Category Archives: Public Policy Blog

Google’s views on government, policy and politics

Refreshing our Transparency Report for copyright removals

Back in 2012, as a part of our continuing effort to increase transparency around the flow of information online, we began disclosing the number of requests we get from copyright owners (and the organizations that represent them) to remove Google Search results because they allegedly link to infringing content.

The report hasn’t changed much since 2012 and was getting a little rusty. So today, we’re releasing a new version of the report that makes it easier for you to understand the data:

  • Examples of removal requests, similar to the annotations we added to government requests to remove contentlast year. These illustrate the range of things we’re asked to remove and the decisions we make in response.

  • A new Explore the Data page, which lets you search the database of removal requests and see a more detailed list of reporting organizations, domains, and copyright owners.

  • An explanation of how copyright notice and takedown is applied to Google Search, which we hope leads to a better overall understanding of the process.

In addition to this major overhaul, over the last two months we’ve made a few updates to other sections of the Transparency Report:

  • In late July, we published the data on government requests for user data for the second half of 2015. We coupled this update with a blog post about some of the recent advances in surveillance reform, including the Judicial Redress Act and the EU-US Privacy Shield.

  • At the beginning of August, we added added YouTube and Calendar to our HTTPS Report Card, continuing to show our progress toward secure connections for people across our products. Learn more about YouTube’s efforts on the YouTube Engineering blog.

  • A few weeks ago, we updated the government requests to remove content section with data for the second half of 2015. The data show an upward trend in governments asking us to remove content from our products and services, with content on YouTube, Search and Blogger cited most frequently.

Transparency reporting is an important way to shed light on the policies and actions of governments and corporations, and how they affect privacy, security, and the flow of information online.  We’re always exploring new ways to explain legal policies and processes and will continue to add new examples and new data to our reports. You can follow us on Google+ to get the latest on updates to the Transparency Report and news on related projects.  

11 New Countries Available in Google Patents

Posted by Ian Wetherbee, Tech Lead / Manager, Google Patents

When we started Google Patents almost 10 years ago, our mission was to make patents more easily accessible. Today, we're announcing the addition of 11 more countries to Google Patents with over 41 million new patent publications, bringing the total to over 87 million publications from 17 patent offices around the world.

Starting today, you can now search for patents and applications from Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom, Spain, France, Belgium, Russia, the Netherlands, Finland, Denmark, and Luxembourg in Google Patents. If you’re interested in learning more about inventions such as bulldozing devices, wind farming, or how to make rice wine, you can now search for them and many more.

Like our other patent publications, this new collection has been translated into English using Google Translate so you can search using English keywords or the original language. Our collection also includes scientific papers and books from Google Scholar and Google Books, which have been machine-classified like patents with Cooperative Patent Classification codes for easier discovery. You can learn more in the new help center.

A robust prior art search, combining advanced search technology and a patent examiner’s technical expertise, allows an examiner to determine if an invention is new and non-obvious. As a result, technology that was already known isn’t taken from the public, and innovative companies won’t be targeted with unnecessary and expensive lawsuits that drain R&D resources. Patent holders trying to protect the next groundbreaking invention benefit too by gaining more certainty that their patents won’t be invalidated later because of prior art that wasn’t found during examination.

We’ll continue to improve Google Patents to make the collection of patents and prior art accessible and useful to patent examiners, inventors, and the public around the world.

11 New Countries Available in Google Patents

When we started Google Patents almost 10 years ago, our mission was to make patents more easily accessible. Today, we're announcing the addition of 11 more countries to Google Patents with over 41 million new patent publications, bringing the total to over 87 million publications from 17 patent offices around the world.

Starting today, you can now search for patents and applications from Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom, Spain, France, Belgium, Russia, the Netherlands, Finland, Denmark, and Luxembourg in Google Patents. If you’re interested in learning more about inventions such as bulldozing devices, wind farming, or how to make rice wine, you can now search for them and many more.

