Europe Blog
Our views on the Internet and society
Making the dream of digital libraries come true
Friday, August 28, 2009
The European Commission today set out more
detail
on the future of its digital library project
Europeana
and the Commissioner has stated how she welcomes the
evolution of new business models
. It's exciting as the project aims to bring even more books, paintings and pictures online.
Sure, some people have suggested this means there's some sort of competition between Europeana and our own projects on books. I guess it makes a nice headline, but it's just not true. The fact is that bringing our cultural heritage online is a tremendous undertaking that can only be achieved by both private and public effort. Both services are complimentary. Indeed, Google is working hard to expand its cooperation with European libraries which form Europeana's backbone.
Google has already forged partnerships to scan public domain works with 30 libraries all around the world, including the Oxford University, the Bavarian State Library, the University of Lausanne and the University of Ghent. Google Books contains works in more than 100 languages. Just this week, the Italian Ministry of Culture announced that it would like to work with us to accelerate scanning of Italian-language works.
I recently visited one of our library partners, the Ghent library. I was amazed by the progress there. In just two years, almost 100,000 of the university's of public domain books have been scanned, making them available to anyone anywhere in the world. An Australian or African studying 17th-century Flemish art history now has access to a treasure trove of Dutch-language books, without needing to travel all the way to Belgium or to attend the University of Ghent. This revolutionary spread of knowledge represents the inspiration of projects such as Europeana and Google Books.
Of course, a key challenge for such projects is how to revive access to books that are in copyright, but are out of print. Until now, it is very difficult for projects like Europeana or Google Books to enable readers to access these books, even though they represent the bulk of library collections. In Ghent, for example, we only scan work published before the mid 19th-century.
By contrast, Google last year reached a groundbreaking agreement with an international class of authors and publishers that aims to bring back to life millions of these out of print in copyright books. If an American court approves, readers in the U.S. will be able for the first time to search, preview and buy online access to a great number of out-of-print books scanned as part of Google Book Search. A new non-profit registry will be set up to locate the rights holders of these in copyright but difficult to find books and collect and distribute revenues to authors and publishers.
The Commission is holding an information hearing on this agreement in Brussels on September 7. We welcome this as an opportunity to talk about the agreement and on how to develop solutions contributing to spread knowledge and culture through projects like Google Books and Europeana. Here, too, the European Commission Communication released today is helpful, as it launches a public consultation about how to allow for the developments of services similar to the one proposed under the US Google Book agreement. Google is interested in pursuing all avenues of strengthening and expanding our partnership with this ambitious digitization effort.
Posted by Antoine Aubert, European Copyright Policy Manager
About Google News In Italy
Thursday, August 27, 2009
You may have read in the press that the Italian Competition Authority
today notified us of the opening of an investigation in relation to Google News in response to a claim by the Italian Editors Association (FIEG). We're still reviewing this claim, but in the meantime, we thought it might be helpful to clarify how publishers can control their content on the web.
First, Google News has always been about highlighting diverse perspectives from multiple sources and then driving new readers directly to publishers' sites. We don’t display the news stories in their entirety. Rather, our approach is akin to that of web search: we simply show the headlines, a line or two of text and a link to the site – just enough information to make the user want to read the full story. Once a user clicks through to the article, it’s up to the news publisher to decide how to profit from this free traffic. They can choose to charge people to read the story in addition to placing advertisements on their site.
We're constantly in dialogue with news publishers and users about how we can improve Google News. As we explained to the FIEG when we met them earlier this year, Google News has over 25,000 sources from around the world. All of these news providers--like any website publisher--are in complete control when it comes to whether they want to be found on Google services. So if a news publisher doesn’t want to be found on Google.com, Google.it or any other reputable search engines, it can prevent indexation automatically via a universally accepted Internet standard called robots.txt. Publishers also have a range of other ways of controlling how their content appears (or doesn't). One such option is for a publisher to continue to appear in Google web search, but not in Google News. In that case, all they need to do is
contact us
to be removed. In fact, we met with several Italian publishers and representatives of FIEG just this summer to explain these options.
