Europe Blog
Our views on the Internet and society
Freedom burns bright in Prague
Thursday, January 24, 2013
Only two decades ago, the Czech Republic shook off the shackles of authoritarianism and planted the seeds of a vibrant democracy. The Velvet Revolution’s leader
Vaclav Havel
spoke of the “power of the powerless,” explaining how, in a society ruled by lies, truth gains a "singular, explosive, incalculable political power." Although Havel recently passed away, his powerful memory lives on, strong and steady, as made clear at a recent Google-and
Open Society Fund
sponsored event in Prague. A group of top ranking Czech editors met in the cozy Bar and Books to discuss the topic, “The End of Free Media.”
For the past two years, we have partnered with the Open Society Fund on a Journalism Award honoring innovative civic journalism. Our Google Digital Innovation Award celebrates the best online entry. Authors, editors, readers, viewers and listeners are encouraged to nominate interesting articles by February 2013. More info can be found
here
.
Our goal at Bar and Books was to share ideas about the current state of media freedom, potential threats, and steps to protect from government censorship and control. I represented Google on the panel and came away confident that the Czech Republic is a strong ally in the fight for Internet freedom. The Czech government is a founder member with the Netherlands’, Sweden, Estonia, the United States and others of the
Freedom Online alliance
. This December, Prague joined other European allies, in rejecting an
International Telecommunications Union treaty
that could open the door to authoritarian control of the Net.
The Czech capital is also home to a dedicated and broad network of freedom-loving NGOs. It was inspiring to hear from former Czech parliamentarian Oldrich Kuzilek how he has set up an association called
Otevrete
to encourage the government to allow access to taxpayer-funded data. Other organizations such as
Transitions
monitors regional trends in press freedom, while the
Pasos
think tank regroups 56 organizations around the region, united to promote democracy and human rights. Apologies to the NGOs omitted here for reasons of space.
We look forward to cooperating with both the Czech government and Czech civil society in order to promote Internet freedom.
Posted by William Echikson, Head of Free Expression, Europe, Middle East and Africa
Keep the Internet free and open
Monday, December 3, 2012
Cross-posted with the
Official Google Blog
Update December 17, 2012:
At the conclusion of the ITU meeting in Dubai last Friday, 89 countries signed the treaty, while 55 countries said they would not sign or that additional review was needed. We stand with the countries who refused to sign, and with the
millions of you
who have voiced your support for a free and open web.
Starting in 1973, when my colleagues and I proposed the technology behind the Internet, we advocated for an open standard to connect computer networks together. This wasn’t merely philosophical; it was also practical.
Our protocols were designed to make the networks of the Internet non-proprietary and interoperable. They avoided “lock-in,” and allowed for contributions from many sources. This openness is why the Internet creates so much value today. Because it is borderless and belongs to everyone, it has brought unprecedented freedoms to billions of people worldwide: the freedom to create and innovate, to organize and influence, to speak and be heard.
But starting in a few hours, a closed-door
meeting
of the world’s governments is taking place in Dubai, and regulation of the Internet is on the agenda. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is convening a conference from December 3-14 to revise a decades-old
treaty
, in which only governments have a vote. Some proposals could allow governments to justify the censorship of legitimate speech, or even cut off Internet access in their countries.
You can read more about my concerns on
CNN.com
, but I am not alone. So far, more than 1,000 organizations from more than 160 countries have
spoken up too
, and they’re joined by hundreds of thousands of Internet users who are standing up for a free and open Internet. On an interactive map at
freeandopenweb.com
, you can see that people from all corners of the world have signed our petition, used the #freeandopen hashtag on social media, or created and uploaded videos to say how important these issues are.
If you agree and want to support a free and open Internet too, I invite you to join us by signing the petition at
google.com/takeaction
. Please make your voice heard and spread the word.
Posted by Vint Cerf, VP and Chief Internet Evangelist
Speak2Tweet goes live in Syria
Friday, November 30, 2012
A little less than two years ago, when Internet access was cut off in Egypt, we worked with Twitter to launch
Speak2Tweet
, giving the ability for anyone to tweet using just a voice connection.
Since yesterday, our Transparency Report
has shown
that Internet access is completely cut off in Syria.
Unfortunately we are hearing reports that mobile phones and landlines aren’t working properly either. But those who might be lucky enough to have a voice connection can still use Speak2Tweet by simply leaving a voicemail on one of these international phone numbers (+90 212 339 1447 or +30 21 1 198 2716 or +39 06 62207294 or +1 650 419 4196), and the service will tweet the message.
No Internet connection is required, and people can listen to the messages by dialing the same phone numbers or going
here
.
