Category Archives: Public Policy Blog

Google’s views on government, policy and politics

A principle that should not be forgotten

Today, we published an op-ed by Kent Walker, Google’s global general counsel, in France’s Le Monde newspaper. We’re republishing the op-ed in English below. 

For hundreds of years, it has been an accepted rule of law that one country should not have the right to impose its rules on the citizens of other countries. As a result, information that is illegal in one country can be perfectly legal in others: Thailand outlaws insults to its king; Brazil outlaws negative campaigning in political elections; Turkey outlaws speech that denigrates Ataturk or the Turkish nation — but each of these things is legal elsewhere.  As a company that operates globally, we work hard to respect these differences. 

In March, the French data protection regulator (the CNIL) ordered that its interpretation of French law protecting the right to be forgotten should applynot just in France, but in every country in the world.   

The right to be forgotten - more accurately, a right to be delisted from search results - was created in a landmark 2014 ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). It lets Europeans delist certain links from search engine results generated by searches for their name, even when those links point to truthful and lawfully published information like newspaper articles or official government websites. 

Google complies with the European Court’s ruling in every country in the EU. Our approach reflects the criteria set out by the CJEU, as well as guidance from each country’s regulators and courts about the nuances of their local data protection rules. Across Europe we’ve now reviewed nearly 1.5 million webpages, delisting around 40%. In France alone, we’ve reviewed over 300,000 webpages, delisting nearly 50%. 

Following feedback from European regulators, we recently expanded our approach, restricting access to delisted links on all Google Search services viewed from the country of the person making the request.  (We also remove the link from results on other EU country domains.) That means that if we detect you’re in France, and you search for someone who had a link delisted under the right to be forgotten, you won’t see that link anywhere on Google Search - regardless of which domain you use.  Anyone outside the EU will continue see the link appear on non-European domains in response to the same search query.  

The CNIL's latest order, however, requires us to go even further, applying the CNIL’s interpretation of French law to every version of Google Search globally. This would mean removing links to content - which may be perfectly legal locally - from Australia (google.com.au) to Zambia (google.co.zm) and everywhere in between, including google.com. 

As a matter of both law and principle, we disagree with this demand. We comply with the laws of the countries in which we operate. But if French law applies globally, how long will it be until other countries - perhaps less open and democratic - start demanding that their laws regulating information likewise have global reach?  This order could lead to a global race to the bottom, harming access to information that is perfectly lawful to view in one’s own country. For example, this could prevent French citizens from seeing content that is perfectly legal in France. This is not just a hypothetical concern. We have received demands from governments to remove content globally on various grounds -- and we have resisted, even if that has sometimes led to the blocking of our services. 

In defense of this foundational principle of international law, we today filed our appeal of the CNIL’s order with France’s Supreme Administrative Court, the Conseil d’Etat. We look forward to the Court’s review of this case, which we hope will maintain the rights of citizens around the world to access legal information.

A principle that should not be forgotten

Today, we published an op-ed by Kent Walker, Google’s global general counsel, in France’s Le Monde newspaper. We’re republishing the op-ed in English below. 

For hundreds of years, it has been an accepted rule of law that one country should not have the right to impose its rules on the citizens of other countries. As a result, information that is illegal in one country can be perfectly legal in others: Thailand outlaws insults to its king; Brazil outlaws negative campaigning in political elections; Turkey outlaws speech that denigrates Ataturk or the Turkish nation — but each of these things is legal elsewhere.  As a company that operates globally, we work hard to respect these differences. 

In March, the French data protection regulator (the CNIL) ordered that its interpretation of French law protecting the right to be forgotten should apply not just in France, but in every country in the world.   

The right to be forgotten - more accurately, a right to be delisted from search results - was created in a landmark 2014 ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). It lets Europeans delist certain links from search engine results generated by searches for their name, even when those links point to truthful and lawfully published information like newspaper articles or official government websites. 

Google complies with the European Court’s ruling in every country in the EU. Our approach reflects the criteria set out by the CJEU, as well as guidance from each country’s regulators and courts about the nuances of their local data protection rules. Across Europe we’ve now reviewed nearly 1.5 million webpages, delisting around 40%. In France alone, we’ve reviewed over 300,000 webpages, delisting nearly 50%. 

