Europe Blog
Our views on the Internet and society
A donation to humanitarian relief for refugees and migrants
Saturday, September 5, 2015
Europe, the Middle East and Northern Africa are facing a refugee and migrant crisis - the world’s biggest since the Second World War. According to the
UNHCR
, thirty-eight European countries recorded 264,000 asylum applications, an increase of 24% compared to the same period of 2013. Given the severity of this crisis, we want to play our part in helping relieve the plight of refugees and migrants around the world.
[Photo credit: UNHCR]
Google.org
is donating €1M to organisations who are providing front-line humanitarian relief to migrants and refugees, such as
International Rescue Committee
,
Médecins Sans Frontières
,
UNHCR
and
Aktion Deutschland Hilft
. These organisations are providing essential assistance, including shelter, food and water, and medical care, to people in dire need.
In addition, we are creating a public site to help people make their own donations and are matching Googler donations as well.
Posted by Jacqueline Fuller, Director, Google.org
Improving quality isn’t anti-competitive
Thursday, August 27, 2015
Google has always worked to improve its services, creating new ways to provide better answers and show more useful ads. We’ve taken seriously the concerns in the European Commission’s Statement of Objections (SO) that our innovations are anti-competitive. The response we filed today shows why we believe those allegations are incorrect, and why we believe that Google increases choice for European consumers and offers valuable opportunities for businesses of all sizes.
The SO says that Google’s displays of paid ads from merchants (and, previously, of specialized groups of organic search results) “diverted” traffic away from shopping services. But the SO doesn't back up that claim, doesn't counter the significant benefits to consumers and advertisers, and doesn't provide a clear legal theory to connect its claims with its proposed remedy.
Our response provides evidence and data to show why the SO’s concerns are unfounded. We use traffic analysis to rebut claims that our ad displays and specialized organic results harmed competition by preventing shopping aggregators from reaching consumers. Economic data spanning more than a decade, an array of documents, and statements from complainants all confirm that product search is robustly competitive. And we show why the SO is incorrect in failing to consider the impact of major shopping services like Amazon and eBay, who are the largest players in this space.
The universe of shopping services has seen an enormous increase in traffic from Google, diverse new players, new investments, and expanding consumer choice. Google delivered more than 20 billion free clicks to aggregators over the last decade in the countries covered by the SO, with free traffic increasing by 227% (and total traffic increasing even more).
Moreover, the ways people search for, compare, and buy products are rapidly evolving. Users on desktop and mobile devices often want to go straight to trusted merchants who have established an online presence. These kinds of developments reflect a dynamic and competitive industry, where companies are continuing to evolve their business models and online and offline markets are converging.
But our central point is our consistent commitment to quality -- the relevance and usefulness of our search results and the ads we display. In providing results for people interested in shopping, we knew we needed to go beyond the old-fashioned “10 blue links” model to keep up with our competitors and better serve our users and advertisers. We developed new ways to organize and rank product information and to present it to users in useful formats in search and ads. In 2012, as part of that effort, in addition to our traditional ads, we introduced the Google Shopping Unit as a new ad format:
We don’t think this format is anti-competitive. On the contrary, showing ads based on structured data provided by merchants demonstrably improves ad quality and makes it easier for consumers to find what they’re looking for. We show these ad groups where we’ve always shown ads -- to the right and at the top of organic results -- and we use specialized algorithms to maximize their relevance for users. Data from users and advertisers confirms they like these formats. That’s not “favoring” -- that’s giving our customers and advertisers what they find most useful.
The SO also seeks a peculiar and problematic remedy, requiring that Google show ads sourced and ranked by other companies within our advertising space. We show in our response that this would harm the quality and relevance our results. And, in a report submitted with our response, former President of the General Court Bo Vesterdorf outlines why such an obligation could be legally justified only where a company has a duty to supply its own rivals – as where it controls an input that is both essential and not available anywhere else (like gas or electricity). Given the many ways to reach consumers on the Internet, the SO doesn't argue that standard applies here.
Our search engine is designed to provide the most relevant results and most useful ads for any query. Users and advertisers benefit when we do this well. So does Google. It’s in our interest to provide high-quality results and ads that connect people to what they’re looking for. The more relevant the ads -- the better they perform in connecting potential buyers and sellers -- the more value they generate for everyone.
Throughout the almost 17 years since Google started, our engineers have been developing innovative approaches to search and ads that are valuable for both users and advertisers. In the video below you can hear from our engineers about how our services have evolved to give people better results and ads. We are proud of their work and eager to tell their story.
We believe that the SO's preliminary conclusions are wrong as a matter of fact, law, and economics. We look forward to discussing our response and supporting evidence with the Commission, in the interest of promoting user choice and open competition.
