Europe Blog
Our views on the Internet and society
Making our ads better for everyone
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Cross-posted from the
Official Google Blog
We believe that ads are useful and relevant information that can help you find what you’re looking for online—whether you’re comparing digital cameras or researching new cars. We also want you to be able to use Google and click on any ads that interest you with confidence. Just as we work hard to
make Gmail free of spam
and
malware
, we’re committed to enforcing rigorous standards for the ads that appear on Google and on our
partner sites
.
Like all other Internet companies, we’re fighting a war against a huge number of bad actors—from websites selling counterfeit goods and fraudulent tickets to underground international operations trying to spread malware and spyware. We must remain vigilant because scammers will always try to find new ways to abuse our systems. Given the number of searches on Google and the number of legitimate businesses who rely on this system to reach users, our work to remove bad ads must be precise and at scale.
We recently made some improvements to help ensure the ads you see comply with our strict policies, so we wanted to give you an overview of both our principles and these new technologies.
Ads that harm users are not allowed on Google
We’ve always approached our ads system with trust and safety in mind. Our
policies
cover a wide range of issues across the globe in every country in which we do business. For example, our ads policies don’t allow ads for illegal products such as
counterfeit goods
or harmful products such as
handguns or cigarettes
. We also don’t allow ads with misleading claims (“lose weight guaranteed!”), fraudulent work-at-home scams (
“get rich quick working from home!”
) or
unclear billing practices
.
How it all works
With billions of ads submitted to Google every year, we use a combination of sophisticated technology and manual review to detect and remove these sorts of ads. We spend millions of dollars building technical architecture and advanced machine learning models to fight this battle. These systems are designed to detect and remove ads for
malicious download sites
that contain
malware or a virus
before these ads could appear on Google. Our automated systems also scan and review landing pages—the websites that people are taken to once they click—as well as advertiser accounts. When potentially objectionable ads are flagged by our automated systems, our policy specialists review the ads, sites and accounts in detail and take action.
Improvements to detection systems
Here are some important improvements that we’ve recently made to our systems:
Improved “query watch” for counterfeit ads: While anyone can
report counterfeit ads
, we’ve widened our proactive monitoring of sensitive keywords and queries related to counterfeit goods which allows us to catch more counterfeit ads before they ever appear on Google
New “risk model” to detect violations: Our computer scanning depends on detailed risk models to determine whether a particular ad may violate our policies, and we recently upgraded our engineering system with a new “risk model” that is even more precise in detecting advertisers who violate our policies
Faster manual review process: Some ads need to be reviewed manually. To increase our response time in preventing ads from policy-violating advertisers, we sped up our internal processes and systems for manual reviews, enabling our specialists to be more precise and fast
Twenty-four hour response time: We aim to respond within 24 hours upon receiving a reliable complaint about an ad to ensure that we’re reviewing ads in a timely fashion
We also routinely review and update the areas which our policies cover. For example, we recently updated our
policy for ads related to short-term loans
in order to protect people from misleading claims. For short-term loans, we require advertisers to disclose fine-print details such as overall fees and annual percentage rate, as well as implications for late and non-payment.
Bad ads are declining
The numbers show we’re having success. In 2011, advertisers submitted billions of ads to Google, and of those, we disabled more than 130 million ads. And our systems continue to improve—in fact, in 2011 we reduced the percentage of bad ads by more than 50% compared with 2010. That means that our methods are working. We’re also catching the vast majority of these scam ads before they ever appear on Google or on any of our partner networks. For example, in 2011, we shut down approximately 150,000 accounts for attempting to advertise counterfeit goods, and more than 95% of these accounts were discovered through our own
detection efforts and risk models
.
Here’s David Baker, Engineering Director, who can explain more about how we detect and remove scam ads:
What you can do to help
If you’re an advertiser, we encourage you to review our
policies
that aim to protect users, so you can help keep the web safe. For everyone else, our
Good to Know site
has lots of advice, including tips for avoiding scams anywhere on the Internet. You can also report ads you believe to be fraudulent or in violation of our policies and, if needed, file a
complaint
with the appropriate agency as listed in our
Web Search Help Center
.