Like our other patent publications, this new collection has been translated into English using Google Translate so you can search using English keywords or the original language. Our collection also includes scientific papers and books from Google Scholarand Google Books, which have been machine-classified like patents with Cooperative Patent Classification codes for easier discovery. You can learn more in the new help center.

A robust prior art search, combining advanced search technology and a patent examiner’s technical expertise, allows an examiner to determine if an invention is new and non-obvious. As a result, technology that was already known isn’t taken from the public, and innovative companies won’t be targeted with unnecessary and expensive lawsuits that drain R&D resources. Patent holders trying to protect the next groundbreaking invention benefit too by gaining more certainty that their patents won’t be invalidated later because of prior art that wasn’t found during examination.

We’ll continue to improve Google Patents to make the collection of patents and prior art accessible and useful to patent examiners, inventors, and the public around the world.

11 New Countries Available in Google Patents

When we started Google Patents almost 10 years ago, our mission was to make patents more easily accessible. Today, we're announcing the addition of 11 more countries to Google Patents with over 41 million new patent publications, bringing the total to over 87 million publications from 17 patent offices around the world.

Starting today, you can now search for patents and applications from Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom, Spain, France, Belgium, Russia, the Netherlands, Finland, Denmark, and Luxembourg in Google Patents. If you’re interested in learning more about inventions such as bulldozing devices, wind farming, or how to make rice wine, you can now search for them and many more.

Like our other patent publications, this new collection has been translated into English using Google Translate so you can search using English keywords or the original language. Our collection also includes scientific papers and books from Google Scholarand Google Books, which have been machine-classified like patents with Cooperative Patent Classification codes for easier discovery. You can learn more in the new help center.

A robust prior art search, combining advanced search technology and a patent examiner’s technical expertise, allows an examiner to determine if an invention is new and non-obvious. As a result, technology that was already known isn’t taken from the public, and innovative companies won’t be targeted with unnecessary and expensive lawsuits that drain R&D resources. Patent holders trying to protect the next groundbreaking invention benefit too by gaining more certainty that their patents won’t be invalidated later because of prior art that wasn’t found during examination.

We’ll continue to improve Google Patents to make the collection of patents and prior art accessible and useful to patent examiners, inventors, and the public around the world.

11 New Countries Available in Google Patents

When we started Google Patents almost 10 years ago, our mission was to make patents more easily accessible. Today, we're announcing the addition of 11 more countries to Google Patents with over 41 million new patent publications, bringing the total to over 87 million publications from 17 patent offices around the world.

Starting today, you can now search for patents and applications from Japan, South Korea, the United Kingdom, Spain, France, Belgium, Russia, the Netherlands, Finland, Denmark, and Luxembourg in Google Patents. If you’re interested in learning more about inventions such as bulldozing devices, wind farming, or how to make rice wine, you can now search for them and many more.

Like our other patent publications, this new collection has been translated into English using Google Translate so you can search using English keywords or the original language. Our collection also includes scientific papers and books from Google Scholarand Google Books, which have been machine-classified like patents with Cooperative Patent Classification codes for easier discovery. You can learn more in the new help center.

A robust prior art search, combining advanced search technology and a patent examiner’s technical expertise, allows an examiner to determine if an invention is new and non-obvious. As a result, technology that was already known isn’t taken from the public, and innovative companies won’t be targeted with unnecessary and expensive lawsuits that drain R&D resources. Patent holders trying to protect the next groundbreaking invention benefit too by gaining more certainty that their patents won’t be invalidated later because of prior art that wasn’t found during examination.

We’ll continue to improve Google Patents to make the collection of patents and prior art accessible and useful to patent examiners, inventors, and the public around the world.

Privacy for the next billion users

We have updated our Transparency Report on government requests for user data with information for the second half of 2015 (July – December). Google is proud to have led the charge on publishing these reports, helping shed light on government surveillance laws and practices across the world.