Posted by Kent Walker, SVP & General Counsel
Google for Entrepreneurs Tech Hub Network arrives in Ireland
Thursday, August 27, 2015
When Google first started in Ireland, we opened an office with just five people. Today we have more than 5000 people in our Dublin office and as we have grown, so has Dublin’s tech community. The city is now home to some of the biggest global tech firms as well as some of the most promising startups in Europe. This community is creating jobs and opportunity with two thirds of all new jobs in the Irish economy being created by startups.
We have always been committed to supporting the startup community in Dublin to help the next generation of companies succeed. So we are especially pleased that today the Google for Entrepreneurs Tech Hub Network announced a partnership with Dogpatch Labs, one of Ireland’s leading startup organisations. The announcement was made by Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Richard Bruton T.D at an event at Dogpatch Labs today.
The partnership will provide co-working space along with new resources including funding, training and mentorship opportunities. Members will also get access to Google programs and products throughout the network including:
Mentorship from Dublin Googlers (in 2014, over 200 Googlers mentored Irish startups)
Eligibility for Google product offers relevant to startups; and
The Google for Entrepreneurs Global Passport, where entrepreneurs from each hub can work for free at spaces designated at any other hub in the network including London, San Francisco and Tel Aviv
With Dogpatch Labs and our
Google for Entrepreneurs program
, we hope Dublin’s world-class startup community will grow that much faster, building transformative products and companies that will take the world by storm. We can’t wait to see what new ideas come out
Posted by Paddy Flynn, Startup engagement at Google Ireland
Google pays tribute to Belgium’s inventors
Sunday, August 23, 2015
In the late 19th century, Belgian lawyer Paul Otlet created the Universal Bibliography in Brussels, a repository of more than 12 million searchable index cards that later came to be called the Mundaneum. With today’s
Google Doodle
on the French, Belgian and several other versions of Google, and new online exhibitions by the
Mundaneum
on the Cultural Institute website, we pay tribute to Otlet's pioneering work in making information accessible and useful.
Throughout history, prolific thinkers and innovators have had the vision to see what the world might look like in the future. Often, they dreamed up today’s most advanced technologies long before it was even possible to create them.
Paul Otlet belongs to that group of thinkers. He had a clear vision for the Mundaneum: a universal system of written, visual, and audio information that people could access from the comfort of their own homes. Just a few decades later, engineers planted the technological seeds that brought electronic information sharing to life.
Created by Googler Leon Hong, today’s Doodle pays tribute to Otlet’s vision. The collection of knowledge stored in the Mundaneum’s wooden drawers form the foundational work for everything that happens at Google and much of what happens across the world wide web.
Today’s Doodle also coincides with the launch of new online exhibitions about Otlet’s work on the
Google Cultural Institute
website. The modern day Mundaneum museum in Mons, Belgium has curated the exhibitions, which give insight into Paul Otlet’s life and achievements, and the Nobel Prize won by Mundaneum co-founder Henri La Fontaine. You can view the exhibitions on
the Cultural Institute website
, and in a dedicated
mobile app
that our engineers developed together with Mundaneum staff. We especially recommend you to check out these three new exhibitions:
Towards the Information Age
Paul Otlet (1868–1944), founder of the Mundaneum
Mapping Knowledge
The Visualizations of Paul Otlet
The 100th Anniversary of a Nobel Peace Prize
Henri La Fontaine (1854-1943), Nobel Peace Prize in 1913
Posted by Pierre Caessa, Program Manager, Google Cultural Institute
See through the clouds with Earth Engine and Sentinel-1 Data
Monday, August 3, 2015
This year the
Google Earth Engine
team and I attended the European Geosciences Union General Assembly meeting in Vienna, Austria to engage with a number of European geoscientific partners. This was just the first of a series of European summits the team has attended over the past few months, including, most recently, the
IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Society
meeting held last week in Milan, Italy.
Noel Gorelick presenting Google Earth Engine at EGU 2015
We are very excited to be collaborating with many European scientists from esteemed institutions such as the
European Commission Joint Research Centre
,
Wageningen University
, and
University of Pavia
. These researchers are
utilizing the Earth Engine geospatial analysis platform
to address issues of global importance in areas such as food security, deforestation detection, urban settlement detection, and freshwater availability.
Thanks to the enlightened free and open data policy of the European Commission and European Space Agency, we are pleased to announce the availability of
Copernicus Sentinel-1
data through Earth Engine for visualization and analysis. Sentinel-1, a radar imaging satellite with the ability to see through clouds, is the first of at least 6
Copernicus
satellites going up in the next 6 years.
Sentinel-1 data visualized using Earth Engine, showing Vienna (left) and Milan (right).
Wind farms seen off the Eastern coast of England
This radar data offers a powerful complement to other optical and thermal data from satellites like Landsat, that are already available in the Earth Engine public data catalog. If you are a geoscientist interested in accessing and analyzing the newly available EC/ESA Sentinel-1 data, or anything else in our multi-petabyte data catalog, please
sign up for Google Earth Engine
.
