Europe Blog
Our views on the Internet and society
Coding for democracy in Europe
Friday, December 5, 2014
It was an audacious task - write software that would increase democratic participation in Europe. At a time when polls show increasing public disenchantment with traditional European Union institutions, the latest and 4th edition of the
EUhackathon
focused on getting European citizens more involved in the EU policymaking progress.
A total of 41 coders from all over Europe participated this week in Brussels. In addition to Google, Facebook, ICANN and Netflix sponsored the event.
Andrus Ansip,
European Commission Vice-President for the Digital Single Market, and
Alexander De Croo
, Belgian Vice-Prime Minister and Minister for the Digital Agenda, visited the coders at the Google Brussels office. Google Vice President and Internet evangelist (and “father” of the Internet) Vint Cerf, offered additional encouragement.
Belgian Minister Alexander De Croo and European Commissioner Andrus Ansip
Vint Cerf with Commissioner Ansip
After 30 hours of intense coding with only a single four-hour break, the jury heard presentations of the projects. The prize giving ceremony took place at the European Parliament – MEPs Julia Reda, Andrey Novakov, Brando Benifei, Eva Paunova and Marietje Schaake announced the winners:
First Prize: Team Videodock (the Netherlands), created a cool search for finding videos of parliamentary debates.
Second Prize: Team Commission Today (Romania/Germany/USA), created a transparency register of the meetings of the EU Commission.
Third Prize: Team Frontwise (the Netherlands),developed a tool to make easier to access to EU public consultations.
The winning Dutch team receives their prize
Posted by Marco Pancini, Senior Policy Counsel, Brussels
Calling women coders - apply for the Ada Awards
Thursday, September 11, 2014
Fewer than
one in ten computer science graduates
in Europe are female. In order to improve on this dismal rate, we are sponsoring the 2014 European Ada Awards.
The Awards, affectionately known as the “Adas,” are named in honor of
Ada Lovelace
, a 19th-century English mathematician, considered by many to be the world’s first computer programmer and
the first to envisage computing’s true potential
.
It’s the second edition of the awards. The European Commission launched the Ada Awards in June, 2013 as part of its pledge to improve Digital Skills and Jobs in Europe. Three awards are given out - the Digital Girl of the Year, the Digital Woman of the Year , and the Digital Impact Organisation of the Year. Nominations are valid from across the European Union and reflect a broad spectrum of digital fields – academia, research, industry, enterprise and creative.
“Tomorrow's world will be driven by digital technology, and having digital skills will
open a goldmine of opportunities. I want women to be in the goldmine,” Neelie Kroes European Commission Vice President responsible for the Digital Agenda, said at last year’s award ceremonies.
Please note the award agenda:
Deadline for Nominations: September 16, 2014
Finalist Announcement: October 6, 2014
Rome Award Ceremony: October 30, 2014
Additional information and nomination forms are available at AdaAwards.com.
Posted by Alison Daniel-Cutler, Pre-University CS Education Outreach Manager
Helping Europe's youth find work
Monday, June 23, 2014
All across Europe, far too many young people struggle to find a job and starting their careers. That is why we are joining a coalition of businesses and governments called the
Alliance for Youth
, which will support European youth to gain new skills and work experience.
At an event today in Lisbon attended by European Commission President Jose-Manuel Barroso and Portuguese Prime Minister Passos Coelho, we committed to a range of initiatives to increase access to digital skills training and education in science, technology, engineering and maths. We're also extending our support for entrepreneurs in Europe.
At Google, we’ve taken on nearly 3500 new employees in Europe over the last three years - net growth of 60% since 2011. Of those 3500, nearly 650 are newly-minted graduates of European universities. They work in a wide range of technical and non-technical roles based in our offices across Europe. More jobs are available. We still have entry level positions open in engineering, advertising support, and product management.
Another priority is helping university students develop professional skills via
internships
. This summer alone, we’ll play host to more than 600 technical and non-technical interns in Europe. We have strong partnerships with universities and organizations.
Across Europe, we are working with partners to help meet some of the specific challenges facing young people. In Spain, where youth unemployment has reached an alarming 57%, we launched
Activate
, a platform to train the young generation in digital skills. Through a suite of offline and massive open online courses (MOOCs) on digital marketing, data analytics, cloud computing, e-commerce, we hope to reach more than 100,000 Europeans by early next year.