We respect the wishes of content owners, which is why we've made it easy to opt out of our services. However, when it comes to Google News, we have far more requests for inclusion than for removal. That's because publishers understand that the traffic generated by Google News, and services like it, provide valuable traffic: Google News sends over 1 billion clicks per month to news publishers.
We'll continue to work with all web sites and news publishers to help more people discover their content -- and for those that don't want to appear in Google or Google News, we'll continue to honor those requests as we always have.
Posted by Josh Cohen, Senior Business Product Manager, Google News
Powering a Safe Internet
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
The Dutch Minister of Justice Mr. Dr. E.M.H. Hirsch Ballin, pictured here on the left, recently launched the
Safe Internet
campaign.
The Dutch are world leaders in Internet surfing. Unfortunately, a minority of malicious people take advantage of this freedom to spam and spread malware. The Ministry of Justice's plan promotes some easy rules of thumb to alert people, stimulate safe use of the Internet and protect people's data. It highlights the following rules of thumb:
Update software and turn on your firewall.
Always check the web address before your engage in any payment transaction.
Handle your personal data with care.
Never open electronic files instantly.
Be alert to contacts who send in proposals or ask for data.
Google and YouTube support this public campaign and have signed up as partners. We share the goal of making the Internet safe, fighting malware and working to maintain online security. For more information and recent blogposts on all the different actions that Google has taken, check out the
Google Online Security Blog
. Also
YouTube Safety Center
allows users to to flag concerns they have regarding uploaded video's and comments, relating to spam and phishing, harmful, dangerous and hateful content.
See for more information the
video
of the launch of the public campaign or visit the
YouTube channel
of the Ministry of Justice.
Posted by Machiel Bolhuis, Policy Manager - the Netherlands
Is the New Statesman fair?
Thursday, August 20, 2009
We woke up this morning to see the cover of
New Statesman
, a UK political magazine, carrying a lurid illustration of the devil accompanied by the question "Is Google Evil?"
Our popularity around the world means we're used to articles that scrutinise Google's role on the web. That's fair. But did the New Statesman have any evidence of evil? Far from it.
In print, The New Statesman published a response from us alongside the article. We thought we'd publish it here:
Google's aim is and always has been to help people find the
information they're looking for. It's why our services have
become so popular. They are easy to use and they work.
Take Search. People use Google Search because they trust it to help them
find what they need. We don't charge for it or force people to use it. We
don't 'lock' our users in as some technology companies do.
Search is a highly competitive field which is evolving all the
time. In just the last few months we've seen the emergence of new services like Bing, Cuil and
Wolfram Alpha. People can choose to switch to these search
engines and others with a click of a mouse. More than half of
internet users in the UK say they use more than one search engine
every week.
Similarly, there is nothing to lock advertisers into using Google's
services. Advertising rates are not set by Google, but by a
competitive auction. Advertisers determine their own bids and budgets
and can adjust them at any time. And just as users can easily switch
between search engines, advertisers can and do spend their budgets in
a variety of places. The vast majority of Google's top advertisers advertise
on other search engines and in a range of other media, both offline and online.
They'll stick with Google only if the results they achieve are worth more than they spend.
Of course, not everyone sees it like that. Some are concerned that Google
is becoming too big and worry we might misuse the data we hold.
Online privacy is an important issue and one we take very seriously. As increasing
amounts of data are uploaded to the internet every day, it becomes
ever more important for people to understand the benefits and risks involved
. Google is committed to protecting people's
privacy online by offering transparency and choice.
We're transparent about the data we collect when people sign up for our
services and we design products that give people control over the information they share.
That data helps us provide a better experience for our users, helps combat
spam and fraud, and allows us to customise content to make it more relevant
and useful.