We look forward to further engagements with the European research community and are excited to see what the world will do with the data from the European Union's Copernicus program satellites.
Posted by Luc Vincent, Engineering Director, Geo Imagery
Implementing a European, not global, right to be forgotten
Thursday, July 30, 2015
In a landmark ruling in May 2014, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) established a "right to be forgotten", or more accurately, a “right to delist”, allowing Europeans to ask search engines to delist certain links from results they show based on searches for that person’s name. We moved rapidly to comply with the ruling from the Court. Within weeks we made it possible for people to submit removal requests, and soon after that began delisting search results.
It's now just over a year later and we’ve
evaluated and processed
more than a quarter of a million requests to delist links to more than one million individual web pages. Whenever a request meets the criteria set by the Court for removal (which are that the information can be deemed
inadequate, irrelevant, no longer relevant
or
excessive
, and not in the public interest) we delist it from search results for that individual’s name from all European versions of Google Search.
However, earlier this summer, France’s data protection regulator, the CNIL, sent us a
formal notice
ordering us to delist links not just from all European versions of Search but also from all versions
globally
. That means a removal request by an individual in France, if approved, would not only be removed from google.fr and other European versions of Google Search, but from all versions of Google Search around the world.
This is a troubling development that risks serious chilling effects on the web.
While the right to be forgotten may now be the law in Europe, it is not the law globally. Moreover, there are innumerable examples around the world where content that is declared illegal under the laws of one country, would be deemed legal in others: Thailand criminalizes some speech that is critical of its King, Turkey criminalizes some speech that is critical of Ataturk, and Russia outlaws some speech that is deemed to be “gay propaganda."
If the CNIL’s proposed approach were to be embraced as the standard for Internet regulation, we would find ourselves in a race to the bottom. In the end, the Internet would only be as free as the world’s least free place.
We believe that no one country should have the authority to control what content someone in a second country can access. We also believe this order is disproportionate and unnecessary, given that the overwhelming majority of French internet users—currently around 97%—access a European version of Google’s search engine like google.fr, rather than Google.com or any other version of Google.
As a matter of principle, therefore, we respectfully disagree with the CNIL’s assertion of global authority on this issue and we have asked the CNIL to withdraw its Formal Notice.
We have worked hard to strike the right balance in our implementation of the European Court’s ruling and have maintained a collaborative dialogue with the CNIL and other data protection authorities, who agree with our decisions in the majority of cases referred to them. We are committed to continuing to work with regulators in this open and transparent way.
Posted by Peter Fleischer, Global Privacy Counsel
Forget Middle Earth—Central and Eastern Europe's salt mines, ice caves, mountains and castles are now on Street View
Wednesday, July 8, 2015
Throughout history, Europe has been a hotbed of culture, imagination and natural beauty. At Google we’re keen to share these elements with the world through our maps, so over recent months we’ve been taking all manner of
Street View
technologies—Trekkers, Trolleys and tripods—to capture some incredible places across the continent, focusing this time on Central and Eastern Europe. Here are a few highlights for you to explore:
Hungary
Floating down the
Danube
river in summertime is a wonderful thing. But now you can also check out some of Hungary’s hidden gems in Google Maps. Take a look inside the
National Theatre of Pécs
and explore the beautiful
Basilica of Eger
, the second largest church in the country. In the capital, Budapest, you can walk among the trees and rose bushes in the little-known but spectacular
botanical garden
near the centre of town, or even
climb a hill
to get away from it all.
The magnificent National Theatre of Pec, Hungary
Czech Republic
If you’re lucky enough to have been to Prague, you may have seen the fairytale sight of
Prague Castle
from the medieval
Charles Bridge
. They’re too good to miss, so we added these sites and almost 30 others in Czech Republic to Street View including the
gardens of the Prague Castle
,
Prague’s historic center
, interiors of castles such as
Cesky Krumlov
and
Spilberk
, and beauty spots like
Ceske Svycarsko
and
Krkonose National Park
.
The interior of the Cesky Krumlov Castle, Czech Republic
Slovakia
In Slovakia, we’ve just released images of heritage sites like this
wooden protestant church in Kezmarok
and national parks like
Velka Fatra
and
Pieniny
. To get a feel for the history of the country, why not check out
Branc Castle
or
Draskovic Castle
in Cachtice? From the high turrets and battlements of the castles, you can then take a trip below ground and visit
Dobsinska Ice Cave
and
Ochtinska Aragonite Cave
which we added last year.
The church in Kezmarok
Romania
And finally, sink 100 meters deep into one of the most breathtaking places beneath the earth: the
Turda Salt Mine
, in Cluj County, Romania. Tourists around the world can take a tour of the mine—which is more than 200 years old—with our high-resolution imagery, from the comfort of their homes.
Turda Salt Mine, Romania
We hope you enjoy discovering some of the delights of Europe as much as we did.
Posted by Magdalena Filak, Street View team
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