Our
RISE
(Roots in Science & Engineering) and
CS4HS
(Computer Science for High School) programs target younger high students. These programs nurture coding skills, use robotics to teach engineering and maths and help teachers with STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) education tools. Through our partnerships with education organizations, we’ll reach 500,000 students and teachers in 20 European countries, up from 100,000 in 2013.
Finally, Google continues to supports entrepreneurship in Europe. We plan to reach thousands of entrepreneurs through
Google for Entrepreneurs
, including
Startup Weekend
,
Startup Grind
or publicly available online learning resources tailored to early-stage entrepreneurs. We also support a growing number of startup hubs and co-working spaces: in London (
Campus London
), Berlin (
The Factory
) and Paris (
Numa
), and a recently announced Campus in Warsaw.
We're delighted to contribute to the new Alliance for Youth. All of us need to support young Europeans to develop the skills and experience allowing them to find meaningful careers in the 21st century economy.
Posted by Matt Brittin, President, Business and Operations, Northern and Central Europe
Driving Europe’s digital road to economic growth
Friday, May 23, 2014
For the past few years, Europe’s financial crisis has dominated economic debate. The
Lisbon Council
attempted this week to shift the discussion at its Europe 2020 summit to what policies are needed to move beyond the immediate crisis and build the foundation for future prosperity.
Google supports this agenda. We have worked with the Lisbon Council to launch its
Innovation Economics Centre
of excellence committed to shedding light on and providing scientific evidence of the profound impact of the Internet and digital technologies. At the Europe 2020 summit, our European policy head Nicklas Lundblad explained how the Internet represents a core component of any European growth strategy.
Top European officials participated, including
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso
and European Commissioner Neelie Kroes. European startups and innovators including Simon Schaefer, founder and CEO of Germany’s leading startup lab Factory, angel investor Sherry Coutu, and Spotify's Head of Product, Tech, IP and Policy Mark Silverstein urged them to end the continent’s present fragmented regulatory regimes, that forces companies must obtain separate permission to access each of the European Union’s 28 national markets.
At the summit, a new Digital Single Market study
“Productivity and Digitalisation in Europe: Paving the Road to Faster Growth”
was released. Written by Bart van Ark, chief economist of the research association called
The Conference Board
, it argues that Europe’s productivity, which is key to growth,is falling far behind America because it lags in intangible investments (see chart below) and adoption of digital technology across all sectors of the economy. As van Ark stressed “ the potential of digitisation to accelerate growth will come primarily from the use of these technologies by industries in non-ICT sector.” This should be a vision for the next European Commission.
In the addition, Dirk Pilat of the OECD, presented new evidence on contribution of young companies to the economy. 42% of new jobs come from startups and high-growth firms, which shows that policymakers in Europe should focus on enabling entrepreneurship and experimentation, rather than focusing only on SMEs and incumbents.
The event underlined how Europe enjoys a giant opportunity for the Internet to support economic growth and employment in Europe - as well as the risks of Europe being left behind related to lack of the digital single market and global scale, digital skills gap, excessive regulation or risks of emerging digital protectionism in Europe.
Google is committed to doing its part. We’re supporting a range of initiatives that help Europeans -- entrepreneurs, startups, and youth -- tap the potential of the net to start a business, reach global markets, and learn new skills and become employable. In
Germany
, we’re helping the country’s famed exporters find new customers, grow their businesses and maximize their online presence through a suite of digital tools. In
Italy
, we’re bring Italy’s famous artisan producers online. In
Spain
, we’re working with partners to create a 21st century workforce by helping people of all ages acquire new digital skills including coding and computer science. All the efforts are meant to send a single important message: in order to prosper, Europe needs to embrace the internet.
Posted by Sylwia Giepmans-Stepien, Senior Policy Analyst, Brussels
Participating in Safer Internet Day
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
In time for Safer Internet Day this week, we revamped our
Family Safety Centre
. The new version aims to be a one-stop shop that provides step-by-step instructions for using safety tools built into Google products. We attempt to answer questions about specific topics that are most concerning to parents, such as accessing inappropriate content and meeting strangers online.
Throughout Europe, we promoted Safer Internet Day on Google home pages and our teams got into action. In Spain, for example, we participated in a presentation with local partner Protegeles bringing together kids, parents and teachers. In Israel, the Children’s Rights Committee at the Parliament met with our
Web-Rangers
, to discuss how teenagers can promote online safety.
