Europe Blog
Our views on the Internet and society
Un soutien solide a la culture française
Friday, November 26, 2010
(English follows)
Hier, dans un hôtel particulier somptueusement décoré au coeur de Paris, siège de la Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques, j’ai pris part à un évènement qui illustre parfaitement l’engagement de Google pour la promotion et le soutien de la culture française et de ses traditions.
YouTube, la
SACD
, la
SCAM
and
l’ADAGP
- trois sociétés de gestion collectives représentant un large spectre d’auteurs français, créateurs, compositeurs et artistes - ont signé un accord de soutien aux auteurs français. Ce partenariat vise a encourager une diffusion plus large d'émissions et de films français sur la plateforme YouTube en France.
En permettant aux auteurs de bénéficier d'une juste rémunération pour l'exploitation de leurs œuvres, cet accord encourage la création de programmes originaux français et leur diffusion sur Internet.
Pour l’occasion, les signataires ont tenu une conférence de presse sous l'égide du dramaturge
Beaumarchais
, premier défenseur des droits d’auteurs en France et représenté ce jour-la par un buste majestueux ornant la pièce qui accueillait cet événement. « C’est un accord qui permet de concilier le droit d’auteur tel qu’il a été imaginé par Beaumarchais avec le développement et l’utilisation des nouvelles technologies », déclare le cinéaste
Bertrand Tavernier
.
Le jour-même, le Ministre de la Culture Frédéric Mitterrand a salué l'accord annoncé entre YouTube, la SACD, la SCAM et l’ADAGP lors de
son discours
de clôture des Assises du Numérique organisées hier à Paris-Dauphine: « Je ne peux que saluer la démarche entreprise par certains de ces acteurs majeurs, qui intègrent progressivement les principes du droit d’auteur dans leur stratégie, en passant notamment des accords avec les sociétés d’auteurs françaises. Je veux parler bien sûr de l’accord qui vient d’être signé entre YouTube, la SACD, la SCAM et l’ADAGP.»,
Pour Jean-Marc Tassetto, récemment nommé Directeur Général de Google France, les partenariats conclus ces derniers mois avec les artistes, auteurs et éditeurs soulignent l’engagement réel de Google pour la culture française.
Il fait ainsi référence à l’accord stratégique annoncé la semaine dernière avec Hachette pour la numérisation des œuvres en langue française dont les droits sont contrôlés par
Hachette Livres
mais aussi à celui passé le mois dernier avec la
Société des auteurs, compositeurs et éditeurs de musique
afin de proposer plus de contenus français sur la plateforme YouTube.
Beaumarchais aurait sans doute esquissé un sourire complice hier matin.
Par Christophe Muller, directeur des partenariats YouTube Europe du Sud, de l’Est, Moyen-Orient et Afrique
---------------------
Supporting French culture
Yesterday, in a lavishly decorated former palace in central Paris, the home of the Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques, I took part in an event that offered a perfect picture of just how serious Google is about supporting French culture and traditions in the internet age.
YouTube and
SACD
,
SCAM
and
ADAGP
- three associations representing French screenwriters, composers and other creative artists - signed an agreement to put more TV shows and movies online in France. The deal improves YouTube’s access to French content - and allows French creators to profit.
Appropriately, the signatories gave a press conference sitting below a gilded mirror and in front of a bust of the 18th-century Ancien Regime dramatist
Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais
- someone who also fought hard in the courts to protect his copyright. Well known French movie director
Betrand Tavernier
described the agreement as “allowing us to reconcile copyright as Beaumarchais defined it with the development and use of new technologies.”
It was great to hear support too from French Culture Minister Frédéric Mitterrand, who saluted the accord in a
speech
. “I can only welcome the approach taken by some of these major players, who are gradually incorporating the principles of copyright law into their agreements with French authors' societies. I refer of course to the agreement signed between YouTube and the SACD, SCAM and ADAGP. "
For Jean-Marc Tassetto, Google’s recently appointed managing director for France, the event represented another important step forward in the partnerships we are signing with artists, authors and publishers in France. Last week, we announced a breakthrough deal with France’s largest publisher
Hachette
and last month we signed a deal with
SACEM
, a French musicians association to bring more French music videos to YouTube.
Without a doubt, Beaumarchais would be smiling.
