Introducing Google for the Public Sector

<div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:small;">(Cross-posted with the <a href="http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2009/09/introducing-google-for-public-sector.html">Google Public Policy Blog</a>)</span></span></div><div><br /></div>The 2008 elections demonstrated how technology can increase political participation, and now we're beginning to see the power of Web 2.0 come to government.<br /><br />On the heels of last week's <a href="http://googlepublicsector.blogspot.com/2009/09/transparency-technology-you-message.html">Gov 2.0 Summit</a> in Washington, D.C., we're excited to launch <a href="http://www.google.com/publicsector/">Google for the Public Sector</a>, a one-stop shop of tools and tips that local, state and federal government officials can use to help promote transparency and increase citizen participation.<br /><br />The site helps government agencies:<br /><ul><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Make your website, and the information it offers, easier to find.</span> For example, in less than 50 technical staff hours, Arizona's Government Information Technology Agency <a href="http://www.google.com/publicsector/content/arizona.html">made hundreds of thousands of public records</a> and other webpages "crawlable" to search engines and visible in Google search results.</li><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Visualize your information and tell your story in Google Earth & Maps</span> to the hundreds of millions of people who use them. The State Department runs an <a href="http://www.state.gov/secretary/trvl/map/?trip_id=13">interactive Google Map</a> of Secretary Clinton's travels, which shows where she has been and includes photos and videos.</li><li><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;">Use the power of online video</span> to engage millions of potential viewers and give constituents a voice. In the U.S. alone, the Senate, House of Representatives, White House, and federal government, among others, all have YouTube channels.<br /></li></ul>According to the <a href="http://www.pewinternet.org/">Pew Internet and American Life Project</a>, nearly four out of five American Internet users go online to find government information. Technology will help play a key role in making this information accessible, useful and transparent.<br /><br /><span class="byline-author">Posted by Ginny Hunt, Public Sector Project Manager</span>

Introducing Google for the Public Sector

(Cross-posted with the Google Public Policy Blog ) The 2008 elections demonstrated how technology can increase political participation, and ...

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Growing open government with Transparency Camp West

<span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >(If you're interested in meeting the team of Googlers working to strengthen the public sector and civic engagement through technology, check out our <a href="http://googlepublicsector.blogspot.com/2009/08/hello-world.html">Public Sector blog</a>. -Ed.</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">)</span></span><br /><br />Organizing public sector information isn't easy, and companies like Google rely on the good work of open government advocates to access useful data. Last weekend more than 150 developers, NGOs, wonks, activists and government representatives from as far away as Russia and Israel gathered at our <a href="http://maps.google.com/?q=Google%20Inc.@37.423156,-122.084917&hl=en">Mountain View campus</a> for <a href="http://transparencycamp.org/">Transparency Camp West</a> to discuss efforts to make governments more transparent and accessible to the public.<br /><br />Sponsored by the <a href="http://www.sunlightfoundation.com/">Sunlight Foundation</a>, a non-partisan organization founded in 2006, Transparency Camp allowed open government advocates to freely swap ideas about a wide range of topics: voting, journalism, public transit, healthcare, citizen engagement and more. The theme of openness also extended to the Sunlight Foundation's board meeting on Saturday. While most organizations hold their board meetings in private, the Sunlight Foundation opened their board meeting not only to staff, but also to members of the public.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijxdHmobJyroNWs5Jm_ZnBKRNvreutmWKpNrVy3moY6aEF4zG6ntp8PMxc4FZAzDYZghTJmnTmUN3znp0CSFuiCJPig6gWnkrNb5FHFRAOFHUHEYBoHzdRSbEEbw2OL7CEarcsZp0UovWG/s1600-h/IMG_1651.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5369855161033368850" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijxdHmobJyroNWs5Jm_ZnBKRNvreutmWKpNrVy3moY6aEF4zG6ntp8PMxc4FZAzDYZghTJmnTmUN3znp0CSFuiCJPig6gWnkrNb5FHFRAOFHUHEYBoHzdRSbEEbw2OL7CEarcsZp0UovWG/s400/IMG_1651.JPG" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 267px;" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">The "un-conference" format let attendees decide session topics</span><br /></span></div><br />At Google we're inspired by efforts to connect people to the political process, to useful public information and to their governments — and we're eager to participate. To hear more about the different kinds of bottom-up change proposed at Transparency Camp, head to the <a href="http://google-opensource.blogspot.com/2009/08/let-sunshine-in-transparency-camp-west.html">Google Open Source blog</a> for a summary by Clay Johnson from the Sunlight Foundation.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhio1WH5043k2_0L23kj0K3DWvkKcUeSxXKRqfojKnmq4aQ0A8SRDKJ3C1Dip1MEWuUVrx-4DI0kiiMMPjsLS8EBsotVtRYytj4ia179gOSryITRxwMaisjlij2fqS0LRT2wJ1NwypVARXn/s1600-h/IMG_1603.JPG"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5369855498157078226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhio1WH5043k2_0L23kj0K3DWvkKcUeSxXKRqfojKnmq4aQ0A8SRDKJ3C1Dip1MEWuUVrx-4DI0kiiMMPjsLS8EBsotVtRYytj4ia179gOSryITRxwMaisjlij2fqS0LRT2wJ1NwypVARXn/s400/IMG_1603.JPG" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 267px;" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">This and previous photo courtesy of Heather Bussing</span></span><br /></div><br /><span class="byline-author">Posted by Chris DiBona, Open Source Programs Manager</span>

Growing open government with Transparency Camp West

(If you're interested in meeting the team of Googlers working to strengthen the public sector and civic engagement through technology, c...

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Submit your ideas to change the face of broadband

Have an idea for how to expand high-speed Internet access across the United States? Here's your chance to have your voice heard.<br /><br />Under the terms of the recent <a href="http://www.recovery.gov/">economic stimulus package</a>, the Federal Communications Commission must deliver to Congress a National Broadband Plan by February 2010. Several weeks ago, we l<a href="http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2009/06/google-submits-initial-comments.html">aid out Google's vision</a> for how to make broadband Internet available and affordable for every American — and <a href="http://gullfoss2.fcc.gov/cgi-bin/websql/prod/ecfs/comsrch_v2.hts?ws_mode=retrieve_list&id_proceeding=09-51&excludeInformal=Y&start=1&end=127&first_time=N">hundreds of others</a> have already submitted comments of their own.<br /><br />The FCC has <a href="http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2349698,00.asp">called for</a> "maximum civic engagement" in developing a broadband strategy, and we're hoping to help them to achieve just that.<br /><br />We've teamed up with the <a href="http://www.spectrumpolicy.org/">New America Foundation</a> to launch a <a href="http://moderator.appspot.com/#16/e=a4977">Google Moderator page</a> where you can submit and vote on ideas for what you think the Commission should include in its National Broadband Plan. Two weeks from now we'll take the most popular and most innovative ideas and submit them to the official record at the FCC on your behalf.<br /><br />Google and the New America Foundation agree that public participation in this process is critical. Expanding access to broadband has the potential to transform communities across the country, spark economic growth, and <a href="http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2007/08/americans-invented-internet-but.html">restore American competitiveness</a>. Now that the Commission has officially opened this proceeding, and with a new <a href="http://www.fcc.gov/commissioners/genachowski/">Chairman</a> at the helm, we think it's time to give people the opportunity to learn about the issue and to weigh in with their thoughts. And as the process continues to unfold at the FCC, we'll keep you informed of additional ways to share your views and voice your ideas to the agency.<br /><br />So do you have any good ideas? Submit them today on <a href="http://moderator.appspot.com/#16/e=a4977">Google Moderator</a> — and you just might help change the face of broadband in the United States.<br /><br /><span class="byline-author">Posted by Richard Whitt, Washington Telecom and Media Counsel</span>

Submit your ideas to change the face of broadband

Have an idea for how to expand high-speed Internet access across the United States? Here's your chance to have your voice heard. Under t...