Here in Brussels, we hosted for lunch in our office with the winners of the European Award for
Best Content for Kids
, a European wide contest highlighting content allowing young people online opportunities to learn, play, discover and invent. Winning entries such as the from the UK (see below) touch important topics like the issue of
cyberbullying
.
European Commissioner Neelie Kroes
received the winners later in the day at the Commission’s Berlaymont headquarters and posted its “Let’s Create a Better Internet Together” video on YouTube.
The Internet and social platforms offer tremendous opportunities for youth: self-expression, civil engagement, and collaboration with communities. At the same time, like any tool, the web can be abused. We are proud to build powerful safety tools into our products, ranging from SafeSearch to Safety Mode. In the end, its up to all of us to stand up for for a safe and secure internet, not just on the annual Safer Internet day - but every day!
Posted by Marco Pancini, Senior Policy Manager, Brussels
Moving Forward
Monday, November 25, 2013
For the past two years we’ve worked closely with the European Commission to settle their inquiry into our search and advertising businesses. We’ve put a lot of effort into addressing the Commission’s concerns, and earlier this year, after a good bit of back-and-forth with the Commission, we proposed a package of measures that the Commission felt comfortable testing in the marketplace.
The Commission subsequently asked us to go even further, including giving rival sites much more visibility in our search results. (The Commission has since
confirmed
that it seeks to promote visibility rather than to mandate where consumers click.) We addressed these requests with our revised offer, which broadens the scope of our offer and provides links to rival sites even more prominently in our search results. Specifically:
We will give links to rival sites much more real estate and visibility
We will include rival sites’ logos with these links for even greater prominence
We will accompany these links with dynamic text from rivals providing more information about their sites
This news was widely reported in the press and you can see screenshots of these proposed links
here
.
As European Commission Vice President
Joaquin Almunia
said in a recent
speech
, the issue is choice for consumers. We've worked closely with a knowledgeable and professional team at the Commission to deliver just that. Users will be presented with alternative specialized search options right in the middle of some of the most valuable and prominent space on our search page. It is hard to see how anybody could reasonably claim that this will not offer users choice.
These weren’t easy concessions to make. Within Google, many asked why we would agree to such unprecedented and far-reaching changes to our continuously evolving search results. But we didn’t want to spend a decade fighting over these issues. We wanted to move forward, letting our engineers continue to do what they do best: building products that help users in their everyday lives.
Of course, we will never satisfy some critics, especially those with a professional and financial interest in impeding a successful competitor rather than helping users. As
Upton Sinclair
once said, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” Some in the anti-Google camp have lobbied for remedies that would help themselves at a cost to consumers. Others have worked to prolong the process to keep us in regulatory limbo, filing new complaints timed to disrupt our settlement negotiations. These complainants continue to recycle claims with no basis in law or fact, while failing to present constructive or realistic suggestions that would benefit consumers.
We’ve gone the extra mile to come up with a settlement that will resolve the Commission’s expressed concerns and allow everyone to focus on competing on the merits and creating innovative new services for consumers. We look forward to bringing this matter to a sound and reasonable conclusion.
Posted by Kent Walker, Senior Vice President and General Counsel
EUhackathon 2013: Coding for Transparency
Monday, September 30, 2013
The challenge at this year’s
EUhackathon
was to
shine a light
on government surveillance during a 24-hour coding marathon - a particularly pertinent subject given recent headlines. European Commission Vice-President Viviane Reding saluted the coders at the Awards Ceremony, saying “you’re hacking for your rights.”
A total of 29 coders from 13 countries participated. Team Frontwise from the Netherlands won the first prize with its
BIGSIS – Privacy Ranking app
. Reding gave them a EUR 5,000 award. BIGSIS is a Chrome plugin which “visualises your exposure to web services while you’re browsing the internet. It displays with which governments this data can be shared.”
All the competing projects can be found at the
Visualizing.org
website. Take a look at the coders in action.
[Youtube link to official movie
As well as from these technical achievements, the EUhackathon hosted a
series of discussions
on government surveillance, bringing together academics represented by Professors Milton Mueller and Pompeu Casanovas, civil society leaders including Trevor Timm from the Freedom of the Press Foundation and Joe McNamee from the European Digital Rights initiative (EDRi), and international officials such as UNICRI’s Francesca Bosco.