Posted by Maha Abouelenein, Head of Communications, Europe, Middle East and Africa
Transparency Report: government requests on the rise
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Cross-posted with the
Official Google Blog
We think it’s important to shine a light on how government actions could affect our users. When we first launched the
Transparency Report
in early 2010, there wasn’t much data out there about how governments sometimes hamper the free flow of information on the web. So we took our first step toward greater transparency by disclosing the number of government requests we received. At the time, we weren’t sure how things would look beyond that first snapshot, so we pledged to release numbers twice a year. Today we’re updating the Transparency Report with data about government requests from January to June 2012.
This is the sixth time we’ve released this data, and one trend has become clear: Government surveillance is on the rise. As you can see from the graph below, government demands for user data have increased steadily since we first launched the Transparency Report. In the first half of 2012, there were 20,938 inquiries from government entities around the world. Those requests were for information about 34,614 accounts.
The number of government requests to remove content from our services was largely flat from 2009 to 2011. But it’s spiked in this reporting period. In the first half of 2012, there were 1,791 requests from government officials around the world to remove 17,746 pieces of content.
You can see the country-by-country trends for requests to hand over
user data
and to
remove content
from our services in the Transparency Report itself, but in aggregate around the world, the numbers continue to go up.
As always, we continue to improve the Transparency Report with each data release. Like before, we’re including
annotations
for this time period with interesting facts. We’re also
showing new bar graphs
with data in addition to tables to better display content removal trends over time. We’ve now translated the entire Transparency Report into 40 languages, and we’ve expanded our FAQ—including one that explains how we sometimes
receive falsified court orders
asking us to remove content. We do our best to verify the legitimacy of the documents we receive, and if we determine that any are fake, we don’t comply.
The information we disclose is only an isolated sliver showing how governments interact with the Internet, since for the most part we don’t know what requests are made of other technology or telecommunications companies. But we’re heartened that in the past year, more companies like
Dropbox
,
LinkedIn
,
Sonic.net
and
Twitter
have begun to share their statistics too. Our hope is that over time, more data will bolster public debate about how we can best keep the Internet free and open.
Posted by Dorothy Chou, Senior Policy Analyst
Supporting bottom-up, multi-stakeholder Internet governance
Monday, November 5, 2012
UPDATE:
A highlight video of the Big Tent Baku is now available. Please take a look.
The Internet has been built from the bottom up. From its origins as a US Government research project, private business, public authorities, civil society, academia and 2.3 billion users have built it over the past three decades into a global information network. Today, we stand at a crossroads as more than a thousand representatives of Internet businesses, NGOs, and governments assemble in Azerbaijan at the
United Nations Seventh Intergovernmental Forum.
While the Net has grown to embrace and enhance almost every human activity, more and more governments, unnerved by its revolutionary freedoms, are seeking to constrain its use. According to the Open Net Initiative, some 42 countries censor, filter or block content on the web. Google is going to Azerbaijan to stand up for freedom and openness of the Internet. At the Internet Governance Forum, all of us can make contributions. All our voices are heard. The Net's value is found in its generalized nature, its abilities to allow all shades of colour to be displayed.
Many of the same governments that restrict Net freedom in their home countries want to interfere with this success story. Some are proposing to impose a new United Nations agency to govern the Net. Others want to use the already established, Geneva-based International Telecommunication Union, as a ‘stalking horse,’ slipping dangerous provisions into a soon-to-be-negotiated telecommunications treaty.
This evening in Azerbaijan, we are hosting a
Big Tent
to discuss these crucial Internet governance issues. Our featured guest is
Vint Cerf,
famed for the role he played in developing the Net’s early technology - and his tireless support for the multi-stakeholder Internet Governance Forum.
At the Big Tent, Baku, we're going to look at this battle for freedom, first hand and up close in Azerbaijan. Our host country is going through a momentous transformation in the two decades since it won independence. It has made huge strides developing its economy. It international profile is rising fast. Yet a strong debate is now underway about freedom of speech. Some bloggers have been imprisoned. Others face restrictions on what they can say online. At the Big Tent, we will show an excerpt from a
film
about
Internet freedom in Azerbaijan.
Under the UN's own convention, each and every one of us enjoys the right to express ourselves freely. We recognize that the limits of free speech are open for debate - different cultural norms allow different levels of expression. We ourselves do not accept certain types of content on Google platforms - for example, videos that incite violence, or child pornography. Wherever we operate locally, we respect local law, even if that means pulling down content that's legal elsewhere. But our bottom line remains a strong preference for keeping the Net as open and free as possible.
Posted by William Echikson, Head of Free Expression, Europe, Middle East and Africa
Blogging in Solidarity's shadow
Sunday, October 28, 2012
Three decades ago in Gdansk, Poles rose up and created a marvel - an independent trade union Solidarity that, after a decade of non-violent struggle, threw off the shackles of communism. Today, the country is part of the European Union and has created a vibrant free market democracy - making it a potential leader in pushing Internet freedom. I travelled to Solidarity's birthplace, to give the keynote speech at the largest conference of Polish bloggers,
Blog Forum Gdansk
.