It also allows us to use anonymised, aggregated data to give valuable insights into what people are searching for.
One such tool is Google Flu Trends. Traditional flu surveillance systems take up to a fortnight to collect and release data. By comparison, search queries can be automatically counted very quickly, and because people are likely to search for symptoms or remedies before they contact a doctor, our estimates may be able to provide a useful early-warning system for outbreaks of flu.
It is not in our interest to abuse our position or misuse your data. People continue to use Google because they trust it to work. Our focus is on providing an ever better service because that's the only thing that keeps them coming back.
Posted by Peter Barron,
Director of Communications and Public Affairs
North and Central Europe
Sharing Public Domain Books
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
(Cross-posted from the
Inside Google Books blog)
When we launched Google Books, one of our goals was to bring the world's lost literature back to life. Many older books which are out of copyright (so-called public domain works) have languished in the difficult-to-reach corridors of the world's great libraries. If you are a student at Oxford or Harvard, you might have a chance to find and read them. If you live thousands of kilometers or are a scholar at a local community college, it may be near impossible to do so.
The Internet offers a fabulous opportunity to begin to address this inequality. We've been partnering with libraries around the globe, including many institutions in Europe such as the Bavarian State Library or the Bodleian Library at Oxford, to bring these books online so that anyone can discover and read them. In addition, we want people to be able to find these books in places other than just on
books.google.com
. So we're in constant dialog with several prestigious cultural institutions, such as the Spanish National Library and the Bibliotheque Nationale de France, in order to help as many readers as possible around the world search and read public domain books.
We're not only reaching out to libraries, but also to other technology partners. We believe in an open platform for accessing and reading books, and we're always open to discussing opportunities with technology partners who share our goals of making books more accessible and useful. Just a few weeks ago, Sony
announced
that over a million public domain we've digitized would be available on the Sony Reader. We've also partnered with
Barnes and Noble
to allow users in the US to browse and download public domain books from Barnes and Noble's eBookstore for free.
Bringing the world's books online is a tremendous undertaking, and we're happy to be working with more institutions and partners to help achieve this. We're always looking for more ways to expand access to books, and we envision a future where people throughout the world will be able to search and access the world's books anywhere, anytime.
For more information about Google Books, please visit
http://books.google.com
Posted by Philippe Colombet, Strategic Partnership Development Manager, Europe
British MP David Davis, Google, and Setting the Record Straight
Monday, July 27, 2009
We were surprised and disappointed to open the Times newspaper today and find a vitriolic
column
on Google and our record on privacy, from Conservative Member of Parliament David Davis. Responding to speculation in the Times several weeks ago that the Conservative party was in favour of giving patients the ability to transfer their medical records to private companies, Mr Davis decided to launch an extraordinary attack on Google, riddled with misleading statements. Of course, Mr Davis didn't ask us first for our comments or to check his facts before going to press.
Mr Davis' argument is based on something of a straw man, given that Google Health, our health records product, is only available in the US, and we have no immediate plans to bring it to other countries. But given that he goes on to attack our Street View product as a "high-handed" intrusion on privacy, assert that we do not respect European privacy law, argue we have entered into "an amoral deal with China," and attribute our economic success to "legally unfettered use of personal data", we wanted to set the record straight.
Allegation: Google is "hostile to privacy."
We were the first company in our industry to anonymise information when people conduct searches. We took the US government to court when we were asked to hand over large amounts of data to them. Like all of our products, Street View was built from the ground up to respect user privacy. The imagery is not real time. We automatically blur faces and vehicle number plates, and we make it easy for people with concerns to have their homes removed from Street View if they wish. In the months since Street View launched in the UK, tens of millions of people have found it a useful and interesting tool, whether for exploring a tourist destination, finding a restaurant or checking driving directions.
Allegation: Google claims that European privacy legislation "does not apply to it."
