Europe Blog
Our views on the Internet and society
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
Discussing creative, constructive copyright reforms in Warsaw
Friday, November 30, 2012
Almost a year ago, massive street demonstrations forced the Polish government to reject an international treaty
ACTA
aimed at criminalizing copyright infringement. Today, we are moving away from this disarray and acrimony and launching a new constructive dialogue.
This week, 300 producers, distributors and consumers of creative content gathered in Warsaw’s
Kino Kultura
for the first ever
CopyCamp
. They shared their experience and perspectives on copyright, stories about how copyright works in practice, and setting the direction for the future of copyright in the digital world. The
Modern Poland Foundation
organized the event, under the honorary patronage of the
Digitization Ministry
. We partnered to make this possible, along with the
Polish Filmmakers Association
, the
ZAiKS Collecting Society
,
Trust for Central and Eastern Europe
.
Nina Paley
opened the event. She is the author of a cartoon film titled “Sita sings the blues” which tells the story of Ramayana using popular songs as soundtrack. Behind the entertaining presentation was a serious message: she started to make money on her films only after she started to apply open licensing to her art.
Paley presented another amusing film.
More than 30 other speakers, among them creators and creators’ organizations, collecting societies, members of the European Parliament, social activists, journalists, lawyers, academics and students, gave fast-paced short presentations. They ranged from a filmmaker’s and musician’s perspective on fair use and creativity, through discussions on the role of collecting societies, copyright education, internet platforms, the complex copyright stories of key icons of Polish culture and the way news publishers work with new internet business models. I talked about how the new technologies and creativity work together for the benefit of the authors and users and how copyright impacts this synergy.
After anti-ACTA protests started the Polish debate on copyright, the speakers agreed that contemporary Polish copyright framework is antiquated. By getting traditional content industries and Internet advocates to sit down together, the CopyCamp represents a hopeful first step in what we will hope becomes a constructive partnership.
Posted by Agata Wacławik-Wejman, Senior Policy Counsel, Warsaw
Big Tent Paris - digital revolution or bust?
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Concrete, not canvas, was the backdrop for our first Big Tent in Paris. We held the event in the imposing Palais d’Iéna, home of our hosts the
Conseil économique, social et environnemental
. The President of the CESE, M. Jean Paul Delevoye, pointed out that concrete was the great symbol of progress when the palace was built in the 1930s.
Today, the Internet represents progress and the day’s theme was to ask how the digital revolution can bring economic growth back to France and Europe. According to a
new OECD study
, the Net already accounts of 13 percent of American business output, impacting every industry, from communications to cars, and restaurants to retail. OECD economist Taylor Reynolds called on other countries to collect data in order to make comparable estimates in other countries. In a video message, the French digital economy minister
Fleur Pellerin
said digital companies grow faster and are more profitable than others in Europe. That’s why, she said, digital companies must be at the heart of future French economic growth.
While that idea sounds uncontroversial, it provoked a series of hotly debated questions during the course of the day. Does the digital revolution create or destroy jobs? How do we balance the value of data and the protection of consumers? Why do investors in digital startups prefer London or Berlin to Paris? We heard about the size of the opportunity for France, as in this
film.
We also heard about the scale of France's competitive challenge, as in this film promoting London, not Paris, as a home for start ups.
For France, will it be a digital revolution, or bust?
Posted by Elisabeth Bargès, Public Policy Manager, Innovation, France
The real Mountain View: on the piste with Street View
Wednesday, November 28, 2012
As the ski season approaches and you’re busy digging out your thermal underwear and snow boots, we hope to make your holiday preparations a little more enjoyable by adding some of the world’s favourite ski runs and resorts to Google Maps. Whether you’re looking to discover a piste you’ve never tried before, or just want to take in some of the breathtaking scenery to get in the mood for your trip, we hope you have fun exploring locations across Europe (including runs in Switzerland, Austria, Norway, Sweden, Italy and Spain), Canada (including runs at Blue Mountain, Lake Louise and Fernie) and the US (including runs in Utah and Michigan).
For example, take a look at
Sölden
, a popular ski resort in the Ötztal valley of Tyrol, Austria. It’s not just tourists who flock there every year, but fans of professional skiing - Sölden regularly hosts the giant slalom competition as part of the Alpine World Cup in late October.
View Larger Map
Or virtually visit one of the iconic resorts in Switzerland like St. Moritz or Zermatt.
View Larger Map
Whenever we launch new imagery, our users start to develop creative and inspiring uses for the images. For example,
Skiline.cc
has integrated our snowy pictures into their web app which lets skiers virtually
recap their day
on the slopes.
Street View travels further north
Continuing the wintery theme, we’re introducing our first ever imagery in Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago that lies about 400 miles north of mainland Europe - and the most northerly territory we’ve ever had on Street View. Svalbard was allegedly first discovered by Viking explorers in the 12th century, and now you can discover the beautiful tundras and harsh landscapes of the sparsely populated islands for yourself.
Svalbard is important today, hosting the
Svalbard Satellite station
, used by organisations like NASA and the ESA and the
Global Seed Vault
, a facility that provides spare samples of seeds found in gene banks all over the world.
View Larger Map
View Larger Map
The ice roads
Finally, we’re also delighted to introduce some brand new imagery of the ice roads in Estonia, fashioned from the frozen waters of the Baltic Sea. Although these roads are only open when the weather permits and the ice is thick enough, we were lucky enough to capture the 10km ice road from Rohuküla to Sviby and the 3km stretch from Haapsalu to Noarootsi, among others.
