Google Adsense College

Posted by Richard Whitt, Washington
Telecom and Media Counsel, and Joseph Faber, Corporate
Counsel

This afternoon the Federal Communications Commission

href="http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-280968A1.pdf"
id="x4ot" >announced the href="http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DA-08-595A2.pdf"
id="pk1d" >results 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.

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.

We'll have more to say about the auction in the near future.
Stay tuned.

Tags: , Counsel, Media, Posted, Richard, Telecom, Washington, Whitt

Posted by Jane Horvath, Senior Privacy
Counsel, and Peter Fleischer, Global Privacy Counsel

Because we're strongly committed to protecting your privacy, we
want to present our privacy practices in the clearest way possible.
Over the past year, we've been experimenting with video to
clarify and illustrate the privacy practices set forth in our
Google Privacy Policy. We've used videos to communicate with
you about things like cookies, IP addresses, and logs. (Check out
the Google
Privacy Channel on YouTube.) And you've told us that the
screen shots, whiteboard drawings, and pointers from the engineers
and product managers we've captured on video are helping you
better understand the fine points of our Privacy Policy.

With that in mind, today we're announcing a revamp of our href="http://www.google.com/privacy" id="hhl2" >Privacy Center.
The new Center is a one-stop shop for privacy resources, with
various multi-media formats aimed to help you further understand
how we store and use data, how to control who you share your data
with, and how we protect your privacy. We hope this new Center will
help you make more informed privacy choices whenever you use Google
products and services.

Tags: , Counsel, Horvath, Jane, Peter, Posted, Privacy, Senior

Posted by Richard Whitt, Washington
Telecom and Media Counsel, and Joseph Faber, Corporate
Counsel

For three weeks at the end of January and early February, a small
team of us holed up in href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_Super_Secret_Background#Double_Super_Secret_Background" >
double super secret "war rooms" in Mountain View, CA
and Washington, D.C. to bid on Google's behalf in the FCC
spectrum auction. Bidding took place electronically, and literally
billions of dollars were at stake with every mouse click. And
because of the FCC's strict href="http://wireless.fcc.gov/auctions/default.htm?job=anti_collusion" >
anti-collusion rules, we couldn't tell a soul what was
going on behind closed doors.

But now that the FCC's rules have lifted, we can. As you
probably know by now, Google href="http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2008/03/end-of-fcc-700-mhz-auction.html" >
didn't pick up any spectrum licenses in the auction.
Nonetheless, partly as a result of our bidding, consumers soon
should have new freedom to get the most out of their mobile phones
and other wireless devices.

Google's top priority heading into the auction was to make sure
that bidding on the so-called "C Block" reached the $4.6
billion reserve price that would trigger the important "open
applications" and "open handsets" license
conditions. We were also prepared to gain the nationwide C Block
licenses at a price somewhat higher than the reserve price; in
fact, for many days during the early course of the auction, we were
the high bidder. But it was clear, then and now, that Verizon
Wireless ultimately was motivated to bid higher (and had href="http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2007/07/restoring-competitive-balance-to.html" >
far more financial incentive to gain the licenses).

You may remember that as the FCC was setting rules for the auction
last summer, we urged the Commission to adopt href="http://googlepublicpolicy.blogspot.com/2007/07/our-commitment-to-open-broadband.html" >
four openness conditions. Further, we vowed to bid at least
$4.6 billion in the auction if the Commission adopted all four
rules. Even though the FCC ultimately agreed to only two of the
conditions, which nullified our original pledge, we still believed
it was important to demonstrate through action our commitment to a
more open wireless world.

We're glad that we did. Based on the way that the bidding
played out, our participation in the auction helped ensure that the
C Block met the reserve price. In fact, in ten of the bidding
rounds we actually raised our own bid — even though no one was
bidding against us — to ensure aggressive bidding on the C Block.
In turn, that helped increase the revenues raised for the U.S.
Treasury, while making sure that the openness conditions would be
applied to the ultimate licensee.

The end of the auction certainly doesn't mark the end of our
efforts toward greater wireless choice and innovation. We will
weigh in at the FCC as it sets implementation rules for the C
Block, and determines how to move forward with a href="http://government.zdnet.com/?p=3723" >D Block re-auction.
Android is already
off to a successful start, and we are likely to see handsets later
this year based on the Android platform. We will continue
advocating for the FCC to open up the vacant href="http://wirelessinnovationalliance.com/" >"white
spaces" in the TV spectrum band for mobile broadband uses.
And as more policymakers and regulators around the world evaluate
their own spectrum policies, we'll continue pushing to help
make the wireless world look much more like the open platform of
the Internet

Tags: , Counsel, Media, Posted, Richard, Telecom, Washington, Whitt

Posted by Jane Horvath, Senior Privacy
Counsel;
Peter Fleischer, Global Privacy Counsel; and Shuman Ghosemajumder,
Business Product Manager for Trust and Safety

Last year, the Council of Europe had a great idea. Based on polling
that showed that 70% of Europeans did not understand how their
personal data was being protected, the Council decided to hold the
first annual Data Protection Day on January 28, 2007. Privacy
experts visited schools and universities, launched information
campaigns, and held press conferences in locations throughout
Europe, informing and educating consumers about their personal data
rights and protections.