More than 200 young, energetic bloggers (and 120,000 online viewers) assembled in the conference room of the sparkling new
Gdansk Stadium
, constructed for the
Euro 2012 tournament
. In a keynote speech, we outlined the promise and perils of Internet freedom. For me, it was a moving moment - I remember covering the Solidarity revolution in the 1980s as a journalist and I compared how I took notes almost in secret and only could publish my stories after I left the country. Now Tweets and blogs were published direct from the conference room, in real time.
In many ways, Poland should be ripe for Internet freedom to flourish. More than any other Central European country under Soviet rule, Poland resisted and kept the spirit of free discourse alive with a vibrant
samizdat
press. Estonia recently captured first place in
Freedom House's rankings
and has become the poster-child for post-communist freedom fighters. Despite some initiatives supporting an open internet, Poland remains ranked at a distant 17th place.
Why? Our meetings with bloggers and NGOs in both Warsaw and Gdansk illustrated how the power of the Internet to revolutionise free expression is not yet full understood. Many complain about a worrying rise of hate speech. Many politicians are angry about comments posted on the free Internet, and libel and defamation suits proliferate. Some Polish court rulings seem to interpret liability laws in a restrictive way detrimental to Internet platforms, threatening to limit freedom of expression for users.
Our appearance at the Blog Forum Gdansk is just a first step in an effort to encourage change. Over the coming months, we will continue our activities to demonstrate how the Internet provides positive new possibilities for Poles to express themselves.
Posted by William Echikson, Head of Free Expression, Europe, Middle East and Africa
Estonia earns top e-freedom award
Friday, September 28, 2012
Freedom House
launched its the
2012 Freedom on the Net
report in Brussels this week, an appropriate moment given the rising global debate about free expression sparked by a YouTube video that ridicules Islam. The report makes for chilling reading. Online censorship is growing and attacks on bloggers and online critics are mounting. In 19 out of 47 countries Freedom House examined, “restrictions on Internet freedom in many countries have continued to grow.”
Amid the alarming news, an impressive beacon of freedom stood out - Estonia. The Baltic nation ranked first in Freedom House’s rankings. Thanks to a high internet penetration rate and widespread e-commerce and e-government services embedded into the daily lives of individuals and organizations, Estonia has become a model for free internet access as a development engine for society,” reads the report. Estonia has used the net to solidify its freedom from the Soviet Union and ’as a key to economic growth and invested heavily in their development,” reads the report.
Freedom House ranks countries’ “Internet Freedom Status” in three main ways: obstacles to access, limits on content and violations of users’ rights. It also factors in tertiary factors, including internet penetration and blogger arrests. Estonia got high marks in almost every category. Other top scorers included the United States, Germany, and Australia.
Google helped sponsor the report. We hosted its Washington launch, which featured Estonian President
Toomas Hendrik Ilves
. In Brussels, European Parliamentarian
Marietje Schaake
, the rapporteur on digital freedom, used the occasion to call on Europe to step up its defense of Internet liberties, in particular, by heading off attempts by governments to exert
control
through the
International Telecommunications Union
.
Posted by Posted by William Echikson, Head of Free Expression, Europe, Middle East and Africa
Stepping up on free expression in Germany
Thursday, September 20, 2012
Until now, the
German Foreign Ministry
had sponsored one main conference on the Internet - focusing on cybersecurity. Last week, it held a new conference focusing on the counterpart -
cyberfreedom
.
Google was happy to sponsor, along with many others including Microsoft and the eco ( Association of German Internet Industry). In a video address, our Chief Internet Evangelist
Vint Cerf
warned the assembled 120 international experts from the political, academic and business sectors as well as from civil society that the open Internet is threatened as never before. More than 40 countries now censor or filter the net, up from only four a decade ago. "A new international battle is brewing,” Vint said, “a battle that will determine the future of the Internet."
The
conference
coincided with a particularly tense time for Internet free expression, just as an anti-Islam video sparked protests in Egypt and Libya. Foreign Minister
Guido Westerwelle
condemned the video, while insisting that it was no excuse for violence. The fundamental principles of German Cyber Foreign Policy were: freedom, responsibility and transparency,” he said.
Another recent event in Berlin highlighted Google’s commitment to free speech - the second Speakers Corner. Last year, we partnered with
Speakers Corner Trust
to export a bit of Hyde Park to Berlin. Together with our partners, we
celebrated
the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall at the Brandenburg Gate.
This year, we moved the event forward to ensure better weather and to the main site of the protests against the East German communist regime - Alexanderplatz. A wide range of speakers from politics, digital activism, journalism and civil society groups spoke about everything from the future of online piracy to the challenges of a united Germany. It was a joyous occasion - just what we mean by free expression.
Posted by William Echikson, Head of Free Expression, Europe, Middle East and Africa
Embracing Internet Freedom in Africa
Friday, September 7, 2012
Update: Nairobi Freedom Online videos are now
online
.