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Media and citizens meet in the YouTube Reporters' Center

<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">This is the first of a series of posts from YouTube's news and politics blog, <a href="http://www.citizentube.com/">Citizentube</a>.</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> -Ed.</span></span><br /><br /><a href="http://www.youtube.com/">YouTube</a> is the biggest video news site on the Internet, and at no time in our site's history was that more apparent than in these last two weeks of the crisis unfolding in Iran. As hundreds of thousands of Iranian citizens took to the streets of Tehran to protest the national elections, the government kicked out foreign journalists, leaving citizens themselves as the only documentarians to the events unfolding there. We've been highlighting many of these videos and keeping track of the latest developments on our YouTube news and politics blog, <a href="http://www.citizentube.com/">Citizentube</a>.<br /><br />Though the circumstances in Iran are unique, this isn't the first time that citizens have played a crucial role in reporting on events around the world. Burmese citizens uploaded exclusive video footage to YouTube during the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/blog?entry=i_r4JhbhmgU">protests in Myanmar</a> back in 2007; people in China's Sichuan province documented the devastating and historic <a href="http://www.youtube.com/blog?entry=pB40GKtrVQY">7.8-magnitude earthquake</a> of 2008 in real-time; and eyewitnesses to the shooting of young <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Tmh9B8LVxM">Oscar Grant</a> by Oakland police forces captured the event on their cell phone cameras and uploaded videos to YouTube for the world to see. Citizens are no longer merely bystanders to world events. Today, anyone can chronicle what they see and participate in the news-gathering process.<br /><br />Though it's the phenomenon of citizen reporting that YouTube is probably best known for, we also have hundreds of news partners who upload thousands of videos straight to YouTube every day. You can see lots of these on our news page at <a href="http://www.youtube.com/news">youtube.com/news</a>. Many of these organizations have used YouTube in unique ways, like asking the community to <a href="http://www.citizentube.com/2009/01/washington-post-asks-your-government.html">submit questions for government officials</a>, providing a <a href="http://www.citizentube.com/2009/04/view-from-press-corp.html">behind-the-scenes look</a> at traveling with the Obama press corps and accepting video applications for a <a href="http://www.citizentube.com/2009/02/last-chance-to-win-trip-with-nick.html">reporting assignment in West Africa</a>. We believe the power of this new media landscape lies in the collaborative possibilities of amateurs and professionals working together.<br /><br />And so today, we're launching a new resource on YouTube to help citizens learn more about how to report the news, straight from the experts. It's called the <a href="http://youtube.com/reporterscenter">YouTube Reporters' Center</a>, and it features some of the nation's top journalists sharing instructional videos with tips and advice for better reporting. Learn how to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4eOynrI2eTM">prepare for an interview</a>; or how to be an <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVKGUctuoXE">investigative reporter</a> from the legendary Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward; or how to <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVVdH8n5470">report on a global humanitarian</a> crisis from Nick Kristof of the New York Times. All of the videos are available on the<a href="http://youtube.com/reporterscenter"> </a>YouTube Reporters' Center channel.<br /><br /><span class="byline-author">Posted by Olivia Ma, YouTube News and Politics</span>

Media and citizens meet in the YouTube Reporters' Center

This is the first of a series of posts from YouTube's news and politics blog, Citizentube . -Ed. YouTube is the biggest video news sit...

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All for Good: Bringing search, scale and openness to community service

While many organizations are doing great work to enable community service locally, it's not simple to search across opportunities from a variety of places to find what's right for you. We have some experience finding relevant information from among many scattered sources, and when we learned that President Obama and the First Lady were making community service <a href="http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1872152,00.html?iid=fb_share">a top priority even before taking office</a>, we thought we could help make a difference.<br /><br />With our mission in mind, a group of <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/05/googles-20-percent-time-in-action.html">"20%" engineers, designers, and program managers</a> from Google and other tech companies began work on <a href="http://www.allforgood.org/">All for Good</a>, a new service to help you find volunteer events in your community, and share those events with your friends.<br /><br />All for Good provides a single search interface for volunteer activities across many major volunteering sites and organizations like <a href="http://www.liveunited.org/">United Way</a>, <a href="http://www.volunteermatch.org/">VolunteerMatch</a>, <a href="http://www.handsonnetwork.org/">HandsOn Network</a> and <a href="http://www.reachoutandread.org/about_find.html">Reach Out and Read</a>. By building on top of the amazing efforts of existing volunteer organizations like these, we hope to amplify their efforts.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA2WVFmZPobuFjacpLk0mito4oDevdpk_15F_a2GSzBfTXVDwlZL500HsiAQzgOuBOzJnV8MiVzRvLNpbfYGGh4-ukLsk8YexwCvqKpEcxQaVmDFmE-8KU39YuuOdPBvIjjFrNOrNA6wJX/s1600-h/afg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5350174920223874754" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA2WVFmZPobuFjacpLk0mito4oDevdpk_15F_a2GSzBfTXVDwlZL500HsiAQzgOuBOzJnV8MiVzRvLNpbfYGGh4-ukLsk8YexwCvqKpEcxQaVmDFmE-8KU39YuuOdPBvIjjFrNOrNA6wJX/s400/afg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 228px;" /></a><br />And in the spirit of open data, All for Good has a data API that anyone can use to search the same data displayed on the All for Good site. All for Good was developed entirely using <a href="http://code.google.com/appengine/">App Engine</a> and <a href="http://www.google.com/base/">Google Base</a>, with the full code repository hosted on <a href="http://code.google.com/hosting/">Google Code Hosting</a>. We'll be inviting developers to contribute to the open source application soon, so stay tuned.<br /><br />Just as releasing the Maps API led to an surge of independent and creative uses of geographic information, we've built All for Good as a platform to encourage innovation in volunteerism, as much as an end product in itself. We hope software developers will use the API or code to build their own volunteering applications, some even better than the All for Good site!<br /><br />And if you want to volunteer your video-creating skills to make a difference, check out <a href="http://www.youtube.com/videovolunteers">YouTube Video Volunteers</a>, a new platform designed to make connections between non-profits with video needs and skilled video makers who can help broadcast their causes through video.<br /><br />All for Good is a new kind of collaboration between the private, public and nonprofits sectors to build free and open technology to empower citizens. Similar to the Open Social Foundation, we helped create a new organization called Our Good Works to make sure that the API, the platform, and social innovation that they inspire are supported for the long term. The leadership includes Reid Hoffman, Chris DiBona, Arianna Huffington and Craig Newmark on the board, and the organization aims to build support volunteerism services like All for Good.<br /><br />Today the First Lady is in San Francisco calling on Americans to improve our communities by rolling up our sleeves and putting our time and talent towards doing good. You can learn more at <a href="http://serve.gov/">serve.gov</a>, where we're proud to power search.<br /><br /><span class="byline-author">Posted by Paul Rademacher and Adam Sah, Engineering Tech Leads</span>

All for Good: Bringing search, scale and openness to community service

While many organizations are doing great work to enable community service locally, it's not simple to search across opportunities from a...