Lack of understanding about data protection on the Internet is not
only a European issue, it's a global one. As more and more
personal information comes online every day, it's increasingly
important that users all over the world understand both the
benefits and potential risks of online data sharing, and the tools
at their disposal to control and manage the data they share online.
In recognition of the global importance of data protection, the
U.S. and Canada have joined 27 European countries to celebrate href="https://www.privacyassociation.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1329&Itemid=138" >
Data Privacy Day 2008 this Monday, January 28th.

As part of the day's events, we'll join legal scholars,
privacy professionals, and government officials from Europe and the
U.S. at an international data privacy href="http://www.jhfc.duke.edu/ces/" id="tn3n" >conference being
held at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. We'll also
contribute to efforts to raise awareness and promote understanding
of data privacy issues by releasing the third href="http://youtube.com/watch?v=XfZLztx8cKI" id="q5nq" >video
in our privacy series ("Google Privacy: A Look at
Cookies") on our

href="http://www.youtube.com/user/googleprivacy" id="fsfg" >YouTube
Privacy Channel. This video offers a closer look at how
cookies work and how web sites and advertisers use them to
personalize our online experiences. We've also developed a
href="https://services.google.com/blog_resources/google_privacy_booklet.pdf"
id="q9sg" >privacy booklet (pdf-web version
coming soon!) that you can download to get an in-depth look at our
privacy practices and approach, and have co-sponsored the creation
of href="https://www.privacyassociation.org/images/stories/pdfs/DPD08_TeenPrivacyOnline_slides.pdf"
id="k:u1" >educational materials on teen online privacy for
parents and educators. The goal of all these efforts is to help
educate you about online data privacy so that you can make more
informed choices about how you use online products and
services.

We hope that you'll take a few minutes on Monday to learn
something new, and that Data Privacy Day reinforces existing global
efforts to educate consumers about online data collection, use, and
protection. height="1" width="1" />

Tags: , Counsel, Horvath, Jane, Peter, Posted, Privacy, Senior

Posted by Peter Fleischer, Global
Privacy Counsel

Cookies, IP addresses, logs — all of these
are important things to understand in the context of online
privacy. We try to explain them in clear and simple language in our
href="http://www.google.com/privacy.html" >privacy policy and href="http://www.google.com/privacy_faq.html" >FAQ.
But they're not always easy for non-techies to understand.
Google is committed to being transparent about our privacy
practices. We've been thinking about different ways to help
people understand the technical aspects of online privacy, to
improve transparency, and to empower you to make informed decisions
about how you want to use our services. Today, we're launching
our first experiment to href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLgJYBRzUXY" >explain basic
privacy concepts via video on YouTube. Here it is:

This video runs about 5 minutes, so we
couldn’t cover everything. Over time, we hope to create additional
videos where we talk about other privacy issues: what data do we
collect when you register for a Google Account? or - when you
search on Google while you’re logged in? or - why does Google keeps
server logs? But before we head down the road of sequels, we’d like
to get your feedback on whether you find this video format helpful.
So please watch it and href="http://www.google.com/support/bin/request.py?form_type=user&stage=fm&user_type=user&contact_type=privacy&hl=en" >
tell us what you think. We look forward to hearing from
you.

height="1" width="1" />

Tags: , Cookies, Counsel, Fleischer, Global, Peter, Posted, Privacy

Posted by Alan Davidson, Washington
Policy Counsel, DC office

Congress is holding a hearing tomorrow, Wednesday, November 8th, on
"network neutrality" and a big new telecommunications
bill affecting the Internet. Vint Cerf, our net neutrality guru,
was unable to testify because of a href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/11/standing-on-shoulders-of-this-giant.html" >
little awards ceremony at the White House (congratulations,
Vint!), but here is his letter to the Hill outlining our concerns.
Microsoft will be testifying for our side, demonstrating that
inside the Beltway, we agree on a lot.

You can follow the href="http://energycommerce.house.gov/108/Hearings/11092005hearing1706/hearing.htm" >
proceedings here — and we hope you do. This bill could
fundamentally alter the fabulously successful end-to-end Internet.