Online advertising is the commercial lifeblood of the web, so it’s vital that people can trust the ads on Google and the Internet overall. We’ll keep posting more information here about our efforts, and developments, in this area.
Posted by Sridhar Ramaswamy, SVP, Engineering
Honoring and supporting Belgian Internet pioneers
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
It’s not everyday that a Prime Minister visits your office. Today, Googlers in our Brussels office were honoured by a visit from Belgium’s
Prime Minister Elio Di Rupo
to celebrate and revive the memory of two unique Belgian inventors and pioneers.
Decades before the creation of the World Wide Web,
Paul Otlet
and
Henri La Fontaine
envisaged a paper archival system of the world’s information. They built a giant international documentation centre called
Mundaneum
, with the goal of preserving peace by assembling knowledge and making it accessible to the entire world. For us at Google, this mission sounds familiar.
The two Mundaneum founders met in 1895 and created the modern library
universal decimal classification system
, building from John Dewey’s early work. When La Fontaine won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1913 for his work as an activist in the international peace movement, he invested his winnings into the Mundaneum project, which was already underway. La Fontaine and Otlet collected 3-by-5 inch index cards to build a vast paper database which eventually contained some 16 million entries, covering everything from the history of hunting dogs to finance. The Belgian government granted them space in a government building and Otlet established a fee-based research service that allowed anyone in the world to submit a query via mail or telegraph. Inquiries poured in from all over the world.
World War II and the deaths of La Fontaine in 1943 and Otlet in 1944 slowed the project. Although many of these archives were stored away, some of them in the Brussels subway, volunteers kept the dream alive. In 1998, Belgium’s French community government revived the Mundaneum’s memory, bringing most of the archives to a beautiful Art Deco building in the city of Mons.
That brings us to today. The Prime Minister came to our office to announce a major partnership with the Mundaneum and the University of Ghent. Google will sponsor and partner in both the upcoming exhibition at the Mundaneum headquarters in Mons and a speaker series on Internet issues at the Mundaneum and the University of Ghent. Web pioneers
Louis Pouzin
and
Robert Cailliau
are already scheduled to speak.
Mundaneum will use Google to present and promote its conferences and exhibitions. It has also constructed an
online tour
of its dazzling premises. At today’s event in the Google Brussels office, Prime Minister Di Rupo said he hopes that the Google-Mundaneum cooperation becomes a “wonderful forum for experimentation.” Di Rupo himself is passionate about the Mundaneum; as mayor of Mons, he was instrumental in preserving the archive.
If information was important a century ago, it is even more important in the 21st century. In his remarks, the Prime Minister made the connection between the past and the future, and called on Belgium to embrace the digital economy. We showed him our recently-launched Belgian version of
Street View
. In Belgium, the internet accounts for 2.5% of GDP—and its contribution is expected to grow by more than 10% a year for the next five years. “If all our companies could take better advantages of these new technologies, its sure that our exports would get a boost,” Di Rupo said.
Our partnership with Mundaneum is part of a larger project to revive the memory of Europe’s computing pioneers. Europe played a crucial role in the invention of computers and the Internet, yet all too often has forgotten its innovators. Last year marked the 60th anniversary of
LEO
, the world’s first business computer, built by
J.Lyons & Co
, a leading British food manufacturer at the time that also ran a famous chain of tea shops. This past December, we celebrated the 60th anniversary of the formal recognition of Ukraine’s
Sergey Lebedev’s pioneering MESM project
. We’ve also given our support to help restore
Bletchley Park
, the site of the U.K.’s wartime codebreaking and home of
Colossus
, the world’s first electronic programmable computer.
Now we’re moving to the heart of Europe. “This is a beautiful story between Google and us, which allows us to recognize the memory of the Mundaneum,” says the Mundaneum’s director Jean-Paul Deplus. For Google, it’s just as exciting to rediscover our own roots.