Posted by Christophe Muller, Director of Partnerships for YouTube in Southern and Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa
Partnering to put out-of-print French works back in circulation
Thursday, November 18, 2010
It’s astonishing, but true: approximately 75% of the world’s books are in-copyright, but out-of-print. That can make things pretty difficult for people who want to find those books and read and enjoy them. Not to mention for the authors and publishers who created them and want to sell them and see them accessed and valued.
Yesterday morning in Paris, Google and
Hachette Livre
, one of France’s largest publishers, signed a Memorandum of Understanding that both companies believe will breathe new life into Hachette’s catalogue of dormant and commercially unavailable books. Within six months, we aim to sign a more detailed agreement which we believe will benefit French authors, publishers, booksellers, researchers, academics and the reading public - and will increase public access to cultural works.
Under the terms of the MoU, Hachette will determine which of its out-of-print works it wants scanned; these books will then be scanned by Google and made searchable via Google Books. Hachette will decide which books are to be made available for purchase via Google Editions. Hachette and Google will also be able to make these books available for other services.
Finally, French booksellers will be able to sell Hachette’s out-of-print works electronically and Hachette intends to make digital copies of scanned works available to public institutions such as the Bibliotheque Nationale de France - thus contributing to the growing corpus of French culture available online.
This might just be a first step, but it’s an important one to us, and to Hachette. We’re keen to work with the creative industries to find new business models and new solutions for increasing the value of public access to cultural works. We hope to sign similar MOUs with other publishers throughout France.
Posted by Philippe Colombet, Strategic Partnerships Development Manager, France
Friday 19/11/2010, updated para 3 to better reflect the MoU
Learned lunches: the Oxford Internet Institute Lectures
Monday, November 8, 2010
Game theory in advertising content and pricing; the
Panopticon
implications of the Internet as our digital memory; and bringing 30 year old guidelines on privacy into the Internet age - these topics and more are addressed by leading academics in the new series of
Oxford Internet Institute
lectures, hosted by Google Brussels.
Established in 2001 as an academic centre for the study of the societal implications of the Internet, the Institute’s research faculty devotes its time to the study of the economical, social, political and ethical questions shaping the Internet today.
The first lecture of the autumn series was given by
Dr Greg Taylor
, an economist whose research focuses on the microeconomics of search and other online marketplaces, and the social science implications of commercial interactions. Greg presented his
study
of the relationship between the information content of online advertisements and the fee structure used to price them, looking at pay per-click, pay per-impression and pay per-scale.
On November 9th, we will welcome
Christopher Kuner
, Head of the International Privacy and Information Management Practice at law firm Hunton & Williams. Christopher will discuss the Regulation of Transborder Data Flows in the framework of the OECD privacy guidelines and will debate whether the policies that form the basis of today’s privacy and data protection laws are in line with the realities of the Internet age. You can sign up for his lecture
here
.
On December 8th,
Graeme B. Dinwoodie
, Professor of Intellectual Property and Information Technology Law and Professorial Fellow of St. Peter’s College Oxford, will discuss keyword advertising and trademark law. You can sign up for his lecture
here
.
The 2011 calender will kick off on February 8th with a lecture from
Christopher Millard
, Professor of Privacy and Information Law at the Centre for Commercial Law Studies, and researcher at the
QMUL Cloud Legal Project
. Christopher will discuss the shift of computing intelligence to the Internet cloud and the key legal and regulatory challenges of controlling and processing data in the cloud. The registration form for his lecture is
here
.
If you would like to be added to the mailing list for the Oxford Internet Institute lecture series, please contact Tim Davies: tim.davies [at] oii.ox.ac.uk
Posted by: Angela Steen, Policy Analyst, Google Brussels
The Internet - the engine of European economic growth?
Thursday, October 28, 2010
We’ve all heard the stories of companies that find a niche product they can sell via the Internet to large numbers of people. Companies that maybe started out around a
farmhouse kitchen table
or in
someone’s bedroom
and are now fantastically successful global Internet businesses.
Amazingly, despite more than 10 years of constant growth in ecommerce, neither the EU not a European Government has yet tried to get to the bottom of these stories and work out what the real economic impact of the Internet is.
At a time of global economic uncertainty, establishing the difference that the Internet makes to our local economies seems like a sensible thing to do. So we asked
The Boston Consulting Group
, a well respected adviser on business strategy, to make a start on the real facts and figures here in the UK.