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Introducing Measurement Lab

When an Internet application doesn't work as expected or your connection seems flaky, how can you tell whether there is a problem caused by your broadband ISP, the application, your PC, or something else? It can be difficult for experts, let alone average Internet users, to address this sort of question today.<br /><br />Last year we asked a small group of academics about ways to advance network research and provide users with tools to test their broadband connections. Today Google, the <a href="http://www.newamerica.net/">New America Foundation</a>'s Open Technology Institute, the <a href="http://www.planet-lab.org/">PlanetLab Consortium</a>, and academic researchers are taking the wraps off of <a href="http://www.measurementlab.net/">Measurement Lab</a> (M-Lab), an open platform that researchers can use to deploy Internet measurement tools.<br /><br />Researchers are already developing tools that allow users to, among other things, measure the speed of their connection, run diagnostics, and attempt to discern if their ISP is blocking or throttling particular applications. These tools generate and send some data back-and-forth between the user's computer and a server elsewhere on the Internet. Unfortunately, researchers lack widely-distributed servers with ample connectivity. This poses a barrier to the accuracy and scalability of these tools. Researchers also have trouble sharing data with one another.<br /><br />M-Lab aims to address these problems. Over the course of early 2009, Google will provide researchers with 36 servers in 12 locations in the U.S. and Europe. All data collected via M-Lab will be made publicly available for other researchers to build on. M-Lab is intended to be a truly community-based effort, and we welcome the support of other companies, institutions, researchers, and users that want to provide servers, tools, or other resources that can help the platform flourish.<br /><br />Today, M-Lab is at the beginning of its development. To start, <a href="http://www.measurementlab.net/measurement-lab-tools.html">three tools</a> running on servers near Google's headquarters are available to help users attempt to diagnose common problems that might impair their broadband speed, as well as determine whether BitTorrent is being blocked or throttled by their ISPs. These tools were created by the individual researchers who helped found M-Lab. By running these tools, users will get information about their connection and provide researchers with valuable aggregate data. Like M-Lab itself these tools are still in development, and they will only support a limited number of simultaneous users at this initial stage.<br /><br />At Google, we care deeply about sustaining the Internet as an open platform for consumer choice and innovation. No matter your views on net neutrality and ISP network management practices, everyone can agree that Internet users deserve to be well-informed about what they're getting when they sign up for broadband, and <a href="http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-280909A3.doc">good data is the bedrock of sound policy</a>. Transparency has always been crucial to the success of the Internet, and, by advancing network research in this area, M-Lab aims to help sustain a healthy, innovative Internet.<br /><br />You can learn more at the <a href="http://www.measurementlab.net/about.html">M-Lab website</a>. If you're a researcher who'd like to deploy a tool, or a company or institution that is interested in providing technical resources, we invite you to <a href="http://www.measurementlab.net/getinvolved.html">get involved</a>.<br /><br /><span class="byline-author">Posted by Vint Cerf, Chief Internet Evangelist, and Stephen Stuart, Principal Engineer<br /></span>

Introducing Measurement Lab

When an Internet application doesn't work as expected or your connection seems flaky, how can you tell whether there is a problem caused...

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Net neutrality and the benefits of caching

<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;">(Cross-posted from the <a href="http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2008/12/net-neutrality-and-benefits-of-caching.html">Google Public Policy Blog</a>)</span></span><br /><br />One of the first posts I wrote for this blog last summer <a href="http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2007/06/what-do-we-mean-by-net-neutrality.html" id="h82m" title="tried to define">tried to define</a> what we at Google mean when we talk about the concept of net neutrality.<br /><br />Broadband providers -- the on-ramps to the Internet -- should not be allowed to prioritize traffic based on the source, ownership or destination of the content. As I noted in that post, broadband providers should have the flexibility to employ network upgrades, such as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cache" id="ss8t" title="edge caching">edge caching</a>. However, they shouldn't be able to leverage their unilateral control over consumers' broadband connections to hamper user choice, competition, and innovation. Our commitment to that principle of net neutrality remains as strong as ever.<br /><br />Some critics have questioned whether improving Web performance through edge caching -- temporary storage of frequently accessed data on servers that are located close to end users -- violates the concept of network neutrality. As I said <a href="http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2007/06/what-do-we-mean-by-net-neutrality.html" id="v6p7" title="last summer">last summer</a>, this myth -- which unfortunately underlies a <a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122929270127905065.html" id="k4_t" title="story in Monday's Wall Street Journal">confused story in Monday's <i>Wall Street Journal</i></a> -- is based on a misunderstanding of the way in which the open Internet works.<br /><br /><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cache" id="j.sg" title="Caching">Edge caching</a> is a common practice used by ISPs and application and content providers in order to improve the end user experience. Companies like <a href="http://www.akamai.com/" id="ym68" title="Akamai">Akamai</a>, <a href="http://www.limelightnetworks.com/" id="wlk7" title="Limelight">Limelight</a>, and <a href="http://aws.amazon.com/cloudfront/" id="l5a:" title="Amazon's Cloudfront">Amazon's Cloudfront</a> provide local caching services, and broadband providers typically utilize caching as part of what are known as content distribution networks (CDNs). Google and many other Internet companies also deploy servers of their own around the world.<br /><br />By bringing YouTube videos and other content physically closer to end users, site operators can improve page load times for videos and Web pages. In addition, these solutions help broadband providers by minimizing the need to send traffic outside of their networks and reducing congestion on the Internet's backbones. In fact, caching represents one type of innovative network practice encouraged by the open Internet.<br /><br />Google has offered to "colocate" caching servers within broadband providers' own facilities; this reduces the provider's bandwidth costs since the same video wouldn't have to be transmitted multiple times. We've always said that broadband providers can engage in activities like colocation and caching, so long as they do so on a non-discriminatory basis.<br /><br />All of Google's colocation agreements with ISPs -- which we've done through projects called OpenEdge and <a href="http://whiteafrican.com/2008/07/04/google-kenya-and-the-google-global-cache/" id="y_2:" title="Google Global Cache">Google Global Cache</a> -- are non-exclusive, meaning any other entity could employ similar arrangements. Also, none of them require (or encourage) that Google traffic be treated with higher priority than other traffic. In contrast, if broadband providers were to leverage their unilateral control over consumers' connections and offer colocation or caching services in an anti-competitive fashion, that would threaten the open Internet and the innovation it enables.<br /><br />Despite the hyperbolic tone and confused claims in Monday's <span style="font-style: italic;">Journal</span> story, I want to be perfectly clear about one thing: Google remains strongly committed to the principle of net neutrality, and we will continue to work with policymakers in the years ahead to keep the Internet free and open.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">P.S.:</span> The <span style="font-style: italic;">Journal</span> story also quoted me as characterizing President-elect Obama's net neutrality policies as "much less specific than they were before." For what it's worth, I don't recall making such a comment, and it seems especially odd given that President-elect Obama's supportive stance on network neutrality hasn't changed at all.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Update: </span><a href="http://lessig.org/blog/2008/12/the_madeup_dramas_of_the_wall.html">Larry Lessig</a>, <a href="http://www.savetheinternet.com/blog/2008/12/15/net-neutrality-in-the-front-seat/">Save the Internet</a>, <a href="http://www.publicknowledge.org/node/1905">Public Knowledge</a>, <a href="http://isen.com/blog/2008/12/bogus-wsj-story-on-net-neutrality.html">David Isenberg</a>, <a href="http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/12/wsj-wtf.html">Wired</a> and others all found fault with today's piece too.<br /><br /><span class="byline-author">Posted by Richard Whitt, Washington Telecom and Media Counsel</span>

Net neutrality and the benefits of caching

(Cross-posted from the Google Public Policy Blog ) One of the first posts I wrote for this blog last summer tried to define what we at Goog...

