Europe Blog
Our views on the Internet and society
Internet freedom: how should Europe battle online censorship?
Thursday, May 19, 2011
European foreign ministers endure a grueling schedule. Next Monday afternoon, Swedish Foreign Minister
Carl Bildt
and Dutch Foreign Minister
Uri Rosenthal
are taking time out from a crucial European Foreign Ministers’s summit in Brussels to issue a call for Europe to wake up to the dangers facing Internet freedom.
The event comes at a crucial time. Protests sweeping the Arab world demonstrate the power of the Net to give voice to the once silent. With two billion people online, the Internet has accelerated access to information.
On the other hand, governments around the world are attempting to suffocate this freedom.
Reporters Without Borders
counts more than 150 bloggers and Internet publishers imprisoned around the world, and 60 governments censor the web in one form or fashion. Google and YouTube services have been blocked in more than 25 countries.
Although no one should compare democratically elected governmens in Europe and elsewhere to repressive regimes, we have also seen an alarming trend among western governments. People acting out of the best of intentions -- protecting children, a goal that we of course share, are undermining the fundamentals of an open Internet. Courts around Europe are considering
forcing neutral platforms such as Facebook and Google to preview content before it is posted -
and to remove it just because the subject doesn’t like it.
Fortunately, Sweden and the Netherlands have taken a lead to make Internet free expression a priority, even as most of Europe has remained silent.
On Monday, come and hear leading voices for free expression discuss how Europe could step up its fight for Internet freedom and the free flow of information. One of Brussels' leading think tanks,
ECIPE
, is hosting the event. Google is sponsoring. Everyone is welcome to attend.
When
: May 23, 16:00-17:45
Where
: International Press Centre, Residence palace (Maelbeek room), Rue de la Loi 155, Brussels
RSVP to:
info@ecipe.org
Programme:
16:00
- Welcome
16:15
- Opening of Conference by Uri Rosenthal, Dutch Minister for Foreign Affairs
16:30
- Panel discussion: Internet freedom of expression: what should be the EU agenda?
17:10
- Keynote Speech by Carl Bildt, Swedish Minister for Foreign Affairs
17:45
- End
Posted by William Echikson, Head of Free Expression, EMEA, Google
Cloud Computing – how to keep your data open and portable?
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Next week, the
Openforum Europe
will host a roundtable discussion on openness and portability in the cloud - a topic that features strongly in the ongoing discussions about how to make Europe “cloud-active”. Speakers include:
Professor Guido Scorza
- the founder and President of the
Institute for the Policies of Innovation
. A lawyer and research fellow in the legal aspects of new technology, Scorza is a visiting lecturer at the Universities of Bologna and Rome. He writes extensively and speaks on legal aspects of software and the rights of competitors and consumers.
Brian Fitzpatrick
- head of Google's '
Data Liberation Front
', a team of engineers who work to make it easy for people to export their data out of Google's services and into the document format of their choice. This allows users to more easily switch between services and providers in the cloud.
Dimitri Tatari
- Director General of the Emilia-Romagna Region’s ICT department and a member of the working team involved in
OSEPA
(Open Source Software Usage by European Public Administrations). Mr Tatari has been involved in the open source software project of the Emilia-Romagna region for the last three years.
The Round Table will be chaired by
Graham Taylor
, CEO, Openforum Europe and the rapporteur will be
Flavia Marzano
. As is usual at an OFE roundtable, the
Chatham House Rule
will apply.
Date:
Tuesday 24 May 2011
Time:
18:00-20:30. A light buffet and refreshments will be served.
Where:
Google EU office at Chaussée d'Etterbeek 180, right next to Park Leopold. That's just a 5 minute walk from the Parliament and the Commission.
Registration:
Please
sign up here
if you’d like to attend.
We look forward to seeing you there!
Posted by Angela Steen, Policy Analyst, Google
Join us in fighting for freedom of expression
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Three years ago, a group of companies including Google, Microsoft and Yahoo joined with non-profit organisations such as
Human Rights Watch
, investor groups such as
F&C Investments
, and universities such as
Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society
to create
the Global Network Initiative
. Our goal is to protect and advance freedom of expression and privacy online by setting minimum ground-rules on dealing for government requests for information.
Notably, all the initial corporate participants were American. While many Europeans expressed interest in the project, none signed up.
Susan Morgan
, a UK native who is the GNI’s executive director, came to Brussels this week, urging Europeans to join the organisation.
In her presentations to the European Parliament, the European Commission and the press, Ms. Morgan pointed to some recent success in attracting Europeans. This year, both the Swedish investment fund
Folksam
and the UK-based NGO
Index on Censorship
signed up. The challenge ahead, Ms. Morgan said, is to bring onboard European corporations.