View Larger Map
View Larger Map
Posted by Ulf Spitzer, Street View Program Manager
Defending the open Web in Germany
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
For years now, you’ve been able to type a few words into your computer and get answers from an ever-growing sea of websites. Soon, however, this could change. The German Parliament this week begins debating a proposal for a new law which threatens to change the web as we’ve known for the last two decades - and make finding online information much more difficult in future.
That’s why today we’re launching an information campaign,
Dein Netz
, to give the facts about the proposed law and to invite you to contribute to the debate, in person and online.
German news publishers are seeking to extend dramatically the reach of copyright law. Today it prevents copying of articles, but the proposals would place restrictions on even a ‘snippet’ of an article, such as is common found in search engine results. Snippets help people understand, compare and evaluate which websites to visit. If enacted, the law would force search engines, news aggregators and many other online services that help people locate information online to contract with publishers in order to show a snippet of what is available.
That would be complete reversal of the legal situation today where the display of snippets is permitted. The European Journalism Centre recently compared this to asking “your
local newsstand
... to pay royalties for exhibiting the papers and magazines” it has on display. From then on, the simple act of linking or displaying snippets would become fraught with legal risk.
It would also be a reversal of the practices we see on the web today. When Google’s web crawler requests copies of pages from a publisher’s website, it is clear from where the request comes, and it is for the publisher to decide whether their server responds. In fact, virtually all publishers welcome crawlers and many voluntarily provide specific additional information to help crawlers find pages (in the form of a
sitemap
). A further set of highly refined controls is also available to publishers through the robots exclusion protocol that we have
blogged
in the past.
The end result is that, as one of many ways people find news content, Google News and Google search sends around four billion clicks through to publishers each month. That’s significant for us because there is no advertising on
Google News
in Europe. But Google is frequently one of the advertising service providers for the major news publishers (even of our most vocal critics in this debate), so our opportunity to make money is when users click on a link and go to the site of of one of our partners in the news industry. Looked at globally and across all web publishing businesses, Google shared $7 billion of advertising revenue last year.
We want to build win-win ways to partner with publishers. What we want to avoid is a system that puts the brakes on the open Internet, limits choice for people looking for information, and dramatically raises the cost of online innovation.
Please take a few minutes to look through our campaign site. Please get involved. You only have a limited amount of time to defend your Internet!
Posted by Simon Hampton, Director, Public Policy, Europe
Partnering with GEN and Le Nouvel Observateur
Monday, November 26, 2012
Publishers are making the transition to the digital age and we’re working in France to make this happen to benefit readers. On November 28 and 29th, we’re supporting a workshop titled
"Journalistic Tools for News Photos"
with key French newspapers.
Le Nouvel Observateur
is hosting. The
Global Editors Network
, a non-profit media association that promotes innovation in journalism, is producing the content.
Representatives from Le Nouvel Observateur,
Libération
,
Le Parisien
/ASK Media,
France 24
,
Play Bac/Mon Quotidien
,
OWNI
and
Citizenside
, are entering teams. During the workshop, the teams will be challenged to incorporate digital photography, animated GIF, slideshows, pictures, 3D, and augmented reality into their news coverage. Three masterclasses will be offered. Christian Witt, Strategic Partner Development Manager, Google TV, will speak about the opportunities around connected TVs and Google TV.
On the evening of November 29, the teams will present their final projects. Google’s consultant for editorial innovation
Daniel Sieberg
, Emmy-nominated and award-winning science and technology TV correspondent and author, will give a keynote speech about the future of journalism. A jury of experts will select the best project, and the team will be invited to the Editors' Lab final stage – the International News Hackathon during the 2013
GEN News Summit
in June 2013 at the Paris City Hall. Last year’s event attracted several hundred entires from around the world.
This workshop represents only the latest initiative to partner with the French press. Over the past year, we have worked with
Le Monde to bring Tunisian journalists
into their newsroom. We worked with
Liberation on their Forum de Lyon
. And we have sponsored digital
news awards
for students studying at Institut de Science Politique’s Journalism School.
For more information regarding the Editors’ Lab - Paris, contact GEN Deputy Director
Antoine Laurent
or Le Nouvel Observateur Online Editor
Aurelien Viers
.
Posted by Anne-Gabrielle Dauba-Pantanacce, Head of Communications, France
Small businesses: Europe's economic engine
Friday, November 23, 2012
If Europe is to power its way to economic recovery, small and medium enterprises, which
create two out of three private sector jobs
, are likely to provide the necessary acceleration.
In recent months, we’ve been working to highlight how these same SMEs are taking advantage of the Internet to attract new customers, grow market share and go global. The
euronews Business Awards
competition asked SMEs to explain how they “shine online”, and attracted video entries from seven countries.
The winners - chosen by a jury and public vote - will receive their prizes at a reception at Google’s Brussels office on Thursday 29th November between 18:00 and 20:00.
If you’d like to join us in raising a glass to their success, please register here
.
Centercourt
, from Germany, started in a bedroom and is now one of the biggest online tennis shops.
MyDestination
, started in the UK, now provides local insider knowledge about hundreds of destinations around the world. And
Orientalmente
, a Spanish language school specialised in teaching Chinese, has just started out - and is growing fast online.
In Cyprus recently, our Greek country manager Stefanos Loukakos spoke at the European Commission’s first
SME Assembly
. He highlighted how the Internet is helping small Greek businesses in straightened times. As a company that started only 14 years ago in a garage, we know how small companies can become big ones. “The Internet enables the SMEs of today to become the multinationals of tomorrow,” Loukakos argued in his speech. The Commission highlighted the comment as one of its
top quotes of the day
.
Posted by Angela Steen, Senior Policy Analyst, Google Brussels
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