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Safety, education, and empowerment on YouTube

<span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >(Cross-posted from the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/blog">YouTube Blog</a>)</span><br /><br />We've always been committed to providing you the tools to have the best possible YouTube experience. Educating parents, teens, and families on how to stay safe on our site is a critical part of that commitment, so we can't think of a more appropriate place to introduce our new <a href="http://help.youtube.com/support/youtube/bin/request.py?contact_type=abuse">Abuse and Safety Center</a> than at the Family Online Safety Institute (<a href="http://www.fosi.org/cms/">FOSI</a>) conference in Washington, D.C., today.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZPzJRG3dljFyXQNFhcxu4FdDx-II_1vRYE42QyLusvrCeK9EM-6nAI0DBAsDnfJQ4HIsctxpkLiHrk7ENDv5uRw-SJ5Bqpn4tzRLpmSx6KvCkotXQuVgx3SYaBq1Eq6kmT1E_pyXZV5GX/s1600-h/Abuse+and+Safety+Homepage.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5278401253487315554" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZPzJRG3dljFyXQNFhcxu4FdDx-II_1vRYE42QyLusvrCeK9EM-6nAI0DBAsDnfJQ4HIsctxpkLiHrk7ENDv5uRw-SJ5Bqpn4tzRLpmSx6KvCkotXQuVgx3SYaBq1Eq6kmT1E_pyXZV5GX/s400/Abuse+and+Safety+Homepage.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 194px;" /></a><br />The center features straightforward safety tips and multimedia resources from experts and prominent safety organizations. We are empowering people with the information and tools they need to help them deal with issues like cyberbullying, online harassment, and hateful content.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj__bujkNa295QIy7wBKRc3PFzQ9nWxY0qCYBH9qHRkrfFgeLPojDCjYFAp3O5gy_N1ayjtzj3FOHhqdK0i1WgvITmMMBPS9kgVeiUp75JhA2ta3AA6iEvnQwiW7JyhpEoABu0t4ot2hLR6/s1600-h/Abuse+and+Safety+Teen+Safety.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5278401683031763522" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj__bujkNa295QIy7wBKRc3PFzQ9nWxY0qCYBH9qHRkrfFgeLPojDCjYFAp3O5gy_N1ayjtzj3FOHhqdK0i1WgvITmMMBPS9kgVeiUp75JhA2ta3AA6iEvnQwiW7JyhpEoABu0t4ot2hLR6/s400/Abuse+and+Safety+Teen+Safety.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 254px;" /></a><br /><br />The new center also makes it easier for you to find our <a href="http://www.youtube.com/signup_login?next=safety_help">Help and Safety Tool</a>, which lets you report concerns to us and gives you granular control over your channel, like the option of blocking comments from specific users or disabling the video comments feature on specific videos.<br /><br />The Abuse and Safety Center is easy to find. Just look at the bottom of any YouTube page and click on the link titled "Abuse and Safety Center." From phishing scams to just learning what it means to be a good YouTube citizen, you'll find the information you need.<br /><br />Finally, check out FOSI's meeting <a href="http://www.fosi.org/cms/index.php/ann-conf-08-overview.html">page</a> for more information about our presence at the conference, where Shantal Rands from Google's legal team will receive a FOSI Award for Outstanding Achievement in advancing the goal of a safer Internet. Plus, Andrew McLaughlin, Google's Director of Global Policy & Government Affairs, is speaking about "Protecting Kids and Free Speech Online," and YouTube's Policy Analyst Micah Schaffer will address online safety in social media.<br /><br />We'll continue to add new information and features to the center, so check back often. <br /><br /><span class="byline-author">Posted by The YouTube Team</span>

Safety, education, and empowerment on YouTube

(Cross-posted from the YouTube Blog ) We've always been committed to providing you the tools to have the best possible YouTube experienc...

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How we help track flu trends

<span style="font-style: italic;">This post is the latest in an ongoing <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/06/using-data-to-fight-webspam.html">series</a> about how we harness the data we collect to improve our products and services for our users. - Ed.</span><br /><br />Google search isn't just about looking up <a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=football+scores">football scores</a> from last weekend or finding a great <a href="http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=rome+hotel">hotel</a> for your next vacation. It can also be used for the public good. Yesterday, we <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/11/tracking-flu-trends.html">announced Google Flu Trends</a>, which uses aggregated search data in an effort to confront the challenge of influenza outbreaks.<br /><br />By taking <a href="http://www.google.com/intl/en/trends/about.html">Google Trends</a> — where you can see snapshots of what's on the public's collective mind — and applying the tool to a public health problem, our engineers found that there was a correlation between flu-related queries and the actual flu. They created a model for near real-time estimates about outbreaks, in the hopes that both health care professionals and the general public would use this tool to better prepare for flu season.<br /><br />Since we launched yesterday, the response from the medical community has been positive. "The earlier the warning, the earlier prevention and control measures can be put in place," said Dr. Lyn Finelli of the influenza division at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/12/technology/internet/12flu.html?_r=2&ref=todayspaper&oref=slogin&oref=slogin">The New York Times</a>. "[T]his could prevent cases of influenza." You can <a href="http://www.google.org/flutrends/">check out the tool</a> for yourself.<br /><br />We couldn't have built this flu detection system without analyzing historical patterns. Because flu season is different every year, just a few months of data wouldn't have done the trick. For example, the 2003-2004 flu season was unusually severe in many regions. The data from that season was especially robust and allowed us to discover a more accurate, reliable set of flu-related terms. To learn more about how we built the system, see this page on <a href="http://www.google.org/about/flutrends/how.html">how Flu Trends works</a>.<br /><br />Because we're committed to protecting your privacy, we made sure that the searches that we analyze for Google Flu Trends are not drawn from personally-identifiable search histories but rather from an aggregated set of hundreds of billions of searches.<br /><br />In order to provide a rough geographic breakdown of potential flu outbreaks, we use IP address information from our <a href="http://www.google.com/privacy_faq.html#serverlogs">server logs</a> to make a best guess about where queries originate. To protect your privacy, we <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/another-step-to-protect-user-privacy.html">anonymize</a> those IP addresses at nine months. And we don't provide this aggregated, anonymized data to third parties. For more information about the privacy protections for Flu Trends check out our <a href="http://www.google.org/about/flutrends/faq.html">FAQs</a> and <a href="http://www.google.com/privacypolicy.html">privacy policy</a>.<br /><br />This is just the first launch in what we hope will be several public service applications of Google Trends in the future. And as we continue to think of ways to use aggregated and anonymized search data in helpful ways, we're also committed to <a href="http://www.google.com/intl/en/privacy.html">safeguarding</a> our users' privacy.<br /><br /><span class="byline-author">Posted by Pablo Chavez, Senior Policy Counsel</span>

How we help track flu trends

This post is the latest in an ongoing series about how we harness the data we collect to improve our products and services for our users. -...