Posted by William Echikson, External Relations, Brussels
Syrian citizen journalists capture Netizen Prize
Monday, March 12, 2012
For the past year, Syrian citizen journalists have continued to collect and disseminate information on the uprising wracking their country.
Reporters Without Borders
tonight honored these courageous activists, awarding them the
2012 Netizen Prize
.
Jasmine a 27-year-old Syrian activist living in Canada, accepted the award in a ceremony in Paris on behalf of the
Local Coordination Committees
. She preferred to use a pseudonym to protect her family inside Syria. “The Netizen Prize proves that our voices were heard and that we succeeded in delivering the stories of millions of Syrians who are struggling on the ground to achieve what they have always dreamed - to live in freedom and dignity” she said.
This is third year in a row that Google has sponsored the Netizen Prize. Reporters Without Borders counts 200 cases of netizens arrested in 2011, up 30% over the previous year. Five were killed. This is the highest level of violence against netizens ever recorded. More than 120 are currently in jail for keeping us informed. Our own products are blocked in about 25 of 125 countries in which the company operates. “The Internet allows courageous individuals in Syria and elsewhere to tell their story to the world,” said Google France President Jean-Marc Tassetto. “The Netizen Prize and our work with Reporters Without Borders testifies to our belief that access to information will lead to greater freedom and greater social and economic development.”
Syrian journalists and bloggers are threatened and arrested by the government. International news organizations are, for the most part, kept out of the country. In their absence, the committees have become almost the only way to keep the world abreast of the violence wracking the country. They emerged spontaneously following the start of the Syrian revolution last March, bringing together human rights activists and local journalists, and now are found in most cities and towns across the country. “The Netizen Prize proves that our voices were heard," Jasmine said.
Informants on the ground send information and the committees confirm it from multiple sources. A third group translates the news into English and distributes it. News, videos and pictures are posted on the group's
Facebook page
, on its
photo blog
, and on the group’s own
website
. "There are millions of stories that made us cry, laugh, get mixed emotions since the uprising began,” Ola added. “We were talking to a mother of three detainees and she made us all promise each other that no matter what, we will never stop covering the events of our beloved Syria."
The award was distributed on
World Day Against Cyber Censorship
. In 2010, the Netizen Prize was awarded to
Iranian cyberfeminists
. Last year, it went to
Nawaat
, a group blog run by independent Tunisian bloggers. The nominees for the Netizen Award 2012 come from across the globe, ranging from Russia to Syria to Brazil and China. their geographic diversity a reflection of the growing impact of the Net.
Posted by William Echikson, Head of Free Expression, Europe, Middle East and Africa
Freedom of Expression at the United Nations
Friday, March 9, 2012
Sessions at the
United Nations Human Rights Council
-- the UN body in Geneva that holds countries to account for their international obligations -- are almost always predictable affairs. Lots of diplomats talking about the same problems year after year. But the UN last week devoted a special session for the first time to free expression on the Internet, and we at Google were pleased to be one of the first private corporations invited to participate in such an official UN event.
The moment signaled how the international community is waking up to the importance of Internet freedom. The UN council’s auditorium was packed with almost 300 people. More than 50 ambassadors and delegates raised their hands to speak. Officials said they had rarely seen so many requests. Obviously, the stakes are high.
Some delegations outlined the limits on free expression and openness that many countries would like to impose. Some even tried to quash the session entirely through procedural means. The critics emphasized the dangers of the Net to promote terrorism, violence, or religious hatred, proposing that governments should be able to limit freedom by deciding how much opposition "legitimate authorities" should face from their citizens.
But many others - the majority, in fact - spoke up in favor of an open Internet where information flows freely. When Gutenberg invented the printing press, many feared the evils in books, argued
Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt
, whose country was the primary sponsor of the session. The same rules that govern freedom of expression on paper or the television airwaves should apply online, he insisted.