Internet Freedom is not just a concern just for the West - it’s an essential issue for the entire world. The Freedom Online coalition now counts 18 governments from all over the world, including two in Africa, and, underlining this global reach, the Kenyan government this week hosted the second
Freedom Online Summit
in Nairobi. We supported this initiative, which brought together more than 400 stakeholders from governments, business and NGOs.
The Dutch government launched the
Freedom Online coalition
in the Hague last November. We held a
Big Tent
at the event, which featured, among other luminaries, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. She used the occasion to make a spirited defense of Internet freedom.
Kenya’s decision to hold the second summit demonstrates its role as a tech pacesetter. “I am proud to be the first African country to host this conference which confirms the country's leading role in adoption of information and communication technology in the region," said
Information and Communications Minister Samuel Poghisio
. More than 17 million Kenyans - a little more than a third of the total population, and the highest figure in sub-Saharan Africa - enjoy Internet access.
At Google, we believe free expression can be a spur for economic and social development. The more a country allows different voices to be heard, on and offline, the more knowledge it encourages citizens to obtain. This knowledge translates into innovation,
economic growth
, education and other signs of social success. During the conference, we showed some research demonstrating a strong correlation between the highest rankings in Internet freedom index and social and economic success.
The Freedom Online coalition continues to grow. On Friday, the Tunisian government joined.
Moez Chakchouk
, CEO of the
Tunisian Internet Agency
, announced the decision and vowed to host the coalition’s next summit in Tunis. We look forward to being present and contributing.
Posted by William Echikson, Head of Free Expression, Europe, Middle East and Africa
Face blurring: when footage requires anonymity
Wednesday, July 18, 2012
YouTube is proud to be a place where citizens and activists come to tell their stories -- stories that may otherwise go unnoticed. A
study
released this week by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism found that YouTube is a top destination for news and that “citizens play a substantial role in supplying and producing footage.”
But this level of exposure can mean risk to the citizens shooting the footage and the people who appear in their videos.
Today, we announced a new face blurring tool
that represents a first step toward providing visual anonymity within
our video enhancement tool
.
Of course, anonymity is never a guarantee, and people who capture sensitive video footage should consider taking other precautions to keep themselves and their subjects safe. Here are three suggestions:
Assess your risk. You and the people you film may face risk in every step of filming an advocacy video. You may face risks to your own safety and that of your subjects while filming sensitive footage, during the editing process after you have captured the film, and when you distribute your film online. After assessing the risks you and your subjects face you can make more informed decisions about when to film, whether to distribute your footage, and how widely you want to share it.
Consider other information which may give away identity. Video footage of your face is not the only way someone can detect your identity. Other factors that may be caught on video can also identify you or your subjects. Watch out for vocal identifiers, like the sound of your voice or saying someone’s name on camera. Other visual footage can give away identity like a license plate, a name tag, or even the background scenery. Make sure that the imagery in your videos does not give away information about your location or identity.
Understand local laws. Given the global scope of YouTube, we comply with different sets of laws in the various countries in which we're launched (to see where we're launched, go to the YouTube.com footer and click "Worldwide"). If the content in your video is illegal in one of these countries, we must comply with the local formal legal processes. For instance, that means that in Germany we don't stream videos that are sympathetic to Nazism. Know your local laws before you upload.
Over the past seven years, YouTube has evolved into a destination for citizen reporting. Along with efforts like the
Human Rights Channel
and
Citizentube
that curate these voices, we hope that the new technologies we’re rolling out will facilitate the sharing of even more stories on our platform.
Posted by Amanda Conway, YouTube Policy Associate
Celebrating free expression in Beirut
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
For more than a year, Google has been supporting the
Hay Literary Festival
, as it grew from its origins in Wales into an international organisation. The Hay brings together writers and thinkers, inspiring dialogue around freedom of expression. It recently came to Beirut, its first time ever in the Middle East and North Africa.
The timing was perfect. A new wave of freedom in the Arab world has opened the door for writers to explore new and exciting vistas - and this freedom dominated festival discussions.
One panel featured bloggers from around the region. Samir Elbahaie, Google’s Middle East and North Africa Policy and Government Affairs Manager, spoke with them about the internet and how it is changing people’s lives. Egyptian
Sondos Shabayek
who was at the forefront of the Egyptian revolution and Beirut-based
Moe Ali Nayel
discussed how an open and free web has empowered citizens. Citizens turned to the internet to verify the news when the state media on the ground failed to offer the full picture.
In another lively session , Google’s adviser on freedom of expression and long-time journalist
John Kampfner
moderated a debate around how to ensure respect for human rights. The eclectic panel included
Óscar Guardiola-Rivera
, International Professor of Law and International Affairs, and
Nizar Saghieh
, a leading Lebanese lawyer, legal researcher and human rights activist. Both speakers argued that freedom of expression and human rights were too often framed in Western terms. Saghieh suggested policy makers refer to local and regional cultural norms as much as universal ones, citing the Koran. Guardiola-Rivera said Western governments ignored the clamour for economic rights even though they were regarded as perhaps the most important in developing nations.