Google’s been at the forefront of calls for transparency about government surveillance for many years. Every six months, we publish detailed statistics on the number of requests we get from governments to access user data – and we’ve done that since 2009. We’ve supported the EUhackathon for the last three years because data visualisation is a great way of making statistics more meaningful, and of raising awareness of an issue that has serious implications for democratic societies.
Posted by Marco Pancini, Senior Counsel, Brussels
What's the State of the European Union? #askbarroso!
Monday, September 9, 2013
Is Europe really emerging from the financial crisis? What’s going to happen to Europe’s 5 million unemployed young people? Does the rise of euro-sceptic politics spell the end of the EU as we know it? Will Europe act on Syria?
Now’s your chance to put these questions and others to the man in charge of the European Commission, President José Manuel Barroso, in a special, live State of the European Union Hangout interview, hosted by the
euronews Global Conversation
team, but driven by you.
The Hangout on Air takes place on Thursday 12 September at 20:50 CET / 11:50 PDT, one day after President Barroso’s 2013
State of the European Union
address.
euronews is soliciting questions, comments and ideas for the interview until 12:00 CET / 03:00 PDT on Wednesday 11 September. No topic is too big or too small—all you need to do is submit your question (text or video) on Google+, Twitter and Facebook using the hashtag
#askbarroso
. The authors of the best questions—as chosen by euronews editors—will be invited to interview the President in person, live, in the Google+ Hangout.
To tune in, visit the
European Commission’s Google+ page
Thursday 12 September at 20:50 CET / 11:50 PDT. And of course, you can keep commenting up to and after the interview using the hashtags
#askbarroso
and
#SOTEU
.
Posted by Al Verney, Communications Manager, Google Brussels
Following in Galileo’s footsteps
Thursday, August 1, 2013
Many of us spend the summer lounging on Europe’s beaches and use the Internet to plan our vacation and satellite navigation to get there. This summer, hundreds of ambitious students are spending their vacation in a different way - improving their computer programming skills with
Google’s Summer of Code
. Among them is Italy’s Mara Branzanti, a 26-year old PhD student in geomatics at the University of Rome’s La Sapienza. She’s working to, among other goals, improve your holidays.
Her
project
, financed by Google, is to write software that will make it quicker and easier to use the European Union’s Galileo
global navigation satellite system
. The EUR 5 billion
Galileo programme
being built by the European Union and
European Space Agency
is named after the Italian astronomer
Galileo
. It aims to provide a high-precision positioning system upon which European nations can rely, independent of competing Russian and U.S. systems.
Mara Branzanti in
EconomyUp.it
Branzanti is helping write open source source software that will enable satellite receivers back on earth to better identify and connect with Gallileo satellites in orbit. Her work is part of a larger software
effort
under the leadership of Javier Arribas at the non-profit Catalonian research foundation
Centre Tecnològic de Telecomunicacions de Catalunya
. Currently, the software in Gallileo receivers is only designed to 'see' the satellites that are already in orbit, and needs to be adapted so it can discover new satellites as they are launched. Branzanti’s code will make it easy to find the nearest orbiting Galileo signal, even from the most remote of locations. The European Commission recently
praised
her contributions.
Google Summer of Code is a global program that offers student developers stipends to write code for various open source software projects. We work with many open source, free software, and technology-related groups to identify and fund projects over a three month period. Since its inception in 2005, the program has brought together nearly 6,000 successful student participants and over 3000 mentors from over 100 countries worldwide, all for the love of code. To learn more about the program, read our 2013
Frequently Asked Questions
page.
Meanwhile, enjoy your holidays and let’s thank Mara and other summer coders for developing technology that improves them. Mara gave up a planned trip to New York to stay at home and code. though she will take a week this month on the beach in Sardinia. “But I’m taking my computer,” she promises. “I need to finish by September.”
Posted by Marco Pancini, Public Policy Senior Counsel, Brussels
Our commitment to growth and jobs in Europe
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Europe faces historically high unemployment, and we’re keen to help. We’ve just joined the European Commission’s
Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs
, and we are committing to a range of initiatives that will help Europeans - particularly young Europeans - to create businesses and find jobs.