For Google, this UN session represented an opportunity to encourage governments to protect free expression online by disclosing when and why they make requests to companies to remove content or turn over information about users. We publish our own
Transparency Report
. This way, government/citizens can evaluate whether or not laws that may be well intentioned are enhancing/eroding freedoms. But our Report represents at best only a partial view. It would be much better if governments would do this themselves for their entire countries.
This session offered a critical look at the issues facing countries around the world as we debate the future of protecting and promoting the free flow of information online. The stakes are huge and all those who care about keeping the Internet open and free must come together to press the cause.
Posted by William Echikson, Head of Free Expression, Europe, Middle East and Africa
Remembering Colossus, the world’s first programmable electronic computer
Thursday, March 8, 2012
It’s no secret we have a
special fondness for Bletchley Park
. The pioneering work carried out there didn’t just crack codes—it laid the foundations for the computer age.
Today, we’d like to pay homage to a lesser-known contributor—
Tommy Flowers
. Bletchley Park’s breakthroughs were the product of theoretical mathematical brilliance combined with dazzling feats of engineering—none more so than Flowers’ creation of
Colossus
, the world’s first programmable, electronic computer.
Photo of Dr. Thomas “Tommy” Flowers. Reproduced with kind permission of the Flowers family
By 1942 the hardest task facing Bletchley Park’s wartime codebreakers was deciphering messages encrypted by
Lorenz
, used by Germany for their most top-secret communications. Initially Lorenz messages were broken by hand, using ingenious but time-consuming techniques. To speed things up, it was decided to build a machine to automate parts of the decoding process. This part-mechanical, part-electronic device was called
Heath Robinson
, but although it helped, it was unreliable and still too slow.
Tommy Flowers was an expert in the use of
relays
and
thermionic valves
for switching, thanks to his research developing telephone systems. Initially, he was summoned to Bletchley Park to help improve Heath Robinson, but his concerns with its design were so great he came up with an entirely new solution—an electronic machine, later christened Colossus.
When Flowers proposed the idea for Colossus in February 1943, Bletchley Park management feared that, with around 1,600 thermionic valves, it would be unreliable. Drawing on his pre-war research, Flowers was eventually able to persuade them otherwise, with proof that valves were reliable provided the machine they were used in was never turned off. Despite this, however, Bletchley Park’s experts were still skeptical that a new machine could be ready quickly enough and declined to pursue it further.
Fortunately Flowers was undeterred, and convinced the
U.K.’s Post Office research centre
at Dollis Hill in London to approve the project instead. Working around the clock, and partially funding it out of his own pocket, Flowers and his team completed a prototype Colossus in just 10 months.
Photo of the rebuilt Colossus which you can visit at
The National Museum of Computing
in the U.K.
Reproduced with kind permission of The National Museum of Computing.
The first Colossus came into operation at Bletchley Park in January 1944. It exceeded all expectations and was able to derive many of the Lorenz settings for each message within a few hours, compared to weeks previously. This was followed in June 1944 by a 2,400-valve Mark 2 version which was even more powerful, and which provided vital information to aid the D-Day landings. By the end of the war there were 10 Colossus computers at Bletchley Park working 24/7.
Once war was over, all mention of Colossus was forbidden by the
Official Secrets Act
. Eight of the machines were dismantled, while the remaining two were sent to London where they purportedly were used for intelligence purposes until 1960. It wasn’t until the 1970’s that Colossus could begin to claim its rightful crown at the forefront of computing history.
Tommy Flowers passed away in 1998, but we were privileged recently to catch up with some on his team who helped build and maintain Colossus.
This week heralds the opening of a
new gallery
dedicated to Colossus at the U.K.’s
National Museum of Computing
, based at Bletchley Park. The rebuilt Colossus is on show, and over the coming weeks it will be joined by interactive exhibits and displays. Bletchley Park is less than an hour from Central London, and makes a fitting pilgrimage for anyone interested in computing.
Posted by Lynette Webb, Senior Manager, External Relations
(Cross-posted from the
Official Google Blog
)
Lights, camera, action
Thursday, March 8, 2012
Film-making among young people has never been more popular, and the great thing about the internet is that you no longer need to be a movie mogul to reach a global audience. These days the tools to shoot, edit and distribute your work are available to just about everyone.