We’re pleased with some of the improvements we’ve seen in surveillance laws. The European Commission and the United States recently agreed on the Privacy Shield agreement, which includes new undertakings covering procedural protections for surveillance efforts. Earlier this year, President Obama signed the Judicial Redress Act into law, which Google strongly supported. The law creates a process for extending procedural protections under the Privacy Act of 1974 to non-U.S. persons. This shift helps address concerns about the ability of non-U.S. persons to redress grievances concerning data collected and stored by the U.S. government under U.S. law. Indeed, the distinctions that U.S. privacy and surveillance laws make between U.S. and non-U.S. persons are increasingly obsolete in a world where communications primarily take place over a global medium: the Internet.

There are other important steps that the U.S. can take to ensure that the privacy interests of non-U.S. persons are addressed as policymakers consider government surveillance issues. We helped create the Reform Government Surveillance coalition to encourage Congress and the executive branch to take steps to modernize U.S. surveillance laws, further protect the privacy and data security rights of all users, including those outside the US and those not of US nationality, and improve diplomatic processes to promote a robust, principled, and transparent framework for legitimate cross-border investigations.

Google looks forward to working on the future rules and standards in countries around the world that, like the Judicial Redress Act, respect the rights of users wherever they may be.

Privacy for the Next Billion Users

Posted by Richard Salgado, Legal Director, Law Enforcement and Information Security

We have updated our Transparency Report on government requests for user data with information for the second half of 2015 (July – December). Google is proud to have led the charge on publishing these reports, helping shed light on government surveillance laws and practices across the world.

We’re pleased with some of the improvements we’ve seen in surveillance laws. The European Commission and the United States recently agreed on the Privacy Shield agreement, which includes new undertakings covering procedural protections for surveillance efforts. Earlier this year, President Obama signed the Judicial Redress Act into law, which Google strongly supported. The law creates a process for extending procedural protections under the Privacy Act of 1974 to non-U.S. persons. This shift helps address concerns about the ability of non-U.S. persons to redress grievances concerning data collected and stored by the U.S. government under U.S. law. Indeed, the distinctions that U.S. privacy and surveillance laws make between U.S. and non-U.S. persons are increasingly obsolete in a world where communications primarily take place over a global medium: the Internet.

There are other important steps that the U.S. can take to ensure that the privacy interests of non-U.S. persons are addressed as policymakers consider government surveillance issues. We helped create the Reform Government Surveillance coalition to encourage Congress and the executive branch to take steps to modernize U.S. surveillance laws, further protect the privacy and data security rights of all users, including those outside the US and those not of US nationality, and improve diplomatic processes to promote a robust, principled, and transparent framework for legitimate cross-border investigations.

Google looks forward to working on the future rules and standards in countries around the world that, like the Judicial Redress Act, respect the rights of users wherever they may be.

Privacy for the next billion users

We have updated our Transparency Report on government requests for user data with information for the second half of 2015 (July – December). Google is proud to have led the charge on publishing these reports, helping shed light on government surveillance laws and practices across the world.

We’re pleased with some of the improvements we’ve seen in surveillance laws. The European Commission and the United States recently agreed on the Privacy Shield agreement, which includes new undertakings covering procedural protections for surveillance efforts. Earlier this year, President Obama signed the Judicial Redress Act into law, which Google strongly supported. The law creates a process for extending procedural protections under the Privacy Act of 1974 to non-U.S. persons. This shift helps address concerns about the ability of non-U.S. persons to redress grievances concerning data collected and stored by the U.S. government under U.S. law. Indeed, the distinctions that U.S. privacy and surveillance laws make between U.S. and non-U.S. persons are increasingly obsolete in a world where communications primarily take place over a global medium: the Internet.

There are other important steps that the U.S. can take to ensure that the privacy interests of non-U.S. persons are addressed as policymakers consider government surveillance issues. We helped create the Reform Government Surveillance coalition to encourage Congress and the executive branch to take steps to modernize U.S. surveillance laws, further protect the privacy and data security rights of all users, including those outside the US and those not of US nationality, and improve diplomatic processes to promote a robust, principled, and transparent framework for legitimate cross-border investigations.

Google looks forward to working on the future rules and standards in countries around the world that, like the Judicial Redress Act, respect the rights of users wherever they may be.