Our first commitment is to support 20,000 European entrepreneurs this year. Entrepreneurs account for a high proportion of job creation - according to an OECD survey of 11 European countries, companies less than two years old account for 5% of total private-sector employment. Our
Google for Entrepreneurs programme
funds start-up hubs in London (
Campus London
), Krakow (
Google for Entrepreneurs, Krakow
), Berlin (
The Factory
) and Paris (
Silicon Sentier
). Through these centers, we’ll provide entrepreneurs with training programmes, mentorship, and improved access to capital and talent. We’ll also run additional start-up events with our partners,
Startup Weekend
and
Startup Grind
.
Another priority is developing digital skills among Europe’s youth. Our
RISE programme
, will work with six computer science and STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) education organisations in Europe to reach 100,000 young people by the end of the year, up from the current 32,000.
These programmes nurture coding skills, use robotics to teach engineering and maths, and help teachers with STEM education tools. Our partners in RISE range from the UK’s
Code Club
to Romania’s
Uniristii Association
, to Croatia’s
Science and Society Synergy Institute
, and Germany’s
Technik Begeistert
.
Not everyone wants to a computer scientist. Even so, the Internet can help all types of job seekers develop new skills. By the end of 2013, we’ll have partnered with universities across Europe to launch 25 Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). These MOOCs will cover subjects including entrepreneurship, digital marketing and law - with the aim of reaching tens of thousands of people across Europe.
The courses will employ
Course Builder
, an open source tool created by Google staff that has already been used by more than a dozen universities in Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Switzerland and the UK to create online courses. In Spain, more than 20,000 people have already participated in a
free business skills MOOC
created last year by the University of Alicante, with our support.
The European Commission deserves credit for demanding concrete action, not platitudes, in dealing with Europe’s job crisis. We’re determined to help make her initiative a success - and contribute to getting the continent back to work.
Posted by Angela Steen, Government Relations Manager
Promoting a Safe Web in Brussels - and throughout Europe
Thursday, June 6, 2013
As a mum of two energetic and curious kids, I love to see how the Internet helps them learn, share and be entertained. Like any parent, I also understand how the Internet can become an overwhelming place and that, as in real life, includes bad actors.
That’s why I work at Google to help parents and children surf safely. My job is to mobilize support for parents, teachers, and non-profit organizations to promote child safety through fun and innovative ways - from theater performances in Greece to animation contests in Germany.
The projects, I’m happy to say, are attracting attention at the highest levels of the European Union. This week, I participated in a meeting of the
Better Internet for Kids Coalition in Brussels
, an initiative launched by
European Commission Vice President Neelie Kroes
. Our Senior Vice President Rachel Whetstone explained, via video, how we build safety tools such as
SafeSearch
and
YouTube Safety Mode
.
I’m always on the lookout for creative ways to spread the safety message. In Greece, the local
Saferinternet.gr
coalition has produced a play called “The Internet Farm.” After the performances, children, teachers and parents participate in safety workshops. Take a look:
In Germany, we have partnered with the biggest festival of German-language children’s media
Golden Sparrow
, supporting a new online prize promoting child safety. This year’s winner, recently announced is
Kindernetz
. Our
YouTube 361° Respect
campaign against racism, discrimination and bullying recently had its grand finale featuring the pop band “Glasperlenspiel.”
We look forward to continuing our work with Vice President Neelie Kroes in Brussels - and parents and children throughout the European Union.
Posted by Sabine Frank, Public Policy & Gov't Relations Counsel, Media Literacy, Berlin
Encouraging the Next Generation of Female Engineers
Monday, November 12, 2012
A 3D printing lab. A digital music master class. A class explaining how to build robots. The third annual
Greenlight@Brussels Day
brought 250 teenage girls from around Belgium for a day of workshops designed to encourage them to become engineers. We helped finance the event and a Google software engineer Emily Soldal came from Sweden to provide mentoring.
Too few women study science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Less than one fifth of engineers in the European Union are women, according to
Engineering UK
. This represents a giant waste of talent, particularly in this period of high youth unemployment. The EU estimates in its
Forsight Report
that there will be 700,000 unfilled tech jobs by 2015.
We support a number of
educational initiatives
to bring more women into computer science.
