and the University of Ghent. Web pioneers
Louis Pouzin
and
Robert Cailliau
are already scheduled to speak.
Mundaneum will use Google to present and promote its conferences and exhibitions. It has also constructed an
online tour
of its dazzling premises. At today’s event in the Google Brussels office, Prime Minister Di Rupo said he hopes that the Google-Mundaneum cooperation becomes a “wonderful forum for experimentation.” Di Rupo himself is passionate about the Mundaneum; as mayor of Mons, he was instrumental in preserving the archive.
If information was important a century ago, it is even more important in the 21st century. In his remarks, the Prime Minister made the connection between the past and the future, and called on Belgium to embrace the digital economy. We showed him our recently-launched Belgian version of
Street View
. In Belgium, the internet accounts for 2.5% of GDP—and its contribution is expected to grow by more than 10% a year for the next five years. “If all our companies could take better advantages of these new technologies, its sure that our exports would get a boost,” Di Rupo said.
Our partnership with Mundaneum is part of a larger project to revive the memory of Europe’s computing pioneers. Europe played a crucial role in the invention of computers and the Internet, yet all too often has forgotten its innovators. Last year marked the 60th anniversary of
LEO
, the world’s first business computer, built by
J.Lyons & Co
, a leading British food manufacturer at the time that also ran a famous chain of tea shops. This past December, we celebrated the 60th anniversary of the formal recognition of Ukraine’s
Sergey Lebedev’s pioneering MESM project
. We’ve also given our support to help restore
Bletchley Park
, the site of the U.K.’s wartime codebreaking and home of
Colossus
, the world’s first electronic programmable computer.
Now we’re moving to the heart of Europe. “This is a beautiful story between Google and us, which allows us to recognize the memory of the Mundaneum,” says the Mundaneum’s director Jean-Paul Deplus. For Google, it’s just as exciting to rediscover our own roots.
Posted by William Echikson, External Relations, Brussels
Street View comes to to the heart of the European Union
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
Belgium today becomes the 17th European country launched on Street View. From now on, anyone with a computer will be able to visit the country’s 300 castles, 40 UNESCO World Heritage sites, 200 museums, and more than 2000 chocolate shops. In the the capital, Brussels, users can now take a virtual stroll around the famous Grand Place.
View Larger Map
Every day millions of Europeans use Street View to find their destination, make travel plans or get a helping hand with geography homework. Businesses also benefit from the Street View technology by embedding Google Maps directly into their site, helping them to promote a chain of hotels or increase awareness of a local store or restaurant. From the historic ruins of
Pompei
to the majestic
Swiss Alps
, Street View helps preserve and promotes some Europe's most significant heritage sites for future generations.
As we roll out Street View, we have gone to great lengths to safeguard privacy. Street View only contains imagery that is already visible from public roads and features technology that blurs both faces and licence plates. In addition, any user can flag images for removal that he or she considers inappropriate by clicking on "Report a problem." When developing these safeguards, we have consulted extensively with many privacy and community groups. In Belgium, for example, we worked closely with the Belgian Privacy Commission, which published a
press release
of its findings. More information about Street View privacy policies is available at this
web site
.
In the heart of Europe, policymakers now will be able to get a first hand look of Street View. Belgium was one of the founding members of the
European Union
and Brussels is home to many European Union and international headquarters. Users can now explore the area around the European Parliament and the European Commission.
View Larger Map
Beyond Brussels is a world of landscapes, castles and stone-built villages. From the scenic town centre of Bruges to the castles of Bouillon, Belgium’s magnificent sites are now available for all on Street View. The historic battlefield of Waterloo is also now live.
View Larger Map
We’re thrilled to be launching the imagery of this fascinating country. As we continue to expand Street View, we look forward to making more of Europe available for users to explore.
Posted by Michael Valvo, Street View manager
A new YouTube melody for European musicians
Thursday, November 17, 2011
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
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