Other topics discussed in Beirut ranged from the serious – memories of postwar cities, and the role of writers in sectarian societies – to the more light-hearted and amusing, including a poetry
slam
contest.
It’s great to see the Arab world embrace free expression. The free flow of information spurs creativity and innovation. We believe people make better decisions in their lives when they have more information and look forward to contributing to work toward achieving this goal in the Middle East and North Africa.
Posted by Hind Rasheed, Communications Manager, Middle East and North Africa
Breaking Borders for free expression
Monday, July 2, 2012
Today in Nairobi, at the biannual Global Voices Citizen Media summit, Google and the group
Global Voices
announced the winners of the 2nd Breaking Borders Award. The award honors people who, in the view of Global Voices, are making a difference in the push for a free and open Internet.
The 2012 winners were selected by the board of Global Voices, and come from two regions in the world where free speech is often threatened — North Africa and Central Europe.
In Morocco,
Mamfakinch
has become far and away the most popular Moroccan citizen media portal. The name means "we don't give up" in that nation's Arabic dialect. Mamfakinch uses volunteer editors to aggregate and curate
materials from its contributors. In less than a year, the site grew from a "crazy idea" to a site with more than one million unique visitors.
The other award winner was Budapest-based Atlatszo.hu. Global Voices cited its work in supporting press freedom in Hungary in the wake of the passage of a new, controversial media law.
Atlatszo.hu
has worked to maintain standards of journalistic integrity and quality investigative journalism. The group, led by Marietta Le, recently fought and won an important fight for the
protection of sources
in Hungary.
We are proud to support Global Voices and the work they do to recognize and empower
citizens’ media around the world.
Posted by Bob Boorstin, Director, Global Policy
Big Tent brings transparency debate to Dublin
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
(Throughout this week, we’ll be presenting posts on our Big Tent and its travels around the world. The first dispatch comes from Ireland.)
It was a historic venue for a 21st century debate. We brought our
Big Tent
to the famed “Round Room” of Ireland’s
Mansion House
to coincide with the
Organization of Security and Cooperation’s
meeting on Internet Freedom. Here the
First Dáil
assembled on 21 January 1919 to proclaim the
Irish Declaration of Independence
. This week, here we assembled the Irish high tech community with diplomats and officials from 56 member countries to launch the update of our
Transparency Report
and to debate the danger of government control over the Net.
The danger is certainly rising. More than 40 countries now censor or filter the web, up from only four a decade ago, according to the
Open Net Initiative
. Our Transparency Report details the requests we receive from governments around the world to censor content or collect information on Internet users. This report has proven a powerful tool for freedom of expression. This biannual update shows how some Western governments, not just the usual suspects are censoring legitimate Internet search results.
As the report’s creator Dorothy Chou explained, Google’s report represents only a narrow snapshot. It is limited to a single company. Imagine, she asked the audience, if an entire country came clean. This would give a global look at freedom in their country. The more transparent a government is, the less likely it will be to censor or request information on users. At least, the authorities will think twice before cracking down on the Net.
From this starting point, the Big Tent explored the danger of international organizations, and specifically the International Telecommunications Union, to undermine the bottom-up, sometimes messy system of governing the Internet. Our own chief Internet evangelist
Vint Cerf
outlined the issue in a video address that followed up from his recent New York Times
op ed
.
Estonia’s President
Toomas Hendrik Ilves
and State Department advisor
Alec Ross
continued to debate the issue. The Estonian president warned of “computer savvy despots” who would destroy Internet freedom, harkening back to another United Nations organization, UNESCO, and its attempt to strangle media freedom with a “
new world information and communications order
” in the 1980s.“ In Ross’s view, the free Internet faces an imminent attack from “monsters under the bed.”
The evening ended with an emotional and lyrical exploration of free expression from War Horse author
Michael Morpurgo
. He weaved together a tale about illiteracy, libraries and unicorns, ending with the vow to pursue his right to to say what he wants, and even “believe in unicorns.” The Irish band
Hudson Taylor
, who came to prominence on YouTube, closed the evening.
Big Tent now moves to Israel and to Cannes, to coincide with the world’s largest advertising meeting. Keep a watch out for upcoming reports of these events bringing together diverse viewpoints to debate the impact of the Internet on our world.
Posted by William Echikson, Head of Free Expression, Europe, Middle East and Africa.
More transparency into government requests
Monday, June 18, 2012
About two years ago, we launched our interactive
Transparency Report
. We
started
by disclosing data about government requests. Since then, we’ve been steadily
adding
new features, like graphs showing traffic patterns and disruptions to Google services from different countries. And just a couple weeks ago, we
launched
a new section showing the requests we get from copyright holders to remove search results.