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A vote for broadband in the "white spaces"

<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi0qE6PNdZZLDwIG3qge0yYOouREMN-9KU0NQquBqyVH08OKvtnlwQQRkZPKJfLUVzLElz8HL1ygyOCBWlR5sHlCXb8o9u6ht1ddXl1Lp2ebAhvbsJ0YCumzYIdbULGf4znB0V37WTej9G/s1600-h/ftagraphic.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5264939156036152146" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi0qE6PNdZZLDwIG3qge0yYOouREMN-9KU0NQquBqyVH08OKvtnlwQQRkZPKJfLUVzLElz8HL1ygyOCBWlR5sHlCXb8o9u6ht1ddXl1Lp2ebAhvbsJ0YCumzYIdbULGf4znB0V37WTej9G/s320/ftagraphic.jpg" style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 144px; height: 145px;" /></a>All eyes are on the presidential election today, but another important vote just took place at the Federal Communications Commission. By a vote of 5-0, the FCC formally agreed to open up the "<a href="http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/search/label/White%20Spaces">white spaces</a>" spectrum -- the unused airwaves between broadcast TV channels -- for wireless broadband service for the public. This is a clear victory for Internet users and anyone who wants good wireless communications.<br /><br />The FCC has been looking at this issue carefully for the last six years. Google has worked hard on this matter <a href="http://www.wirelessinnovationalliance.org/?gclid=CIO2uKLD25YCFQYcHgodIx7K2g">with other tech companies and public interest groups</a> because we think that this spectrum will help put better and faster Internet connections in the hands of the public. We also look forward to working with the FCC to finalize the method used to compute power levels of empty channels adjacent to TV channels (we have a number of <a title="public filings" href="http://fjallfoss.fcc.gov/prod/ecfs/retrieve.cgi?native_or_pdf=pdf&id_document=6520183501" id="ofa0">public filings</a> before the commission in this area and it is a vital issue in urban areas).<br /><br />I've always thought that there are a lot of really incredible things that engineers and entrepreneurs can do with this spectrum. We will soon have "<a href="http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2008/05/larry-page-talks-about-googles-vision.html">Wi-Fi on steroids</a>," since these spectrum signals have much longer range than today's Wi-Fi technology and broadband access can be spread using fewer base stations resulting in better coverage at lower cost. And it is wonderful that the FCC has adopted the same successful unlicensed model used for Wi-Fi, which has resulted in a projected 1 billion Wi-Fi chips being produced this year. Now that the FCC has set the rules, I'm sure that we'll see similar growth in products to take advantage of this spectrum.<br /><br />As an engineer, I was also really gratified to see that the FCC decided to put science over politics. For years the broadcasting lobby and others have tried to spread fear and confusion about this technology, rather than allow the FCC's engineers to simply do their work.<br /><br />Finally, I want to applaud and thank FCC Chairman Kevin Martin, the other commissioners, and the FCC <a href="http://www.fcc.gov/oet/">Office of Engineering and Technology</a> for their leadership in advancing this important issue. And, thanks to the more than 20,000 of you who took a stand on this issue through our <a href="http://freetheairwaves.com/">Free the Airwaves</a> campaign, the FCC heard a clear message from consumers: these airwaves can bring wireless Internet to everyone everywhere.<br /><br /><span class="byline-author">Posted by Larry Page, Co-Founder and President of Products</span>

A vote for broadband in the "white spaces"

All eyes are on the presidential election today, but another important vote just took place at the Federal Communications Commission. By a ...

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New steps to protect free expression and privacy around the world

In a world where governments all too often censor what their citizens can see and do on the Internet, Google has from the start promoted global free expression and taken the lead in being transparent with our users. We've pressed governments around the world to stop limiting free speech and made it possible for dissidents, bloggers and others to have their voices heard.<br /><br />As part of those ongoing efforts to promote free expression and protect our users' privacy, today we're announcing Google's participation as a founding company member of a new program called the <a href="http://www.globalnetworkinitiative.org/">Global Network Initiative</a>.<br /><br />This initiative is the result of two years of discussions with other leading technology companies, human rights organizations, socially responsible investors and academic institutions. Thanks to hard work and cooperation from all parties, the Initiative sets the kinds of standards and practices that all companies and groups should use when governments threaten internationally recognized rights to free expression and privacy.<br /><br />The Global Network Initiative also offers an important commitment from all parties to take action together to promote free expression and protect privacy in the use of all information and communication technologies. We know that common action by these diverse groups is more likely to bring about change in government policies than the efforts of any one company or group acting alone.<br /><br />Companies that join the Initiative commit to putting into effect procedures that will protect their users by:<div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;"><br /></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;"><ul style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;"><li style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;">Evaluating against international standards government requests to censor content or access user information</li><li style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;">Providing greater transparency</li><li style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;">Assessing human rights risks when entering new markets or introducing new products</li><li style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;">Instituting employee training and oversight programs</li></ul><br />These are things that Google does now, but joining the Initiative will help us refine our methods and maintain our leadership position. Down the road companies will be assessed on how they're doing in implementing the principles and the Initiative will report those results.<br /><br />This Initiative is by no means a silver bullet or the last word, but it does represent a concrete step toward promoting freedom of expression and protecting users' privacy in the 60th anniversary year of the <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/EN/UDHR/Pages/60UDHR.aspx">Universal Declaration of Human Rights</a>. Now we're actively recruiting more companies and groups to join the Initiative and advance these critical human rights around the world.<br /> <br /><span class="byline-author">Posted by Andrew McLaughlin, Director of Public Policy and Government Affairs</span></div>

New steps to protect free expression and privacy around the world

In a world where governments all too often censor what their citizens can see and do on the Internet, Google has from the start promoted glo...

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Our position on California's No on 8 campaign

As an Internet company, Google is an active participant in policy debates surrounding information access, technology and energy. Because our company has a great diversity of people and opinions -- Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals, all religions and no religion, straight and gay -- we do not generally take a position on issues outside of our field, especially not social issues. So when <a href="http://www.voterguide.sos.ca.gov/title-sum/prop8-title-sum.htm">Proposition 8</a> appeared on the California ballot, it was an unlikely question for Google to take an official company position on.<br /><br />However, while there are many objections to this proposition -- further government encroachment on personal lives, ambiguously written text -- it is the chilling and discriminatory effect of the proposition on many of our employees that brings Google to publicly oppose Proposition 8. While we respect the strongly-held beliefs that people have on both sides of this argument, we see this fundamentally as an issue of equality. We hope that California voters will vote no on Proposition 8 -- we should not eliminate anyone's fundamental rights, whatever their sexuality, to marry the person they love.<br /><br /><span class="byline-author">Posted by Sergey Brin, Co-founder & President, Technology</span>

Our position on California's No on 8 campaign

As an Internet company, Google is an active participant in policy debates surrounding information access, technology and energy. Because our...

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Making terms of service clearer

Last week's <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/fresh-take-on-browser.html" title="launch of Google Chrome" target="_blank">launch of Google Chrome</a> generated some discussion over the legal language in our new browser's terms of service (TOS). As we noted in a <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/update-to-google-chromes-terms-of.html" title="we noted in this post" target="_blank">subsequent post</a> on Google Chrome's terms of service:<br /><blockquote>"... Under copyright law, Google needs what's called a "license" to display or transmit content. So to show a blog, we ask the user to give us a license to the blog's content. (The same goes for any other service where users can create content.) But in all these cases, the license is limited to providing the service."</blockquote>We've also seen some discussion on a few blogs about how our universal terms of service apply to other products, with some users worried that Google is trying to claim ownership of the content they generate. To be clear: our terms do not claim ownership of your content -- what you create is yours and remains yours. But in lawyer-speak, we need to ask for a 'license' (which basically means your permission) to display this content to the wider world when that's what you intend. This issue is not unique to Google; it applies to lots of other Internet companies that display and transmit user content. You can see some other terms of service here from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?ie=UTF8&nodeId=508088">Amazon</a>, <a href="http://pages.ebay.com/help/policies/user-agreement.html" title="eBay" target="_blank">eBay</a>, and <a href="http://www.new.facebook.com/terms.php?ref=pf" title="Facebook" target="_blank">Facebook</a><a href="http://www.new.facebook.com/terms.php?ref=pf" title="Facebook" target="_blank">.</a><br /><br />In some of our products, such as <a title="Gmail" href="http://www.google.com/mail/help/terms_of_use.html" id="f0ru">Gmail</a> and <a title="Google Docs" href="http://www.google.com/google-d-s/addlterms.html" id="oy_e">Google Docs</a>, we have included additional terms to make it clear that we do not claim ownership of the content. But even without those additional clarifications, we still wouldn't be claiming ownership of your content -- just a license that gives us your permission to use the content to provide the service. The additional terms are there to reassure our users that they still own their own content, even after giving us the permission we need to help them share and collaborate with others, whether via Gmail, Blogger, YouTube, Google Docs, or other services.<br /><br />Because, in the end, that's what's most important: making sure you're comfortable using our services to share, publish, and store your stuff. We'll continue to look at our terms of service to make them as clear and user-friendly as possible, because at the end of the day if you're not comfortable, our products won't succeed -- and we know it.<br /><br /><span class="byline-author">Posted by Mike Yang, Senior Product Counsel</span>

Making terms of service clearer

Last week's launch of Google Chrome generated some discussion over the legal language in our new browser's terms of service (TOS). ...