Greenlight for Girls
is an international non-profit organization. At its annual Brussels event, experts, volunteers and role models from all over Europe contributed to the day’s learnings. European Commission Vice President Neelie Kroes contributed a video message, encouraging the young women “to remember they can be anything they want to be”.
Take a look and consider a career in computer science. Events like Greenlight@Brussels showcase how computer science can be combined with other fields - and provide students a competitive advantage in a tight job market.
Posted by Angela Steen, Senior Policy Analyst, Google
Debating the future of Europe’s Single Market
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
“Europe wake up! We will only return to growth and prosperity if we complete the Single Market.”
This motion will be
debated tonight at 19:00 CET
, live via Google+ Hangout on Air and on YouTube.
European Commissioner
Michel Barnier
will open the debate. Four EU experts - from the left and the right of the political spectrum and each with an axe to grind - will argue for and against the motion. Via Google+ Hangouts, the experts will cross-examine witnesses - including
journalists
,
academics
,
economists
and
entrepreneurs
from Ireland, Poland, Germany, France and Greece - to convince you they’re right. Veteran journalist and broadcaster
Christine Ockrent
will moderate.
The debate takes place just a few days before the EU marks the
Single Market’s 20th anniversary
. When it was launched in 1992, the Commission’s bold attempt to construct a seamless, truly tariff-free, pan-European market stimulated a wave of ‘Europtimism’. Now, with Europe facing challenging economic times, the Single Market’s importance to Europe is being re-examined.
You can have your say by voting on the motion - both before and after the debate - via
youtube.com/versusdebates
.
You can also join the discussion by adding your comments and questions to the
+Versus Google+ page
during the debate. The best questions, as decided by the debate organiser, Intelligence Squared, will be put to the panel, live on air.
Posted by Al Verney, Senior Communications Manager, Google
Boosting online child safety in Europe
Friday, September 28, 2012
Just as children need to know how to safely cross the street, they need to learn how to safely surf the web. I just finished a trip in Europe, which underlined the emergence of an inspiring movement bringing together NGOs, governments and private business to raise awareness of online safety and security tools.
The European Commission has been working closely with the
CEO Coalition
on safety solutions and
European Commissioner Neelie Kroe
s has endorsed the project. In Brussels, I participated in the working group focused on providing tools to help parents understand content, sharing best practices taken from YouTube and Google Play.
Across the Channel in London, I attended Vodafone's launch of their brilliant
Digital Parenting magazine
. Chock full of how-tos and expert views from kids and PhDs, the magazine is a fun and informative read. (Tip: use an article as a conversation starter during a school ride or at dinner.)
Our Google UK office hosted the
Family Online Safety Institute’s
roundtable on transatlantic trends in child safety and global implications. The Safety Institute brought together a room full of industry representatives from both sides of the Atlantic to share experiences, set out key priorities, and demonstrate best practices. I heard about campaigns like
AT&T’s “It Can Wait”
and shared our own experiences with
Good to Know
and the new
YouTube child safety curriculum
. We lobbed questions at each other -- how do we make these resources relevant and fun? What can we improve? How can we get youth involved?
After attending three events, it’s clear that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to something as intricate and personal as child safety. As technology forecaster
Paul Saffo
said, “never mistake a clear view for a short distance.” But that gap is closing -- we are coming together to find unique ways to build a better environment for our users. It is heartening to see this level of passion and dedication.
Posted by Katharine Wang, Policy Analyst
European Commission President Barroso speaks out
Saturday, September 22, 2012
An Irish homeowner asked what could be done to help him deal with his unsustainable mortgage. “What’s next for my country?” wondered a Greek worker. The Italian head of the Europe Youth Forum inquired about solutions to the continent’s high youth unemployment.
The questions were directed via Google+ Hangout to European Commission President
José Manuel Barroso
.
Aired live throughout Europe on Euronews, the interactive interview featured Europeans asking, often plaintively, about the continent’s economic and political crisis and its future. Take a look below on the European Commission’s
EUTube
to see how the president answered.
A full transcript is available here on the
European Commission website
.
Posted by Al Verney, Senior Manager, Communications and Public Affairs, Brussels
Ask President Barroso your question on the State of the Union
Friday, September 7, 2012
How will Europe get out of the economic crisis? Will the European Union - and its currency - remain intact? What’s the plan to get young people out of unemployment? These are some of the key questions that
José Manuel Barroso
, President of the European Commission, is likely to address in his State of the Union speech on 12th September.