The
traffic
and
copyright
sections of the Transparency Report are refreshed in
near-real-time
, but government request data is updated in six-month increments because it’s a people-driven, manual process. Today we’re releasing data showing government requests to
remove blog posts or videos
or hand over
user information
made from July to December 2011.
Unfortunately, what we’ve seen over the past couple years has been troubling, and today is no different. When we started releasing this data in 2010, we also added annotations with some of the more interesting stories behind the numbers. We noticed that government agencies from different countries would sometimes ask us to remove political content that our users had posted on our services. We hoped this proved an aberration. But now we know it’s not.
This is the fifth data set that we’ve released. And just like every other time before, we’ve been asked to take down political speech. It’s alarming not only because free expression is at risk, but because some of these requests come from countries you might not suspect—Western democracies not typically associated with censorship.
For example, in the second half of last year, Spanish regulators asked us to remove 270 search results that linked to blogs and articles in newspapers referencing individuals and public figures, including mayors and public prosecutors. In Poland, we received a request from a public institution to remove links to a site that criticized it. We didn’t comply with either of these requests.
In addition to releasing new data today, we’re also adding a feature update which makes it easier to see in
aggregate
across countries how many removals we performed in response to court orders, as opposed to other types of requests from government agencies. For the six months of data we’re
releasing today
, we complied with an average of 65 percent of court orders, as opposed to 47 percent of more informal requests. We’ve rounded up some additional interesting facts in the
annotations
section of the Transparency Report.
We realize that the numbers we share can only provide a small window into what’s happening on the web at large. But we do hope that by being transparent about these government requests, we can continue to contribute to the public debate about how government behaviors are shaping our web.
We’re assembling a Big Tent in Dublin tonight precisely to address these alarming issues.
Estonia’s President Toomas Ilves
is among the participants. Years after earning its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, his country fought off a cyber attack. The Estonian government emerged determined not to shut down the Internet, but to keep it open and free.
Burma’s Nobel Peace Prize winner
Aung San Suu Kuy
will also be in the Irish capital this evening to receive an Amnesty International award. As her experience and our Transparency Report show, freedom can never be taken for granted. We must remain vigilant in its defense.
Posted by Dorothy Chou, Senior Policy Analyst
Estonian President debates Internet Freedom at Big Tent
Friday, June 15, 2012
Around the world, Internet freedom is under threat. According to the
Open Net Initiative
, more than 620 million Internet users - 31% of the world’s total Internet users - live in countries where there is substantial or pervasive filtering of online content.
On Monday 18 June, we’ll be hosting a
Big Tent
on the Internet and free expression at the
Mansion House
in Dublin, as part of the official
programme
of Ireland’s Presidency of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (
OSCE
).
This event follows the thought-provoking Big Tent we held in The Hague last November, at which U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave the
keynote speech
.
Monday’s Dublin Big Tent features another special guest:
President Toomas Ilves
of Estonia, pictured at left. Years after earning its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, his country fought off a massive cyber attack. Instead of cracking down on the Internet, Estonia emerged determined to keep it open and free.
We’ll also be hearing from one of the fathers of the Internet,
Vint Cerf
; the U.S. Department of State’s Innovation Advisor
Alec Ross
; and the author of the acclaimed book War Horse,
Michael Morpurgo
, who will offer a lyrical take on free expression in the modern world.
By coincidence, Myanmar’s recently freed Nobel Peace Prize winner
Aung San Sui Kuy
will also be in the Irish capital on Monday evening to receive an Amnesty International award. As her experience demonstrates, freedom can never be taken for granted. We must remain vigilant in its defence.
Posted by William Echikson, Head of Free Expression, Europe, Middle East and Africa
Transparency for copyright removals in search
Friday, May 25, 2012
Cross-posted from the
Official Google Blog
We believe that openness is crucial for the future of the Internet. When something gets in the way of the free flow of information, we believe there should be transparency around what that block might be.
So two years ago we launched the
Transparency Report
, showing when and what information is accessible on Google services around the world. We
started off
by sharing data about the government requests we receive to
remove content
from our services or for
information about our users
. Then we began showing
traffic patterns
to our services, highlighting when they’ve been
disrupted
.
Today we’re expanding the Transparency Report with a
new section on copyright
. Specifically, we’re disclosing the number of requests we get from copyright owners (and the organizations that represent them) to remove Google Search results because they allegedly link to infringing content. We’re starting with search because we remove more results in response to copyright removal notices than for any other reason. So we’re providing information about
who sends
us copyright removal notices, how often, on behalf of which
copyright owners
and for
which websites
. As policymakers and Internet users around the world consider the pros and cons of
different proposals
to address the problem of online copyright infringement, we hope this data will contribute to the discussion.