Following feedback from European regulators, we recently expanded our approach, restricting access to delisted links on all Google Search services viewed from the country of the person making the request.  (We also remove the link from results on other EU country domains.) That means that if we detect you’re in France, and you search for someone who had a link delisted under the right to be forgotten, you won’t see that link anywhere on Google Search - regardless of which domain you use.  Anyone outside the EU will continue see the link appear on non-European domains in response to the same search query.  

The CNIL's latest order, however, requires us to go even further, applying the CNIL’s interpretation of French law to every version of Google Search globally. This would mean removing links to content - which may be perfectly legal locally - from Australia (google.com.au) to Zambia (google.co.zm) and everywhere in between, including google.com. 

As a matter of both law and principle, we disagree with this demand. We comply with the laws of the countries in which we operate. But if French law applies globally, how long will it be until other countries - perhaps less open and democratic - start demanding that their laws regulating information likewise have global reach?  This order could lead to a global race to the bottom, harming access to information that is perfectly lawful to view in one’s own country. For example, this could prevent French citizens from seeing content that is perfectly legal in France. This is not just a hypothetical concern. We have received demands from governments to remove content globally on various grounds -- and we have resisted, even if that has sometimes led to the blocking of our services. 

In defense of this foundational principle of international law, we today filed our appeal of the CNIL’s order with France’s Supreme Administrative Court, the Conseil d’Etat. We look forward to the Court’s review of this case, which we hope will maintain the rights of citizens around the world to access legal information.

An update to our AdWords policy on lending products

When ads are good, they connect people to interesting, useful brands, businesses and products. Unfortunately, not all ads are — some are for fake or harmful products, or seek to mislead users about the businesses they represent. We have an extensive set of policies to keep bad ads out of our systems — in fact in 2015 alone, we disabled more than 780 million ads for reasons ranging from counterfeiting to phishing. Ads for financial services are a particular area of vigilance given how core they are to people’s livelihood and well being.

In that vein, today we’re sharing an update that will go into effect on July 13, 2016: we’re banning ads for payday loans and some related products from our ads systems. We will no longer allow ads for loans where repayment is due within 60 days of the date of issue. In the U.S., we are also banning ads for loans with an APR of 36% or higher. When reviewing our policies, research has shown that these loans can result in unaffordable payment and high default rates for users so we will be updating our policies globally to reflect that.

This change is designed to protect our users from deceptive or harmful financial products and will not affect companies offering loans such as Mortgages, Car Loans, Student Loans, Commercial loans, Revolving Lines of Credit (e.g. Credit Cards).

According to Wade Henderson, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, "This new policy addresses many of the longstanding concerns shared by the entire civil rights community about predatory payday lending. These companies have long used slick advertising and aggressive marketing to trap consumers into outrageously high interest loans — often those least able to afford it."

We’ll continue to review the effectiveness of this policy, but our hope is that fewer people will be exposed to misleading or harmful products.

An Update to Our AdWords Policy on Lending Products

Posted by David Graff, Director, Global Product Policy

When ads are good, they connect people to interesting, useful brands, businesses and products. Unfortunately, not all ads are--some are for fake or harmful products, or seek to mislead users about the businesses they represent. We have an extensive set of policies to keep bad ads out of our systems - in fact in 2015 alone, we disabled more than 780 million ads for reasons ranging from counterfeiting to phishing. Ads for financial services are a particular area of vigilance given how core they are to people’s livelihood and well being.

In that vein, today we’re sharing an update that will go into effect on July 13, 2016: we’re banning ads for payday loans and some related products from our ads systems. We will no longer allow ads for loans where repayment is due within 60 days of the date of issue. In the U.S., we are also banning ads for loans with an APR of 36% or higher. When reviewing our policies, research has shown that these loans can result in unaffordable payment and high default rates for users so we will be updating our policies globally to reflect that.

This change is designed to protect our users from deceptive or harmful financial products and will not affect companies offering loans such as Mortgages, Car Loans, Student Loans, Commercial loans, Revolving Lines of Credit (e.g. Credit Cards).

According to Wade Henderson, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, "This new policy addresses many of the longstanding concerns shared by the entire civil rights community about predatory payday lending. These companies have long used slick advertising and aggressive marketing to trap consumers into outrageously high interest loans - often those least able to afford it."

We’ll continue to review the effectiveness of this policy, but our hope is that fewer people will be exposed to misleading or harmful products.