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Time to "Free the Airwaves"

For quite some time we've been <a title="talking about" href="http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2008/05/larry-page-talks-about-googles-vision.html" id="r56t">talking about</a> the potential of the unused airwaves <a title="between broadcast TV channels" href="http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2007/12/today-tv-static-tomorrow-broadband.html" id="q_tw">between broadcast TV channels</a> ("white spaces") to provide affordable, high-speed wireless Internet connectivity nationwide. For this to happen, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) must allow unlicensed use of this spectrum.<br /><br />If you care about the future of the Internet, now is the time to take action. The FCC has completed its field testing and is expected to make a ruling in the coming months. With this in mind, today we're launching <a title="Free The Airwaves" href="http://www.freetheairwaves.com/" id="pocj">Free The Airwaves</a>, a new effort to bring users together around this important issue.<br /><br />To help you to learn more about the tremendous promise of these airwaves, people from around the country have filmed <a title="video testimonials" href="http://www.youtube.com/user/freetheairwaves" id="ihd4">video testimonials</a>. <a title="Matthew Rantanen" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=houUIkCmP_Q" id="yls0">Matthew Rantanen</a> of Tribal Digital Village explained how freeing the airwaves would bring new opportunities to the Southern California Native American community, currently underserved by today's broadband providers. <a title="Wally Bowen" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfKyvJxk6ts" id="pw5y">Wally Bowen</a> of the Mountain Area Information Network discussed the potential of these airwaves to bring broadband access to rural communities. Many others have also weighed in, and we hope you will too.<br /><br />At its core, Free The Airwaves is a call to action for everyday users. You don't need to be a telecommunications expert to understand that freeing the "white spaces" has the potential to transform wireless Internet as we know it. When you visit the site, you'll be invited to film a video response explaining what increased Internet access could mean for you, to sign a petition to the FCC, to contact your elected officials, to spread the word, and more.<br /><br />When it comes to opening these airwaves, we believe the public interest is clear. But we also want to be transparent about our involvement: Google has a clear business interest in expanding access to the web. There's no doubt that if these airwaves are opened up to unlicensed use, more people will be using the Internet. That's certainly good for Google (not to mention many of our <a title="industry peers" href="http://www.wirelessinnovationalliance.org/index.cfm?objectid=A25E1FC0-F1F6-6035-B3635EA7D5386BE0" id="hgl4">industry peers</a>) but we also think that it's good for consumers.<br /><br />That said, we can't pretend to speak for you. To learn more about what's at stake and to get involved, check out <a title="FreeTheAirwaves.com" href="http://www.freetheairwaves.com/" id="n9k6">FreeTheAirwaves.com</a>. We hope that once you've explored the facts for yourself, you'll want to make your voice heard.<br /><br /><span class="byline-author">Posted by Minnie Ingersoll, Product Manager, Alternative Access Team</span>

Time to "Free the Airwaves"

For quite some time we've been talking about the potential of the unused airwaves between broadcast TV channels ("white spaces...

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Keeping kids safe in a digital world

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Liz Eraker, Policy Analyst</span><br /><br />In the spirit of <a title="National Internet Safety Month" href="http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=110_cong_bills&docid=f:sr567is.txt.pdf" id="f_so">National Internet Safety Month</a>, we welcomed Ernie Allen, co-founder and president of the <a title="National Center for Missing and Exploited Children" href="http://www.missingkids.com/" id="riwi">National Center for Missing and Exploited Children</a> (NCMEC) to the Googleplex last week to discuss child protection issues.<br /><br />For those not familiar with it, NCMEC works closely with federal law enforcement across the U.S. to help prevent child abduction and sexual exploitation and to help find missing children. From serving as the clearinghouse for reports of online child pornography to issuing Amber Alerts when children go missing to reuniting families in the wake of Katrina, NCMEC is at the forefront of efforts to protect society's most vulnerable members.<br /><br />In a policy talk called "Beyond Milk Cartons: Keeping kids safe in a digital world", Ernie provided an overview of NCMEC's work and chatted with Googlers about the ever-changing landscape of child protection challenges shared by parents, educators, advocacy organizations, and technology companies like Google as we work to help families make smart choices online. <a title="Watch" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOC5MVDj5nk" id="b_u2">Watch Ernie's talk</a> on YouTube.<br /><br />Technology is an invaluable tool for addressing some of these challenges. In a recent example, a team of Google engineers dedicated their 20 percent time over the last year and a half to build <a title="cutting-edge software" href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/building-software-tools-to-find-child.html" id="epnr">cutting-edge software</a> for NCMEC that uses image and video recognition technology to help NCMEC analysts more effectively sort and review incoming reports of child exploitation. NCMEC analysts sort through tens of millions of images in child sexual abuse investigations, and we've tried to leverage our expertise in organizing huge amounts of data to help make their important work more automated and efficient.<br /><br />When it comes to keeping kids safe on the Internet, we believe that <a title="education for families" href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/common-sense-approach-to-internet.html" id="q019">education for families</a>, <a title="support for law enforcement" href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/10/helping-law-enforcement-to-combat.html" id="fqzu">support for law enforcement</a>, and empowering technology tools, like our <a title="SafeSearch" href="http://www.google.com/support/bin/static.py?page=searchguides.html&ctx=preferences&hl=en" id="fgab">SafeSearch</a> filter and the NCMEC software, are all critical pieces of the puzzle.<br /><br />Tackling online child safety issues is no small task, but we'll continue our collaboration with organizations like NCMEC, along with other partners in schools, government and industry, to take collective strides in the right direction.

Keeping kids safe in a digital world

Posted by Liz Eraker, Policy Analyst In the spirit of National Internet Safety Month , we welcomed Ernie Allen, co-founder and president of ...