After many months of data-crunching, their
Connected Kingdom report
reveals for the first time some surprising and significant facts. Here are some of the headline figures they’ve established:
In 2009, the Internet contributed £100 billion to the UK economy. That represents 7.2% of GDP.
The Internet’s contribution to UK GDP is bigger than that of many other industries, for example utilities or transport.
The UK is the no1 country in the world for e-commerce and is a net exporter of ecommerce goods and services: we export £2.80 for every £1 we import.
The companies that enable the online economy (ie, provide the infrastructure, access and services that constitute the Internet) employ an estimated 250,000 people in the UK and have revenues of over £50 billion.
The Internet economy is expected to grow by 10% per year
BCG’s research also highlights the fact that not all economic activity is captured by GDP measures, and so the significance of the Internet to the UK economy is actually greater than £100 billion. For example: consumers benefit from the Internet by purchasing products in the high street which they researched online (valued at around £40 billion per year), by saving money through online shopping (around £18 billion per year) and by consuming free online content (around £5 billion per year).
In truth, the headline numbers are bigger than any of us thought when we first commissioned the report. It’s very exciting to see that UK companies that are becoming global success stories through their innovations on the Internet. From companies
exporting tartan
to those building
online games for kids
, these are the home-grown success stories that we need to celebrate and foster here in the UK.
This report is just the start. The tough policy questions have yet to be answered. How do we ensure this 10% growth really happens? What barriers are these UK companies facing in trying to grow their start ups into global businesses? And we know that some of the answers will also have to come from the EU.
The next step has to be a conversation between the UK’s Internet sector and the Government about how to make the online economy a Government priority and a UK success story. In November, we’re running an event with the
Oxford Internet Institute
to discuss the policy implications of BCG’s report. And if you’d like to get involved yourself, please do have your say about the way forward on
www.connectedkingdom.co.uk
.
Posted by Sarah Hunter, Senior Policy Manager, Google UK
Redefining innovation policy for big societal change
Monday, October 25, 2010
Europe’s industrial revolution in the 18th and 19th centuries was one of the most intense periods of technological innovation in human history. Agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, civil engineering and many more fields of human endeavour were transformed by scientific and technological advances. Countries were able to drive their economies forward, change standards of living and increase their competitiveness and standing on the world stage.
In 21st century Europe, there is a bigger need than ever to stimulate radical innovation in as many fields as possible. Innovation policy needs to focus on addressing both economic concerns and the big societal challenges of the day. So it was good to read in the Commission’s
Communication on the Innovation Union
that Commissioner Geoghegan-Quinn intends to push for an innovation policy that addresses “climate change, energy and food security, health and an ageing population”.
Including “business models,
design
, branding and services and social innovation” in the new broader definition is important too, since this builds on
the findings of the OECD
. This is a move that Google broadly welcomes, especially since it’s clear that information technology is frequently a critical part of delivering this broader agenda.
There are also some other interesting and exciting new ideas in the
Communication
:
The Commission will monitor a second benchmark of innovation (in addition to the target of 3% of GDP being spent on R&D) based on the “share of fast-growing, innovative companies in the economy”. This is good news: recent research from
think tank Bruegel
(disclosure: Google is a corporate member) shows that Europe has significantly less young firms among its leading innovators than the US. And as we noted on this blog just a few days ago the Internet has created
unparalleled opportunities for small companies
to go global.
For the first time in a paper of this prominence, the Commission recognises the particular dynamics of innovation in the tech sector and the importance of openness. This is something that was highlighted in the recent
Lisbon Council paper on Wikinomics
.
Similarly, the Commission highlights the importance of free movement of knowledge - and it redefines the Fifth Freedom more broadly. This is a move that
we called for last year
.
The pilot project on open access
is declared successful and the Commission promises to make "open access to publications the general principle for projects funded by the EU research Framework Programmes". This only seems right given that research is paid for by taxpayers, and that in the internet age, research is done by a much more diffuse community of people who are increasingly willing to share ideas and collaborate.
There are many good points in this
Communication
, but the challenge for the Commission will be to enable innovation in
other
policy areas. For example,
the UK’s Intellectual Property Office
is looking to “assess [...] the role intellectual property plays in the knowledge economy”. The scope of what they want to look at is much broader than the emphasis on patents in the Commission’s paper, and that’s something Google will continue to emphasise in its contacts with the EU institutions.