For this launch we’re disclosing data dating from July 2011, and moving forward we plan on updating the numbers each day. As you can see from the
report
, the number of requests has been increasing rapidly. These days it’s not unusual for us to receive more than 250,000 requests
each week
, which is more than what copyright owners asked us to remove in all of 2009. In the past month alone, we received about 1.2 million requests made on behalf of more than 1,000 copyright owners to remove search results. These requests targeted some 24,000 different websites.
Fighting online piracy is very important, and we don’t want our search results to direct people to materials that violate copyright laws. So we’ve always responded to copyright removal requests that meet the standards set out in the
Digital Millennium Copyright Act
(DMCA). At the same time, we want to be transparent about the process so that users and researchers alike understand what kinds of materials have been removed from our search results and why. To promote that transparency, we have long shared copies of copyright removal requests with
Chilling Effects
, a nonprofit organization that collects these notices from Internet users and companies. We also include a notice in our search results when items have been removed in response to copyright removal requests.
We believe that the time-tested
“notice-and-takedown”
process for copyright strikes the right balance between the needs of copyright owners, the interests of users, and our efforts to provide a useful Google Search experience. Google continues to put substantial resources into improving and streamlining this process. We already mentioned that we’re processing more copyright removal requests for Search than ever before. And we’re also processing these requests faster than ever before; last week our average turnaround time was less than 11 hours.
At the same time, we try to catch erroneous or abusive removal requests. For example, we recently rejected two requests from an organization representing a major entertainment company, asking us to remove a search result that linked to a major newspaper’s review of a TV show. The requests mistakenly claimed copyright violations of the show, even though there was no infringing content. We’ve also seen baseless copyright removal requests being used for anticompetitive purposes, or to remove content unfavorable to a particular person or company from our search results. We try to catch these ourselves, but we also notify webmasters in our
Webmaster Tools
when pages on their website have been targeted by a copyright removal request, so that they can
submit a counter-notice
if they believe the removal request was inaccurate.
Transparency is a crucial element to making this system work well. We look forward to making more improvements to our Transparency Report—offering copyright owners, Internet users, policymakers and website owners the data they need to see and understand how removal requests from both governments and private parties affect our results in Search.
Update
December 11, 2012
: Starting today, anyone interested in studying the data can
download
all the data shown for
copyright removals
in the
Transparency Report
. We are also providing information about how often we remove search results that link to allegedly infringing material. Specifically, we are disclosing how many URLs we removed for each
request
and
specified website
, the overall removal rate for each request and the specific URLs we did not act on. Between December 2011 and November 2012, we removed 97.5% of all URLs specified in copyright removal requests. Read more on
Policy by the Numbers
.
Posted by Fred von Lohmann, Senior Copyright Counsel
Internet at Liberty 2012 Conference: Join the discussion
Monday, May 21, 2012
This week, 300+ Internet activists, policy makers, academics and NGO leaders from over 30 countries, including many from Europe, will gather in Washington, D.C. to discuss the future of free speech online. The event is called
Internet at Liberty 2012
, and we want you to join the discussion.
The future of free expression is uncertain. According to the
Open Net Initiative
, more than 620 million Internet users—31% of the world’s total Internet users—live in countries where there is substantial or pervasive filtering of online content. And when free expression is in jeopardy, so are reporters; as the
Committee to Protect Journalists
found, nearly half of all the writers, editors, and photojournalists imprisoned around the world are online journalists.
Dictatorships and authoritarian regimes are the worst offenders, but democracies around the world are also questioning whether the Internet requires monitoring and supervision. 2012 is a crucial year. As governments are trying to draw the right lines, we are bringing the most challenging and important debates to you via Internet at Liberty 2012.
Join us on May 23 and May 24 by watching our livestream at
YouTube.com/citizentube
, and feel free to Tweet your questions and comments (@InternetLiberty). If you are in the DC area, consider joining us at the event live. You can register
here
. Space is limited, but this is a crucial issue and we want you to participate.
For more information, check out the
detailed schedule of events
.
Posted by Bob Boorstin, Director, Public Policy
Keep the Internet open
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
It was a needed wake up call. Vinton Cerf, our Chief Internet Evangelist, recognised as one of "
the fathers of the Internet
", came to Brussels this week to talk about keeping the Internet open.
At meetings at the European Commission and European Parliament, at a lecture at the University of Leuven, and at other encounters, Vint explained how the Internet stands at a crossroads. Built from the bottom up, powered by the people, it has become a powerful economic engine and a positive social force. But its success has generated a worrying backlash: the number of governments that censor Internet content has grown to 40 today from about four in 2002.
Of course, Vint acknowledged that “like almost every major infrastructure, the Internet can be abused and its users harmed.” But he argued that “we must take great care that the cure for these ills does not do more harm than good.”
In particular, Vint cautioned against a move by governments to seize control of the Net at the International Telecommunication Union, a United Nations organisation which counts 193 countries as its members. The ITU is conducting a review of the international agreements governing telecommunications and aims to expand its regulatory authority to the Internet at a summit scheduled for December in Dubai. Vint warned that such a move holds potentially profound implications for the future of the Internet and all of its users.