But if you had the chance, what would you ask him?
On Wednesday 19th September at 19:00 CET, you’ll have that chance. President Barroso will answer your questions in a special, live Euronews / Google+ Hangout interview. Starting today and up to Tuesday 18th September at midday, you can submit your video and text questions - and vote for your favourites - via
youtube.com/eutube
. Euronews will select several top-voted questioners to join President Barroso in the Google+ Hangout and ask him their questions in person.
Video questions are preferred (though text questions are fine too) and they should be about 20 seconds long - further tips on how to make and submit questions are available
here
.
If you need ideas, you can also watch President Barroso’s State of the Union address live on Wednesday 12th September at 9am CET via the
Commission’s website
or you could join the discussion on
Google+
.
The interview will be broadcast live on 19th September on the Euronews cable network and
website
,
on EUtube
, on the Commission’s
Google+ page
, on
Europe by Satellite
, and the
President's website
.
Posted by Al Verney, Communications Manager, Google Brussels
Partnering with Missing Children Europe
Friday, May 25, 2012
Missing Children Europe
and its member organisations do vital work finding missing or sexually exploited children - and supporting their families in time of crisis with emotional, social and legal help via the European
116000 telephone hotline
.
Google has been
working with the group for a while
and we’re pleased to report that the first part of our collaboration with them is now live, in time for International Missing Children’s Day, today. Thanks to
Google technology
embedded in their website, it’s now possible to search for publicly available information across all MCE member websites at the same time.
The European Commission is hosting a
conference
next week in Brussels to raise awareness about the vital work of the European 116000 Missing Children hotline. If children go missing, relatives can call the hotline and speak with specialists. Today, Missing Children Europe launched a promotional film short called “Futures”, which will run on TV, in cinemas and on YouTube:
These are great examples of how technology can help to make both the online and offline worlds a better place for children, in line with our commitments we made when we signed up to the Commission's
Better Internet for Kids
coalition. We’ll continue working with Missing Children Europe and its members in coming months to help them share information and work together more effectively using our technology.
Posted by Marco Pancini, Senior Policy Counsel
Big Data, Part II: Mining gold in public data
Wednesday, May 2, 2012
European Commission Vice President Neelie Kroes, calls it a “goldmine.” Better yet, Europe enjoys plenty of the resource. What is so potentially valuable? The data collected by governments.
Under Mrs. Kroes’s lead, the Commission is taking important steps to open access to public data. It is creating a European Open Data Portal making the Commission’s data accessible and easy to use. The Commission would like other public administrations to follow suit.
Public data could boost Europe’s economies without requiring new public spending.
Estimates
suggest that the European Union could add EUR 40 billion per year in the continent’s economic activity if it fully opened up access to public data. Another recent
study
finds that direct and indirect economic impact of public data amount to about EUR140 billion annually. Individuals and firms can use this information to develop new business ideas.
Another benefit is increased accountability of public services. Openness in public administration helps to nurture trust in institutions -which is particularly needed in times of economic crisis. Empowered and informed citizens may feel more confident to explore new ideas and create new businesses.
France has taken a strong step forward in this field.
Etalab
, the French governement initiative launched the
data.gouv.fr
site late last year. Journalists, researchers, and all French citizens now can analyze line by line the budget of the French government, or know what books are held by public libraries.
Etalab encourages the public to develop apps with the information. Citizens are able to build applications such as
where does my money go
. Along with other companies, we are sponsoring a service called Dataconnexions, which aims to boost the reuse of public data in general and especially those of the portal data.gouv.fr.
Data Connxtions
is organising a number of events throughout the year 2012, including four contests application development. We are holding Google Open Data Workshop, the first of which was held on March 14. Excerpts are visible below.
Bravo! We look forward to seeing more initiatives like Etalab in the future.
Patricia Wruuck, Policy Analyst, Brussels and Elisabeth Bargès, Public Policy and Government Affairs, Google France
Testing skills in the Project Passion contest
Friday, February 17, 2012
In these tough times, it’s crucial for young people to enter a tight job market with the right skills, particularly Internet skills. We’re teaming up with the European Commission to support a fun way to meet the challenge - the
Project Passion
contest for young people between the ages of 18 and 26.
Tell a story about how e-Skills can help get a job. Video, digital art, or just plain words are welcome. Submit entries
here
.