YouTube has been working with two organisations in the UK who do great work to help develop the next generation of film industry talent. At the
First Light Awards
, held this week at the
British Film Institute
in London, we supported a brand new Digital Innovation Award. It gives film-makers aged 18-25 from all backgrounds the chance to win £1,000 towards their next film project. Winner Kristina Yee’s film entitled “Witch” is a beautiful and innovative piece of animation.
Ben Burdock, only 22, from London was a runner up with his film No Escape.
The other runner up was Horoscope Crazy, by 19-year old Luc Eisenbarth from Brighton and Hove.
We also sponsored the National Film and Television School’s Showcase at the BFI Southbank. It showcases students’ animation, documentary, fiction and entertainment work to the industry. Films from last year’s edition went on to win an
Oscar nomination
and a
BAFTA award
. Agents have already been swooping on this year’s talent.
Our partnership with the school includes a film clinic aimed at helping amateur film-makers tell their stories to a broader audience and a business module in which students can learn about new digital distribution strategies and ways to make money from their work online.
YouTube is all about helping the next generation of creative stars to innovate and thrive online. We now have more than 30,000 partners making money from their work and we look forward to seeing this week’s winners and exhibitors get their names up in lights.
Posted by Anna Bateson, Director of YouTube Marketing, Europe, Middle East and Africa
Celebrating Courageous Citizen Journalism
Monday, March 5, 2012
Each year on
World Day Against Cyber Censorship
, Google and
Reporters Without Borders
join together to celebrate and hand out a prize for defending online freedom. This year, we’ll be gathering in Paris on March 12 to debate the issue of cyberfreedom and name our annual
Netizen of the Year
.
The 2012 nominees come from around the globe, from Russia to Syria to Brazil, China and beyond. Their geographic diversity a reflection of the growing impact of the Net. Once connected, each one of us is now able to share our thoughts and observations with the world.
Forty countries engage in active censorship, up from four a decade ago. Google products are blocked in about 25 of 125 countries in which we operate.
Reporters Without Borders inaugurated the annual World Day against Cyber Censorship in 2008, with the aim of protecting a single Internet, free, and accessible to all. Google joined in 2010 to sponsor the Netizen of the Year award, which recognises a user, or a blogger dissident who became famous for his work in defence of freedom of expression on the Net. An independent jury of press experts chooses the winner who receives prize money of EUR 2,500.
In 2010, the Netizen Prize was awarded to
Iranian cyberfeminists
. Last year, it went to
Nawaat
, a group blog run by independent Tunisian bloggers. The nominees for the Netizen Award 2012 are:
Leonardo Sakamoto, Brazil
: Journalist and professor, Sakamoto covered East Timor's war of independence and Angola's civil war. On his blog, he investigates the plight of Indian minorities in the Amazon.
Wukan, China
: The village of Wukan (13,000 inhabitants) in Southern China was the scene of a violent revolt last December. Village inhabitants used the Internet and social network Weibo to mobilise public opinion.
Maikel Nabil Sanad, Egyp
t: This blogger denounced abuses by the army during the popular protests of spring 2011 and was imprisoned in post-revolutionary Egypt.
Grigory Melkonyants, Russia
: Melkonyant’s
KartaNarusheniy.ru
publishes an interactive map illustrating irregularities in Russian election campaigns. It allows users to locate and report fraud by posting photos, videos or audio recordings.
Media Centers Local Coordinating Committee, Syria
: Groups of citizen journalists collect and disseminate, in real time, information and images of Syria's uprising.
Paulus Le Van Son, Vietnam
: Le Van Son is a 26-year old blogger covers religious and human rights issues. After he reported on anti-Chinese protests and police violence, he was arrested on August 3, 2011, in Hanoi.
We look forward to seeing you in Paris on March 12 to celebrate cyberfreedom and learn the name of the winner.
Posted by William Echikson, Head of Free Expression, Europe, Middle East and Africa
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