For a company that supposedly ignores European laws, we did not launch Google Street View in the UK until we had the green light from the Information Commissioner! "Google Street View does not contravene the Data Protection Act," said David Evans, the Commissioner's Senior Data Protection Practice Manager, "and, in any case, it is not in the public interest to turn the digital clock back."
Allegation: Google entered an "amoral deal" with China.
As we said
when we launched Google.cn, it wasn't a step we took lightly, but we felt we were doing it for the right reasons - to bring more information to more people. Where Chinese regulations require us to remove sensitive information from our search results we disclose this to users - which is not standard practice in China.
Allegation: Google makes its money from "exploiting its customers' private data for commercial ends."
Google makes the vast majority of its revenue by providing users with free services and serving ads targeted to what the user has searched for or has read. This does not involve selling user data or exposing it in any way. When we launched interest based advertising we did so only after putting users in control of the information collected about them, as we make clear in our
user FAQ.
In addition, we do not use categories defined by
European privacy laws
as "sensitive" such as race, religion, sexual orientation, or health when showing ads.
If managed and used responsibly, the free services Google offers can be of tremendous civic benefit. We’ve developed a tool called “Flu Trends”, which offers an early warning system for flu outbreaks based on the anonymous actions of millions of people searching for symptoms. Relief agencies depend on Google Earth images after natural disasters like tsunamis or hurricanes and Indian farmers leverage our topographical maps to help with flood management.
We're proud of our track record of protecting user privacy. We work hard to make sure our users understand what data we collect and how we use it, because we are committed to transparency and user choice. The important work of education is made more difficult by polemicists who abuse the truth. We are happy to debate our privacy record or policies anytime, but we'd rather that debate was based on fact not fiction.
Peter Fleischer, Google's Global Privacy Counsel
Closed networks are a risky business
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Consumers like open networks; operators want to use their control of the network as the basis for developing new business models. It was ever thus!
Europe's legislator and its regulators currently rely on competition to police the gulf, and it has generally worked. New entrants have entered the market and consumers are enjoying a choice of service provider. Meanwhile, an explosion of innovation in the devices used by consumers (such as netbooks, the iPhone, or
Android
-powered handsets) has been matched by massive investment from an array of players in datacentres to enable the so-called Internet "cloud". It has never been a more exciting time to be on the Internet.
The Commission is currently
consulting
on a Recommendation on the regulation of Next Generation Access networks (NGAs, the deployment of fibre either to street cabinets or to the home). This paper aims to translate the legislator's willingness to recognise that investments in NGAs are more risky than traditional investments (e.g. of fibre in an operator's backbone network). The lay-person could be foregiven for wondering why investing in infrastrucutre is seen as risky, given the ongoing signs of exponential bandwidth demand from consumers, but that is not a part of the debate.
The Commission is seeking views on the sort of "risk premium" those that build NGAs (frequently the traditional, incumbent) operators should be able to include in their wholesale prices to other ISPs. Two of the parameters the Commission is considering recommending national regulators to take into account are "demand for additional bandwidth, [&] consumers' willingness to pay".
Our
contribution to the consultation
makes the simple observation that bandwidth demand and consumer willingness to pay are themselves dependent on how open are the Internet access services available to them.
The telecoms package
equips regulators with powers
to ensure consumers can access the services and applications of
their
choice. Weak application of these rules would permit operators to run less open neworks, reducing consumer willingness to pay. But if this was then used as evidence in favour of higher "risk premiums", higher wholesale rates would feed in to increased consumer prices and cause still lower demand. A vicious circle.
We have therefore proposed that the Commission require risk premiums be calculated under the assumption that the regulators' new powers to keep networks open are applied vigorously. Lower risk premiums will increase demand, facilitate market entry and hopefully result in competition continuing to police the openness of network access. A virtuous circle, where assuming regulation is applied will (hopefully) result in it not being needed in practise.
Posted by Simon Hampton, Director of European Public Policy
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