Winners will get a top cash prize of EUR2,150 euros. Travel and accommodation will be paid to winners and runners up to attend the e-Skills Week Closing Event in Copenhagen on March 30.
The contest is part of the Commission’s
E-skills Week
. Check out the website to find information - and other suggestions of how the Internet can help provide the jobs of tomorrow.
Posted by Angela Steen, Policy Analyst, Brussels
Our thoughts on the right to be forgotten
Thursday, February 16, 2012
One of the most talked about concepts in the European Commission’s new
Data Protection Regulation proposal
is the right to be forgotten. It is, at least in part, a continuation of the rights of access and objection that web users were granted in the 1995 Data Protection Directive. It also goes further, including other concepts that we have already embedded in our
privacy principles and practices
like improved transparency, providing clear information to people and giving them fine-grained privacy choices - including the ability to remove data they uploaded to our services.
Today, more and more people are entrusting their data to online hosting platforms and using social networks and search engines to find information on the Web - and there are no signs of web usage slowing. So it’s vitally important that both those who provide online services and those who use them have a clear understanding of how a concept such as the right to be forgotten might apply.
For providers of online services, we think there are some important distinctions that need to be made between services that host content created by people (such as Facebook and YouTube) and services that point people to content that exists elsewhere (for example, search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo!).
Hosting Platforms:
Users’ Rights
: At the core of the right to be forgotten is the idea that a person using a hosting platform should have full control over, including the ability to delete, data he or she published intentionally. That means that a user should be able to delete an individual post, photo or video that he or she stored with the hosting platform. The user should also be able to delete his or her entire account with a given hosting platform, thereby deleting all the materials he or she had published and which was stored in that account.
Hosting Platforms’ Obligations
: Hosting platforms, for their part, should respect deletion requests made by a user regarding content placed there by that user, and carry them out in a timely way. That does not necessarily mean that deletion should be instantaneous; there are practical reasons why some delay should be permitted, for example to prevent the abusive deletion of content when an account has been compromised. Other limits, including legal or contractual obligations, may also legitimately delay deletion in certain circumstances.
Understanding the practical limits on what hosting platforms can do
: There are practical and legal limits to what can be expected of hosting platforms.
First, it is possible for any material published online to be copied and re-published elsewhere. A hosting platform can and should delete copies of material that they store on behalf of a user upon his or her request, but it cannot be expected to maintain control over other copies of the material published elsewhere online, as these are outside of the control of the hosting platform.
Second, it is important that hosting platforms not be obliged to delete materials when doing so would be likely to undermine the security of the service or allow for fraud.
Third, hosting platforms cannot be expected to delete materials created collaboratively at the unilateral request of a single contributor. Where a clear ownership of a collaborative document has been assigned, responsibility for deletion should lie with that owner. In cases where ownership of a collaborative document is not clear - as in the case of wikis or usenet posts - the questions are more complex, and a clear solution is not currently obvious.
Fourth, in the same way postal services are not expected to monitor what is in the letters they carry, Internet hosting platforms should not be expected to exercise control over materials published by third parties. Fundamental responsibility for information available online must rest with the party that put that particular copy online, rather than with the hosting platform. This is consistent with the premise of existing European law, namely, the eCommerce Directive.
Search engines:
Search engines serve an important function online, and the right to be forgotten should not interfere with their ability to point consumers to information published elsewhere.
For their part, search engines should respect the standard ways in which websites instruct search engines whether to crawl and index particular pages, such as header meta tags and robots.txt files
When, in the course of crawling the web, a search engine discovers that a page or site is no longer available online, it should update its search index to reflect these changes in a timely way.
Search engines should also provide a means for webmasters to accelerate removal of their site from search results. As with hosting platforms, the fundamental responsibility for information available online must rest with the publisher of that information, rather than with a search engine or other similar intermediary.
Ultimately, responsibility for deleting content published online should lie with the person or entity who published it. Host providers store this information on behalf of the content provider and so have no original right to delete the data. Similarly, search engines index any publicly available information to make it searchable. They too have no direct relationship with the original content.
We’re supportive of the principles behind the right to be forgotten - and believe that it’s possible to implement this concept in a way that not only enhances privacy online, but also fosters free expression for all.
Posted by Peter Fleischer, Global Privacy Counsel
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