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Building software tools to find child victims

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Shumeet Baluja, Research Scientist</span><br /><br />Since it was founded in 1984, the <a title="National Center for Missing & Exploited Children" href="http://www.missingkids.com/" id="olp8">National Center for Missing & Exploited Children</a> (NCMEC) has reported more than 570,000 child exploitation leads to law enforcement agencies and assisted with more than 140,900 missing child cases, resulting in the recovery of more than 124,500 children.<br /><br />The advent of the Internet has unfortunately provided child predators with a new avenue to exploit children. In August 2006, we <a title="joined" href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2006/08/coalition-against-child-pornography.html" id="g6.a">joined</a> NCMEC's Technology Coalition Against Child Pornography, teaming up with other tech industry companies to develop solutions that hinder predators' ability to use the Internet to exploit children or traffic in child pornography.<br /><br />In an outshoot of that industry initiative, I discovered some other areas where I thought Google could help the staff at NCMEC. For instance, to date, NCMEC analysts have reviewed more than 13 million child pornography images and videos to assist law enforcement agencies working to identify and rescue children. This task has been time-consuming, and NCMEC analysts were simply getting overwhelmed by all of the data they had to sift through.<br /><br />One of our core strengths here at Google is our ability to manage and organize immense amounts of information -- whether it's text, image, audio, or video -- and make it more useful and accessible for users. As a member of Google's research group, I realized that NCMEC had an immediate need for some of our research-stage technology. They needed help organizing and making sense of the enormous number of images and videos sent to them every week through their <a title="CyberTipline" href="http://www.cybertipline.com/" id="mlhi">CyberTipline</a> and from law enforcement officers nationwide.<br /><br />So we went into overdrive. I recruited some fellow engineers to help me build tools that NCMEC might find useful. Throughout 2007, using our 20% time, we <a href="http://missingkids.com/missingkids/servlet/NewsEventServlet?LanguageCountry=en_US&PageId=3644">created innovative software tools</a> to help NCMEC track down child predators through video and image search. With these tools, analysts will be able to more quickly and easily search NCMEC's large information systems to sort and identify files that contain images of child pornography. In addition, a new video tool we built streamlines analysts' review of video snippets.<br /><br />The keys here were organization, scalability, and search. In particular, the tools we provided will aid in organizing and indexing NCMEC's information so that analysts can both deal with new images and videos more efficiently and also reference historical material more effectively. We hope the tools we've built for NCMEC will help its analysts make the important and often time-sensitive work of investigating child predators faster and more efficient.<br /><br />For me, working with NCMEC provided an incredible opportunity. It allowed us to immediately deploy some of our latest research in image and video analysis in a real-world setting. On a personal note, I've been truly inspired by the entire NCMEC team's dedication and diligence in completing such a heart-wrenching mission.<br /><br />You always hope that your work will eventually be used do some good in the world, and this was an amazing chance to make that hope real by creating tools that have the potential to aid investigations of child predators, find child victims and reduce the flow of child pornography on the Internet.

Building software tools to find child victims

Posted by Shumeet Baluja, Research Scientist Since it was founded in 1984, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC)...

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Making search better in Catalonia, Estonia, and everywhere else

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Paul Haahr and Steve Baker, Software Engineers, Search Quality</span><br /><br /><span id="hsbu" style="font-style: italic;">We recently began a series of posts on how we harness the power of data</span><span id="wanr" style="font-style: italic;">. <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/why-data-matters.html" id="m2px" target="_blank" title="Earlier">Earlier</a> we told you </span><i id="cmab" style="font-style: italic;">how data has been critical to the advancement of search; about using data to <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/using-log-data-to-help-keep-you-safe.html" id="cxjy" target="_blank" title="make our products safe">make our products safe</a> and to <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/03/using-data-to-help-prevent-fraud.html" id="thga" title="prevent fraud">prevent fraud</a>; </i><span id="i1_j" style="font-style: italic;">this post is the newest in the series. -Ed.</span><br /><br />One of the most important uses of data at Google is building language models. By analyzing how people use language, we build models that enable us to interpret searches better, offer spelling corrections, understand when alternative forms of words are needed, offer <a href="http://www.google.com/language_tools" id="zt8y" title="machine translation"><span id="q.ix">language</span> translation</a>, and even <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/05/search-without-boundaries.html" id="e-d4" title="suggest when searching in another language is appropriate">suggest when searching in another language is appropriate</a>.<br /><br />One place we use these models is to find alternatives for words used in searches. For example, for both English and French users, "GM" often means the company "General Motors," but our language model understands that in French searches like <a href="http://www.google.fr/search?hl=fr&q=seconde+GM" id="myy8" title="seconde gm">seconde GM</a>, it means "Guerre Mondiale" (World War), whereas in <a href="http://www.google.fr/search?hl=fr&q=STI+GM" id="yz1y" title="STI GM">STI GM</a> it means "Génie Mécanique" (Mechanical Engineering). Another meaning in English is "genetically modified," which our language model understands in <a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=GM+corn&hl=en" id="rf9x" title="GM corn">GM corn</a>. We've learned this based on the documents we've seen on the web and by observing that users will use both "genetically modified" and "GM" in the same set of searches.<br /><br /><div id="rugn"> </div> <div id="w772"> </div> We use similar techniques in all languages. For example, if a Catalan user searches for <a href="http://www.google.es/search?hl=ca&q=resultat+elecci%C3%B3+barris+BCN" id="w3e2" target="_blank">resultat elecció barris BCN</a> (searching for the result of a neighborhood election in Barcelona), Google will also find pages that use the words "resultats" or "eleccions" or that talk about "Barcelona" instead of "BCN." And our language models also tell us that the Estonian user looking for <a href="http://www.google.ee/search?hl=et&q=Tartu+juuksur" id="b8_i" title="Tartu juuksur">Tartu juuksur</a>, a barber in Tartu, might also be interested in a "juuksurisalong," or "barber shop."<br /><br />In the past, language models were built from dictionaries by hand. But such systems are incomplete and don't reflect how people actually use language. Because our language models are based on users' interactions with Google, they are more precise and comprehensive -- for example, they incorporate names, idioms, colloquial usage, and newly coined words not often found in dictionaries.<br /><br />When building our models, we use billions of web documents and as much historical search data as we can, in order to have the most comprehensive understanding of language possible. We analyze how our users searched and how they revised their searches. By looking across the aggregated searches of many users, we can infer the relationships of words to each other.<br /><br />Queries are not made in isolation -- analyzing a single search in the context of the searches before and after it helps us understand a searcher's intent and make inferences. Also, by analyzing how users modify their searches, we've learned related words, variant grammatical forms, spelling corrections, and the concepts behind users' information needs. (We're able to make these connections between searches using cookie IDs -- small pieces of data stored in visitors' browsers that allow us to distinguish different users. To understand how cookies work, <span id="ng3y" style="color: rgb(204, 0, 0);"><a title="watch this video" target="_blank" href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=XfZLztx8cKI" id="e0o:">watch this video</a><span id="i6k_" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">.</span></span>)<br /><br />To provide more relevant search results, Google is constantly developing new techniques for language modeling and building better models. One element in building better language models is <a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/08/machines-do-translating.html" id="z0.8" title="use more data">using more data</a> collected over longer periods of time. In languages with many documents and users, such as English, our language models allow us to improve results deep into the "long tail" of searches, learning about rare usages. However, for languages with fewer users and fewer documents on the web, building language models can be a challenge. For those languages we need to work with longer periods of data to build our models. For example, it takes more than a year of searches in Catalan to provide a comparable amount of data as a single day of searching in English; for Estonian, more than two and a half years worth of searching is needed to match a day of English. Having longer periods of data enables us to improve search for these less commonly used languages.<br /> <div id="j.kk"> </div> <div id="wj5b" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;"> <br /> </div> At Google, we want to ensure that we can help users everywhere find the things they're looking for; providing accurate, relevant results for searches in all languages worldwide is core to Google's mission. Building extensive models of historical usage in every language we can, especially when there are few users, is an essential piece of making search work for everyone, everywhere.

Making search better in Catalonia, Estonia, and everywhere else

Posted by Paul Haahr and Steve Baker, Software Engineers, Search Quality We recently began a series of posts on how we harness the power of ...