This is for everyone: Google and Debating Europe discuss women and tech

The online world is at its best when it includes everyone. Currently, three billion of the world's seven billion people are connected to the internet; by 2020 it'll be five billion. If women aren't included as equal partners in this internet revolution, we all stand to lose. That's why this week, we teamed up with Debating Europe to host a Women & Tech event in Brussels with EU Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality Věra Jourová, Google Europe’s President Matt Brittin, and wired women from around the world to highlight the impact of tech on women and of women on tech.

Women are still vastly underrepresented in the tech sector. We make up only 30% of the workforce in the ICT sector, and 19% of digital entrepreneurs -- compared to over 30% in other sectors. This disparity begins in education, where we have a lower participation rate worldwide in science, technology maths and engineering subjects.

EU Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality Věra Jourová
EU Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality Věra Jourová
Jourová set the tone, noting that we shouldn’t just talk about change, but make it happen. She told us about the vital work the European Commission is doing in this area, for instance by contributing to the Girls in ICT project. But there’s still a lot of work on the same basic point: we need to increase the number of women working in tech.

To solve a problem, you need data. Google's aim is to organise the world's information, and one of our speakers, Lucy Hurst, had plenty to share. She co-authored The Economist Intelligence Unit's report on the gender gap, which showed that in some countries inequality between men and women is getting worse.

Next, you need enthusiasm, and a will to change. One of the most inspiring speakers we heard from was Hayla Ghazal -- a Dubai-based YouTube star who was recently made a UN Change Ambassador. She mentioned that in one of her videos -- which offer a light-hearted look at everything from pre-exam panic to satirical differences between Arab and Western mothers -- she talked about her love of reading. Soon after, parents were thanking her for encouraging their daughters to read.

She also told us about the importance of having a diverse range of female role models worldwide; about how women can discover economic and educational opportunities online; and that everyone benefits when women around the world are connected, educated, and able to use their capabilities to the full.
womentech.jpg
From Google, we invited Yvonne Agyei, our Vice President of People Operations.We know the most exciting ideas come from unexplored places: that's why with hiring, we extend our reach beyond traditional universities, helping us discover the talent of underrepresented groups, including women. We also invest in partnerships across the continent to get young people excited about computer science, like Lero’s Summer Computing Camp for Girls in Ireland.

We’re pleased with the results, even though there’s clearly more to do. So far, 37% of Campus London community members are female, and 33% of our Madrid members are female. Our Campus Directors in London and Madrid - Sarah Drinkwater and Sofia Benjumea - are doing an amazing job in supporting greater diversity in local start-up communities. Of all the startups that make up our Campus community, 40% have a woman in the ‘founder’ team.

All of this fits in with our wider goal of training 2 million Europeans in digital skills -- in fact, 43% of participants in our digital workshops, so far, are women. They include Romanian folk blouse retailers and a cat grooming service in The Netherlands.

There's a lot to be optimistic about, but there's a great deal of work to be done as well. Great companies rely on great people -- and if women aren’t included, half the talent pool is absent. We want more stories like Mame Khary Diene, and her start-up BioEssence, more YouTubers like Hayla and her friends sharing their excitement about gender equality, and more coding workshops for girls like the ones run by Cheryl D. Miller of the Digital Leadership Institute. We look forward to training hundreds of thousands of girls and women in digital skills over the next few years.

This is for everyone: Google and Debating Europe discuss women and tech

The online world is at its best when it includes everyone. Currently, three billion of the world's seven billion people are connected to the internet; by 2020 it'll be five billion. If women aren't included as equal partners in this internet revolution, we all stand to lose. That's why this week, we teamed up with Debating Europe to host a Women & Tech event in Brussels with EU Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality Věra Jourová, Google Europe’s President Matt Brittin, and wired women from around the world to highlight the impact of tech on women and of women on tech.

Women are still vastly underrepresented in the tech sector. We make up only 30% of the workforce in the ICT sector, and 19% of digital entrepreneurs -- compared to over 30% in other sectors. This disparity begins in education, where we have a lower participation rate worldwide in science, technology maths and engineering subjects.

EU Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality Věra Jourová
EU Commissioner for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality Věra Jourová
Jourová set the tone, noting that we shouldn’t just talk about change, but make it happen. She told us about the vital work the European Commission is doing in this area, for instance by contributing to the Girls in ICT project. But there’s still a lot of work on the same basic point: we need to increase the number of women working in tech.

To solve a problem, you need data. Google's aim is to organise the world's information, and one of our speakers, Lucy Hurst, had plenty to share. She co-authored The Economist Intelligence Unit's report on the gender gap, which showed that in some countries inequality between men and women is getting worse.