Members of the GNI commit to a set of principles on how they will handle government requests to hand. The GNI has also reinforced company practices of conducting human rights assessments prior to launching new products or opening new markets. But the greatest potential for the GNI is as a forum for common action - the realisation that companies, NGOs, investors and academics acting together can have a far more powerful impact when we act in concert rather than alone. This Initiative is by no means a panacea, but it’s the kind of forum where we believe progress can be made real.
The issues of freedom of expression and privacy impact companies across the ICT sector; as recent events in the Middle East have shown, freedom of expression and privacy has become a business priority – even for organisations that are not “internet companies.”
European politicians such as Swedish Foreign Minister
Carl Bildt
, Dutch Foreign Minister
Uri Rosenthal
and MEP
Marietje Schaake
have expressed interest. Any effort that is limited to the United States is bound to fall short. Put simply, the GNI needs European organisations to help it reach its full potential.
Posted by William Echikson, Head of Free Expression, Europe, Middle East and Africa
Supporting free expression and privacy online: the Global Network Initiative comes to Brussels
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
All over the world – from the Americas to Europe to the Middle East to Africa and Asia – companies in the communications and tech sectors face increasing government pressure to comply with domestic laws and policies in ways that may conflict with the internationally recognized human rights of freedom of expression and privacy.
In response, a
multi-stakeholder group
of companies, civil society organisations (including human rights and press freedom groups), investors and academics has spent two years negotiating and creating a collaborative approach to protect and advance freedom of expression and privacy in the ICT sector, and have formed
the Global Network Initiative
to take this work forward.
Susan Morgan, the Global Network Initiative’s executive director, will be in Brussels on Wednesday 4 May to give an early evening briefing about the organisation’s work - and in particular, how it is seeking to attract European support and members.
Please join us at Google's office to hear Susan's briefing, find out about the important work the GNI does and enjoy a post-work drink.
Date
: Wednesday, 4 May 2011
Time
: 18:00-19:00
Where
: Google EU office at Chaussée d'Etterbeek 180, right next to Park Leopold. That's just a 5 minute walk from the Parliament and the Commission.
Registration
: Please
sign up here
if you’d like to attend.
Prior to joining the GNI in June 2010, Susan spent ten years working at British Telecom on corporate responsibility, communications and strategic relationships. She spent the first seven years of her career in the non-profit sector, and is a graduate of Durham University, UK.
Posted by Angela Steen, Policy Analyst, Google Brussels
Google to invest in German solar power plant
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Today, we agreed to make our first clean energy project investment in Europe - a €3.5 million (ca. $ 5 million) investment in a solar photovoltaic (PV) power plant in Germany. The transaction still requires the formal approval of the German competition authorities and is subject to other customary closing conditions.
The recently completed facility is located on 47 hectares (116 acres) in Brandenburg an der Havel, near Berlin. The power plant has a peak capacity of 18.65MWp, which puts it among the largest in Germany.
Google is always looking for new ways to encourage development and deployment of renewable energy across the world. This facility will provide clean energy to more than 5,000 households in the area surrounding Brandenburg. Until the early 90’s, the site was used as a training ground by the Russian military. We’re glad it has found a new use!
We agreed to jointly invest in this project with the German private equity company
Capital Stage
, which brings strong experience in the German photovoltaic and renewable energy market. Germany has a strong framework for renewable energy and is home to many leading-edge technology companies in the sector. More than 70% of the solar modules installed in Brandenburg are provided by German manufacturers.
After investing in
clean energy projects
in the U.S., we’re excited about making our first investment outside of the U.S. in Germany, a country that has long been a global leader in clean energy development.
Posted by Benjamin Kott, Clean Energy Advocacy Manager, Google
Real-time traffic graphs for the Transparency Report
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Cross-posted from the
Official Google Blog
When we
introduced
the
Transparency Report
last year, we promised to keep looking for new and useful ways to display data about traffic to our services. In response to your requests, today we’re adding graphs for each region that show traffic patterns for all products in aggregate. These graphs will show data with a five-minute delay.
In
this graph
, for example, you’ll see that all of our services in Egypt were down from January 27 to February 1:
Starting today, you won’t have to sift through every single product graph to figure out if one or more services are inaccessible. You’ll get a snapshot up front. We’ve also added annotations for historical anomalies that we’ve seen in the traffic to our services. To see the graph for each cited incident, just click on the corresponding link.
As the Transparency Engineering team lead, part of my job is to ensure that we find, uncover and visualise datasets within Google that can help inform research and analysis on important topics. We believe that providing the facts can spark useful debate about the scope and authority of policy decisions around the globe.
We’ll continue to iterate, and we hope that the Report will help shed light on the accessibility and patterns of traffic to our services around the world.