Wouldn’t it be great if, in ten years’ time, we could look back and describe the second decade of the 21st century as the
knowledge revolution
- a time when disruptive innovation drove the European economy forward, changed standards of living and increased Europe’s competitiveness and standing on the world stage?
Posted by Simon Hampton, Director of European Public Policy
Creating stronger privacy controls inside Google
Friday, October 22, 2010
(Cross-posted from the
Official Google Blog
)
In May we
announced
that we had mistakenly collected unencrypted WiFi payload data (information sent over networks) using our Street View cars. We work hard at Google to earn your trust, and we’re acutely aware that we failed badly here. So we’ve spent the past several months looking at how to strengthen our internal privacy and security practices, as well as talking to external regulators globally about possible improvements to our policies. Here’s a summary of the changes we’re now making.
First,
people
: we have appointed
Alma Whitten
as our director of privacy across both engineering and product management. Her focus will be to ensure that we build effective privacy controls into our products and internal practices. Alma is an internationally recognized expert in the computer science field of privacy and security. She has been our engineering lead on privacy for the last two years, and we will significantly increase the number of engineers and product managers working with her in this new role.
Second,
training
: All our employees already receive orientation training on Google’s
privacy principles
and are required to sign Google’s
Code of Conduct
, which includes sections on privacy and the protection of user data. However, to ensure we do an even better job, we’re enhancing our core training for engineers and other important groups (such as product management and legal) with a particular focus on the responsible collection, use and handling of data. In addition, starting in December, all our employees will also be required to undertake a new information security awareness program, which will include clear guidance on both security and privacy.
Third,
compliance
: While we’ve made important changes to our internal compliance procedures in the last few years, we need to make further changes to reflect the fact that we are now a larger company. So we’re adding a new process to our existing review system, in which every engineering project leader will be required to maintain a privacy design document for each initiative they are working on. This document will record how user data is handled and will be reviewed regularly by managers, as well as by an independent internal audit team.
We believe these changes will significantly improve our internal practices (though no system can of course entirely eliminate human error), and we look forward to seeing the innovative new security and privacy features that Alma and her team develop. That said, we’ll be constantly on the lookout for additional improvements to our procedures as Google grows, and as we branch out into new fields of computer science.
Finally, I would like to take this opportunity to update one point in my May blog post. When I wrote it, no one inside Google had analyzed in detail the data we had mistakenly collected, so we did not know for sure what the disks contained. Since then a number of external regulators have inspected the data as part of their investigations (seven of which have now been concluded). It’s clear from those inspections that while most of the data is fragmentary, in some instances entire emails and URLs were captured, as well as passwords. We want to delete this data as soon as possible, and I would like to apologize again for the fact that we collected it in the first place. We are mortified by what happened, but confident that these changes to our processes and structure will significantly improve our internal privacy and security practices for the benefit of all our users.
Posted by Alan Eustace, Senior VP, Engineering & Research
How many German households have opted-out of Street View?
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Cross posted from
Der Google Produkt-Kompass
Since April 2009, people in Germany have been able to ask for their house to be blurred on Street View ahead of the product being launched. At first they could ‘opt-out’ by writing us a letter and a few months ago we launched a special online tool to make the process easier. We worked closely with the Data Protection Authorities to ensure all the right German privacy standards were met.
We’re now close to launching Street View imagery for the 20 biggest cities in Germany and we’ve counted the number of households in those cities which decided to opt-out. Out of a total of 8,458,084 households we received 244,237 opt-outs, which equals 2.89% of households. Two out of three opt-ots came through our online tool.
Given how complex the process is, there will be some houses that people asked us to blur that will be visible when we launch the imagery in a few weeks time. We’ve worked very hard to keep the numbers as low as possible but in any system like this there will be mistakes. For instance, some people asked us to blur their house, but didn’t give us the precise location. In such cases the household can still ask us to blur the image using the ‘report a problem’ tool on Street View once imagery is published - and we’ll do it as fast as we can. The same is true of faces and car licence plates that our automatic blurring technology may have missed.
It won’t be long before you’ll be able to look at some of the most beautiful images of Germany using Street View. We’ve got a couple of nice surprises as well. We’ll be back with more news soon!
Posted by Andreas Türk, Product Manager for Street View in Germany
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