Next, you need enthusiasm, and a will to change. One of the most inspiring speakers we heard from was Hayla Ghazal -- a Dubai-based YouTube star who was recently made a UN Change Ambassador. She mentioned that in one of her videos -- which offer a light-hearted look at everything from pre-exam panic to satirical differences between Arab and Western mothers -- she talked about her love of reading. Soon after, parents were thanking her for encouraging their daughters to read.

She also told us about the importance of having a diverse range of female role models worldwide; about how women can discover economic and educational opportunities online; and that everyone benefits when women around the world are connected, educated, and able to use their capabilities to the full.
womentech.jpg
From Google, we invited Yvonne Agyei, our Vice President of People Operations.We know the most exciting ideas come from unexplored places: that's why with hiring, we extend our reach beyond traditional universities, helping us discover the talent of underrepresented groups, including women. We also invest in partnerships across the continent to get young people excited about computer science, like Lero’s Summer Computing Camp for Girls in Ireland.

We’re pleased with the results, even though there’s clearly more to do. So far, 37% of Campus London community members are female, and 33% of our Madrid members are female. Our Campus Directors in London and Madrid - Sarah Drinkwater and Sofia Benjumea - are doing an amazing job in supporting greater diversity in local start-up communities. Of all the startups that make up our Campus community, 40% have a woman in the ‘founder’ team.

All of this fits in with our wider goal of training 2 million Europeans in digital skills -- in fact, 43% of participants in our digital workshops, so far, are women. They include Romanian folk blouse retailers and a cat grooming service in The Netherlands.

There's a lot to be optimistic about, but there's a great deal of work to be done as well. Great companies rely on great people -- and if women aren’t included, half the talent pool is absent. We want more stories like Mame Khary Diene, and her start-up BioEssence, more YouTubers like Hayla and her friends sharing their excitement about gender equality, and more coding workshops for girls like the ones run by Cheryl D. Miller of the Digital Leadership Institute. We look forward to training hundreds of thousands of girls and women in digital skills over the next few years.

Join Chancellor Merkel and President Obama on their Hannover Messe Tour

Posted by Alex Sanchez, Public Policy Team

Google captures tour at Hannover Fair with 360-degree video technology

Last week marked the first visit of a U.S. President to the Hannover Messe, the world’s largest industrial trade show. Hannover is the birthplace of Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who is credited with helping create binary code, the 0’s and 1’s that make up all things digital. It’s fitting that Google helped document President Barack Obama and Chancellor Angela Merkel’s tour of the Fair with several 360-degree cameras - a perfect way to combine digital and industry in front of an international audience. The video allows you join the delegation of the two heads of state for a virtual tour you can watch on YouTube, or by using a virtual-reality (VR) viewer like Google Cardboard. 


Before the tour gets started, U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker explains the importance of the President’s trip to Germany and the collaboration between US and German business. It’s a great opportunity to see the Fair, take a look at the booths of economic development delegations from most of the fifty United States, and catch a glimpse of some of the happenings taking place in the middle of the Select USA partner country area.


One stop on the tour was the JobsOhio booth, where the President and Chancellor viewed a demo of a made-in-Ohio 3D printer. Take a look at the demo, and then turn around to see the press capturing their visit. The President’s Press Secretary Josh Earnest concludes the video in front of the Young Tech Enterprises show floor, where Google sponsored space for emerging startups to showcase their innovations.

Google was thrilled to host promising startups like: INFARM working to help cities with efficient food production; RELAYR providing an innovative enterprise middleware platform; WATLY combining a solar water purifier with power and connectivity; DAS TERMINAL offering digital banners and marketing solutions; KIWI providing hands-free access solutions for apartment buildings; UNU tackling the challenges of urban mobility through innovative e-scooters; and Beaconinside offering integrated next generation indoor location-based experiences.


So how'd we do VR? We used a mix of 4K cameras that are positioned to take pictures in every direction. We then used software in post-production to help stitch together the picture to transport you right into the action! The cameras were provided by our YouTube spaces in Berlin, London, and Paris in true European collaboration.

360-degree cameras and virtual reality are unique technologies to experience events like the Hannover trade show through a new perspective. If you couldn’t get to Hannover this year, seeing this incredible industrial fair in 360 might be the next best thing. We were thrilled to capture this special moment with two important world leaders -- and even more excited that we could share it with you!

Watch the full VR tour in English on YouTube, and in German on the Berliner Morgenpost website.