November 8, 2005

The Honorable Joe Barton
Chairman
Committee on Energy and Commerce
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515

The Honorable John D. Dingell
Ranking Member
Committee on Energy and Commerce
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, D.C. 20515

Dear Chairman Barton and Ranking Member Dingell,

I appreciate the inquiries by your staff about my availability to
appear before the Committee and to share Google’s views about draft
telecommunications legislation and the issues related to
"network neutrality." These are matters of great
importance to the Internet and Google welcomes the Committee’s hard
work and attention. The hearing unfortunately conflicts with
another obligation, and I am sorry I will not be able to attend.
(Along with my colleague Robert Kahn, I am honored to be receiving
the Presidential Medal of Freedom on Wednesday at the White House
for our work in creating the Internet protocol TCP/IP.)

Despite my inability to participate in the planned hearing in
person, I hope that you will accept some brief observations about
this legislation.

The remarkable social impact and economic success of the Internet
is in many ways directly attributable to the architectural
characteristics that were part of its design. The Internet was
designed with no gatekeepers over new content or services. The
Internet is based on a layered, end-to-end model that allows people
at each level of the network to innovate free of any central
control. By placing intelligence at the edges rather than control
in the middle of the network, the Internet has created a platform
for innovation. This has led to an explosion of offerings – from
VOIP to 802.11x wi-fi to blogging – that might never have evolved
had central control of the network been required by design.

My fear is that, as written, this bill would do great damage to the
Internet as we know it. Enshrining a rule that broadly permits
network operators to discriminate in favor of certain kinds of
services and to potentially interfere with others would place
broadband operators in control of online activity. Allowing
broadband providers to segment their IP offerings and reserve huge
amounts of bandwidth for their own services will not give consumers
the broadband Internet our country and economy need. Many people
will have little or no choice among broadband operators for the
foreseeable future, implying that such operators will have the
power to exercise a great deal of control over any applications
placed on the network.

As we move to a broadband environment and eliminate century-old
non-discrimination requirements, a lightweight but enforceable
neutrality rule is needed to ensure that the Internet continues to
thrive. Telephone companies cannot tell consumers who they can
call; network operators should not dictate what people can do
online.

I am confident that we can build a broadband system that allows
users to decide what websites they want to see and what
applications they want to use – and that also guarantees high
quality service and network security. That network model has and
can continue to provide economic benefits to innovators and
consumers — and to the broadband operators who will reap the
rewards for providing access to such a valued network.

We appreciate the efforts in your current draft to create at least
a starting point for net neutrality principles. Google looks
forward to working with you and your staff to draft a bill that
will maintain the revolutionary potential of the broadband
Internet.

Thank you for your attention and for your efforts on these
important issues.

Sincerely,

Vinton Cerf
Chief Internet Evangelist
Google Inc.

Tags: , Alan, Counsel, Davidson, DC, policy, Posted, Washington

Posted by David Drummond, General
Counsel and Vice President, Corporate Development

We've been asked recently why we're so determined to pursue
Google Print, even though it has drawn industry opposition in the
form of two lawsuits, the most recent coming today from several
members of the href="http://www.publishers.org/press/releases.cfm?PressReleaseArticleID=292" >
American Association of Publishers. The answer is that this
program, which will make millions of books easier for everyone in
the world to find, is crucial to our company's mission.
We're dedicated to helping the world find information, and
there's too much information in books that cannot yet be found
online. We think you should be able to search through every word of
every book ever written, and come away with a list of relevant
books to buy or find at your local library. We aim to make that
happen, but to do so we'll need to build and maintain an index
containing all this information.

It's no surprise that this idea makes some publishers nervous,
even though they can easily remove their books from the program at
any time. The history of technology is replete with advances that
first met wide opposition, later found wide acceptance, and finally
were widely regarded as having been inevitable all along. In 1982,
for instance, the president of the Motion Picture Association of
America famously told a Congressional panel that "the VCR is
to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston
Strangler is to the woman home alone." But Sony, makers of the
original Betamax, stood its ground, the Supreme Court ruled that
copying a TV show to watch it later was href="http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=464&invol=417" >
legal, and today videotapes and DVDs produce the lion's
share of the film industry's revenue.

We expect Google Print will follow a similar storyline. We believe
that our product is legal (see href="http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/10/point-of-google-print.html" >
Eric Schmidt's recent op-ed), that the courts will
vindicate this position, and that the industry will come to embrace
Google Print's considerable benefits. Even today, despite its
lawsuit, the AAP itself recognizes this potential. The Google Print
Library Program, AAP president Pat Schroeder said this morning,
"could help many authors get more exposure and maybe even sell
more books.” We look forward to the day that the program's
opponents marvel at the fact that they actually tried to stop an
innovation that, by making books as easy to find as web pages,
brought their works to the attention of a vast new global audience.

Tags: , Counsel, David, Drummond, General, Posted, President, Vice