Last June, then–Prime Minister Vladimir Putin stated the goal of Russia and its allies as “establishing international control over the Internet” through the ITU. And in September 2011, China, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan submitted a proposal for an “International Code of Conduct for Information Security” to the UN General Assembly, with the goal of establishing government-led “international norms and rules standardizing the behavior of countries concerning information and cyberspace.”
The decisions taken in Dubai in December have the potential to put government handcuffs on the Net. To prevent that - and keep the Internet open and free for the next generations - we need to prevent a fundamental shift in how the Internet is governed. I encourage you to take action now: insist that the debate about Internet governance be transparent and open to all stakeholders.
Posted by Posted by Al Verney, Communications Manager, Brussels
Championing Free Expression - The Hay Festival in Hungary
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
Her father was tortured and her mother was made to kneel on broken glass. Jung Chang, the author of the global sensation
Wild Swans
, which at the last count has sold 13 million copies, talked with passion and humanity about human rights during the Cultural Revolution in China at the first ever
Budapest Hay Festival
this past weekend.
Google has been working with the
Hay Literary Festival
for more than a year, helping it grow from its origins in Wales into an international organisation that now hosts festivals around the globe. This was the first festival ever held in Central Europe.
In Budapest, Chang described how she cornered the late Zairean dictator,
Mobutu Sese Sosuku
, under a hairdryer at a salon in Hong Kong, to persuade him to give details of his friendship with
Mao Tse-tung
. She also revealed how
Imelda Marcos
had a soft spot for
Richard Nixon
.
Another who tackled issues of free speech and technology was rock star turned global activist,
Bob Geldof
. He pointed to strong growth rates in Africa and warned policy makers in Europe and the United States that they ignored the economic potential of Africa, driven in large part by the opening up of the Internet. Other speakers at the two festival included
Tibor Fischer
, the Hungarian-born writer whose parents, both basketball players, fled the country after the Soviet suppression of the 1956 uprising, and Nigerian author
Ben Okri
.
One of the attractions of the Hay festival is the quality of speakers and the diversity of subject matter. Taking its name from a picturesque village on the border of England and Wales, made famous by its bookshops, the Hay Festival has been described as the "Woodstock of the mind.” It attracts tens of thousands of people per day during the 10 days of readings, speeches and interviews. We will unveil our
Big Tent
concept to a Hay audience at this year’s
event
, opening on May 31.
Later in the year, we will participate in four Hay gatherings that come within the Europe, Middle East and Africa region. Beirut takes place in early July, while the autumn will see festivals in Istanbul, Nairobi and Segovia, Spain.
Posted by Richard Schuster, Communications Manager, Google, Hungary
Celebrating World Press Freedom Day
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
Update from Tunis
: UNESCO kicked off its World Press Freedom celebrations here at a ceremony at the presidential palace conducted via Google Hangout. Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki spoke with Freedom House Vice President Daniel Calingaert in Washington DC. The President said that his country's revolution last year "was done in the defense of freedom of expression," vowing that "Tunisia will never give up the freedom of expression is has won." A full two day program on press freedom continues Friday and Saturday under the theme “Media Freedom Helping to Transform Societies: New Voices, Youth and Social Media.”
The United Nations designates every May 3 as
World Press Freedom Day
. The day is designed to raise awareness about of the importance of freedom of the press and remind governments of their commitment to respect and uphold the right to freedom of expression enshrined in the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights
.
This year,
UNESCO
is marking the day in Tunisia. The choice of setting honours the North African country’s recent uprising in favor freedom of expression, one in which the Internet played an important role. On Thursday afternoon,
Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki
will host the ceremony conferring the
Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize
on a deserving individual, organisation or institution that has made an outstanding contribution to the defence of press freedom.
We’re proud to be sponsoring the celebrations. President Marzouki announced the event through his official
Google
page and we’re organising a Google Hangout from the presidential palace, allowing guests from Amsterdam, Tripoli and Washington, D.C. to speak with the Tunisian President.
Thursday’s ceremony will be followed by a two-day conference bringing journalists, NGOs and officials from all over the world to Tunisia. They will discuss how to improve the safety of journalists, deal with defamation, develop opublic service broadcasting, and the issue of media ownership in a changing media landscape. Throughout, the impact of the Internet and social media will be on the agenda.
We’re involved here as well. Maha Abouelenein, our head of communications in MENA, will participate in a session about new media in the afternoon of May 4. Khaled Koubaa, our policy manager for North Africa, will appear on the same day on a panel titled “Innovation in Gathering and Sharing News. Finally, I will speak on May 5 about freedom of expression.
Please stay with us to follow UNESCO’s Tunis World Press Freedom celebrations.
Posted by William Echikson, Head of Free Expression, Europe, Middle East and Africa
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