Posted by Matt Braithwaite, Transparency Engineering Team Lead
Breaking the language barrier for Europe’s innovators
Monday, March 28, 2011
Get ready for a tongue twister. You’re an Estonian entrepreneur who has just dreamed up a revolutionary new product. How do you find out if a Portuguese or Polish inventor - indeed any other inventor anywhere - has filed a patent on a similar idea in their native language? Locating and understanding a patent lodged in a foreign language can be a time-consuming and costly affair.
Last week, however, Google and the
European Patent Office
partnered to break down this linguistic barrier. Starting later this year, the Munich-based EPO will use
Google Translate
technology to offer translation of patents on its website between any of 28 European languages, as well as Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Russian. The various languages will be added to the site gradually, and the project should be finalised by the end of 2014.
Pictured are: EPO President Benoît Battistelli (l) and Google's Head of Public Policy in Brussels, Antoine Aubert (r) at the signing of the agreement. Photo: EPO / Didier Vandenbosch
The EPO will provide Google with access to their complete corpus of patents on a non-exclusive basis, allowing us to optimise our machine translation technology for the technical language used in patent registrations. Machine translation technology analyses existing parallel texts (eg the same document translated into multiple languages) in order to make accurate guesses about how to translate new texts. The more inputs, the better the translations. In return, Google will offer the improved translation service free of charge to the EPO.
The partnership is a big win for Europe’s entrepreneurs and inventors too, as they will benefit from free, real-time translation of millions of patents granted in European countries, China, Japan, Korea and Russia. Whilst the translations made by Google Translate will not be legally binding, they will offer a practical way for anybody to gain improved access to the technical information contained in patents across all EPO languages simultaneously.
We’re excited to be working with the EPO on this great example of how machine translation can improve access to important technical information across language barriers - and how public-private partnership can result in pragmatic solutions that support Europe’s innovators.
Posted by Antoine Aubert, Head of Public Policy, Google Brussels
Labels
Academics
18
Advertising
10
Africa
26
Austria
7
Belgium
25
Big Tent
11
Bosnia and Herzegovina
2
Browsers
1
Brussels Tech Talk
7
Bulgaria
5
Campus
2
Child Safety
24
Cloud computing
17
Competition
16
Computer Science
35
Computing Heritage
37
Consumers
11
controversial content
2
COP21
1
copyright
34
Crisis Response
2
Culture
116
Czech Republic
16
Data Centre
15
Denmark
4
Digital News Initiative
6
Digital Single Market
1
Diversity
7
Economic Impact of the Internet
57
Economy
24
Elections
7
Energy + Environment
16
Engineering
6
Environment
5
Estonia
6
European Commission
21
European Parliament
14
European Union
104
exhibitions
1
Finland
13
France
77
Free Expression
88
Free flow of information
47
German
1
Germany
65
Google for Entrepreneurs
9
Google in Europe Blog
846
Google Play
1
Google TechTalk
2
Google Translate
1
Google Trends
3
Google+
4
Greece
16
Growth Engine
3
Hackathon
3
Hungary
16
Innovation
70
Internet Governance
7
IP
10
Ireland
16
Israel
17
Italy
42
Journalism
34
Latvia
1
Lithuania
1
Luxembourg
3
Maps
17
Middle East
18
Netherlands
6
News
2
News Lab
1
North Africa
6
Norway
3
online
1
Online Safety
2
Open data
8
Open Government
7
Open source
2
Poland
24
Portugal
6
Power of Data
25
privacy
49
Publishing
30
Right to be Forgotten
9
Rio+20
1
Romania
3
Russia
18
Safer Internet Day
4
San Marino
1
Science
5
Security
7
Single Market
7
Slovakia
16
Slovenia
2
SMEs
24
Spain
39
Startups
6
State of the Union
2
STEM Education
36
Street View
38
Surveillance
1
Sweden
13
Switzerland
11
Telecoms
11
The Netherlands
4
Tourism
1
Transparency
12
Tunisia
4
Turkey
3
Ukraine
3
United Kingdom
94
Vatican
2
Youth
2
YouTube
42
Archive
2016
Sep
Introducing YouTube Creators for Change
Announcing a Google.org grant for XperiBIRD.be, a ...
Bringing education to refugees in Lebanon with the...
Juncker embraces creators -- and their concerns
Tour 10 Downing Street with Google Arts and Culture
European copyright: there's a better way
Digital News Initiative: Introducing the YouTube P...
#AskJuncker: YouTube creators to interview the Eur...
An extinct world brought back to life with Google ...
Project Muze: Fashion inspired by you, designed by...
Come Play with us
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2015
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2014
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2013
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2012
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2011
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2010
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2009
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Feed
Give us feedback in our
Product Forums
.