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A common sense approach to Internet safety

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Elliot Schrage, Vice President of Global Communications and Public Affairs</span><br /><br />Over the years, we've built tools and offered resources to help kids and families stay safe online. Our <a id="dwzd" href="http://www.google.com/support/bin/static.py?page=searchguides.html&ctx=preferences&hl=en" title="SafeSearch" target="_blank">SafeSearch</a> feature, for example, helps filter explicit content from search results.<br /><br />We've also been involved in a variety of local initiatives to educate families about how to stay safe while surfing the web. Here are a few highlights:<br /><ul id="z5gh"><li id="k:a9"> In the U.S., we've worked with <a id="he:v" href="http://www.commonsensemedia.org/" title="Common Sense Media" target="_blank">Common Sense Media</a> to promote awareness about online safety and have donated hardware and software to improve the ability of the <a id="mlqw" href="http://www.missingkids.com/" title="NCMEC" target="_blank">National Center for Missing and Exploited Children</a> to combat child exploitation. </li></ul><ul id="lfeu"><li id="yl0-">Google UK has collaborated with child safety organizations such as <a id="ljia" href="http://youtube.com/user/Beatbullying" title="Beatbullying" target="_blank">Beatbullying</a> and <a id="ofy-" href="http://www.childnet.com/kia" title="Childnet" target="_blank">Childnet</a> to raise awareness about cyberbullying and share prevention messages, and with law enforcement authorities, including the <a id="hx.x" href="http://www.ceop.gov.uk/" title="Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre" target="_blank">Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre</a>, to fight online exploitation. </li></ul> <ul id="rr8s"><li id="o38."> Google India initiated "Be NetSmart," an Internet safety campaign created in cooperation with local law enforcement authorities that aims to educate students, parents, and teachers across the country about the great value the Internet can bring to their lives, while also teaching best practices for safe surfing. </li></ul><ul id="x88i"><li id="ca:p">Google France launched child safety education initiatives including <a id="fv8g" href="http://www.tousconnectes.com/" title="Tour de France des Collèges" target="_blank">Tour de France des Collèges</a> and <a id="qtkk" href="http://www.cherchenet.fr/" title="Cherche Net" target="_blank">Cherche Net</a> that are designed to teach kids how to use the Internet responsibly. </li></ul> <ul id="a3h7"><li id="q5_h"> And Google Germany worked with the national government, industry representatives, and a number of local organizations recently to launch a <a id="ahzr" href="http://www.fragfinn.de/" title="search engine for children" target="_blank">search engine for children</a>. </li></ul> As part of these ongoing efforts to provide online safety resources for parents and kids, we've created <a id="l_k4" title="Tips for Online Safety" href="http://www.google.com/familysafety" target="_blank">Tips for Online Safety</a>, a site designed to help families find quick links to safety tools like SafeSearch, as well as new resources, like a video offering online safety pointers that we've developed in partnership with Common Sense Media. In the <a title="video" href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=kUyQI0USNSY" id="d.sk">video</a>, Anne Zehren, president of Common Sense, offers easy-to-implement tips, like how to set privacy and sharing controls on social networking sites and the importance of having reasonable rules for Internet use at home with appropriate levels of supervision.<br /><br />Users can also download our new <a href="http://services.google.com/blog_resources/google_family_safety_guide.pdf">Online Family Safety Guide</a> (<span style="font-size:85%;">PDF</span>), which includes useful Internet Safety pointers for parents, or check out a quick <a id="g.-a" title="tutorial" href="http://kids.getnetwise.org/tools/searchsafe/google-search" target="_blank">tutorial</a> on SafeSearch created by one of our partner organizations, GetNetWise.<br /><br />We all have roles to play in keeping kids safe online. Parents need to be involved with their kids' online lives and teach them how to make smart decisions. And Internet companies like Google need to continue to empower parents and kids with tools and resources that help put them in control of their online experiences and make web surfing safer.<br /><br /><object height="355" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/kUyQI0USNSY&hl=en"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/kUyQI0USNSY&hl=en" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" height="355" width="425"></embed></object>

A common sense approach to Internet safety

Posted by Elliot Schrage, Vice President of Global Communications and Public Affairs Over the years, we've built tools and offered resou...

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The end of the FCC 700 MHz auction

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Richard Whitt, Washington Telecom and Media Counsel, and Joseph Faber, Corporate Counsel</span><br /><br />This afternoon the Federal Communications Commission <a title="announced" href="http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-280968A1.pdf" id="x4ot">announced</a> the <a title="results" href="http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-08-595A2.pdf" id="pk1d">results</a> of its 700 MHz spectrum auction. While the Commission's anti-collusion rules prevent us from saying much at this point, one thing is clear: although Google didn't pick up any spectrum licenses, the auction produced a major victory for American consumers.<br /><br />We congratulate the winners and look forward to a more open wireless world. As a result of the auction, consumers whose devices use the C-block of spectrum soon will be able to use any wireless device they wish, and download to their devices any applications and content they wish. Consumers soon should begin enjoying new, Internet-like freedom to get the most out of their mobile phones and other wireless devices.<br /><br />We'll have more to say about the auction in the near future. Stay tuned.

The end of the FCC 700 MHz auction

Posted by Richard Whitt, Washington Telecom and Media Counsel, and Joseph Faber, Corporate Counsel This afternoon the Federal Communications...

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International development & technology: What's working and what's new

<span class="byline-author">Posted by Sonal Shah, Head of Global Development Initiatives, Google.org and Bob Boorstin, Washington Director of Policy Communications</span><br /><br />Last month, Google and Google.org hosted more than 80 technology decisionmakers from international development non-profits for an interactive discussion at our Washington D.C. office. Over lunch, case study presentations and hands-on sessions, participants discussed the ways technology is changing the landscape of international development -- and how to take advantage of new tools for fundraising, communication, data visualization, and online collaboration.<br /><br />Speakers highlighted the benefits of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing" id="h9x4">cloud computing</a> and demonstrated how to display data on maps and interactive graphs with products like <a title="Google Earth" href="http://www.google.com/earth/outreach/" id="um5h">Google Earth</a> and <a title="Trendalyzer" href="http://www.gapminder.org/world/" id="zj2i">Trendalyzer</a>. A representative from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum discussed how the Museum created a <a href="http://www.ushmm.org/maps/projects/darfur/" id="k5to" title="Darfur Layer">Darfur layer</a> on Google Earth that gives "publicly accessible evidence of destruction to help visually refute claims of minimal collateral damage from war." The YouTube breakout session explored how cheap video cameras paired with an on-the-ground presence can help document and spread awareness of ongoing crises abroad. Participants even made their own videos to talk about how the Internet is changing the development world:<br /><br /><object height="355" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/5v02QS69F1w"><param name="wmode" value="transparent"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/5v02QS69F1w" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" height="355" width="425"></embed></object><br /><br />Special thanks to our friends at the <a href="http://www.theirc.org/" id="ycg4" title="International Rescue Committee">International Rescue Committee</a>, <a href="http://www.mercycorps.org/" id="m-do" title="MercyCorps">MercyCorps</a>, and the <a href="http://www.ushmm.org/" id="homs" title="US Holocaust Memorial Museum">U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum</a> for sharing stories of their experiences in taking advantage of new technologies. For those who are interested, we're posting the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=0C7A75D936163C8C" id="pafl">presentations on YouTube</a>.<br /><br />We hope that this event will be the first of many discussions, workshops, and other public events we hold with non-profits in our new D.C. space.

International development & technology: What's working and what's new

Posted by Sonal Shah, Head of Global Development Initiatives, Google.org and Bob Boorstin, Washington Director of Policy Communications Last...

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