Greater transparency around government requests

This is a cross post from the Official Google Blog

Article 19 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights states that "everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." Written in 1948, the principle applies aptly to today's Internet -- one of the most important means of free expression in the world. Yet government censorship of the web is growing rapidly: from the outright blocking and filtering of sites, to court orders limiting access to information and legislation forcing companies to self-censor content.

So it's no surprise that Google, like other technology and telecommunications companies, regularly receives demands from government agencies to remove content from our services. Of course many of these requests are entirely legitimate, such as requests for the removal of child pornography. We also regularly receive requests from law enforcement agencies to hand over private user data. Again, the vast majority of these requests are valid and the information needed is for legitimate criminal investigations. However, data about these activities historically has not been broadly available. We believe that greater transparency will lead to less censorship.

We are today launching a new Government Requests tool to give people information about the requests for user data or content removal we receive from government agencies around the world. For this launch, we are using data from July-December, 2009, and we plan to update the data in 6-month increments. Read this post to learn more about our principles surrounding free expression and controversial content on the web.

We already try to be as transparent as legally possible with respect to requests. Whenever we can, we notify users about requests that may affect them personally. If we remove content in search results, we display a message to users. The numbers we are sharing today take this transparency a step further and reflect the total number of requests we have received broken down by jurisdiction. We are also sharing the number of these content removal requests that we do not comply with, and while we cannot yet provide more detail about our compliance with user data requests in a useful way, we intend to do so in the future.

As part of our commitment to the Global Network Initiative, we have already agreed to principles and practices that govern privacy and free expression. In the spirit of these principles, we hope this tool will shine some light on the scale and scope of government requests for censorship and data around the globe. We also hope that this is just the first step toward increased transparency about these actions across the technology and communications industries.

Posted by Posted by David Drummond, SVP, Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer

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Controversial content and free expression on the web: a refresher

This is a cross post from the Official Google Blog

Two and a half years ago, we outlined our approach to removing content from Google products and services. Our process hasn’t changed since then, but our recent decision to stop censoring search on Google.cn has raised new questions about when we remove content, and how we respond to censorship demands by governments. So we figured it was time for a refresher.

Censorship of the web is a growing problem. According to the Open Net Initiative, the number of governments that censor has grown from about four in 2002 to over 40 today. In fact, some governments are now blocking content before it even reaches their citizens. Even benign intentions can result in the spectre of real censorship. Repressive regimes are building firewalls and cracking down on dissent online -- dealing harshly with anyone who breaks the rules.

Increased government censorship of the web is undoubtedly driven by the fact that record numbers of people now have access to the Internet, and that they are creating more content than ever before. For example, over 24 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute of every day. This creates big challenges for governments used to controlling traditional print and broadcast media. While everyone agrees that there are limits to what information should be available online -- for example child pornography -- many of the new government restrictions we are seeing today not only strike at the heart of an open Internet but also violate Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

We see these attempts at control in many ways. China is the most polarising example, but it is not the only one. Google products -- from search and Blogger to YouTube and Google Docs -- have been blocked in 25 of the 100 countries where we offer our services. In addition, we regularly receive government requests to restrict or remove content from our properties. When we receive those requests, we examine them to closely to ensure they comply with the law, and if we think they’re overly broad, we attempt to narrow them down. Where possible, we are also transparent with our users about what content we have been required to block or remove so they understand that they may not be getting the full picture.

On our own services, we deal with controversial content in different ways, depending on the product. As a starting point, we distinguish between search (where we are simply linking to other web pages), the content we host, and ads. In a nutshell, here is our approach:

Search is the least restrictive of all our services, because search results are a reflection of the content of the web. We do not remove content from search globally except in narrow circumstances, like child pornography, certain links to copyrighted material, spam, malware, and results that contain sensitive personal information like credit card numbers. Specifically, we don’t want to engage in political censorship. This is especially true in countries like China and Vietnam that do not have democratic processes through which citizens can challenge censorship mandates. We carefully evaluate whether or not to establish a physical presence in countries where political censorship is likely to happen.

Some democratically-elected governments in Europe and elsewhere do have national laws that prohibit certain types of content. Our policy is to comply with the laws of these democratic governments -- for example, those that make pro-Nazi material illegal in Germany and France -- and remove search results from only our local search engine (for example, www.google.de in Germany). We also comply with youth protection laws in countries like Germany by removing links to certain material that is deemed inappropriate for children or by enabling Safe Search by default, as we do in Korea. Whenever we do remove content, we display a message for our users that X number of results have been removed to comply with local law and we also report those removals to chillingeffects.org, a project run by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, which tracks online restrictions on speech.

Platforms that host content like Blogger, YouTube, and Picasa Web Albums have content policies that outline what is, and is not, permissible on those sites. A good example of content we do not allow is hate speech. Our enforcement of these policies results in the removal of more content from our hosted content platforms than we remove from Google Search. Blogger, as a pure platform for expression, is among the most open of our services, allowing for example legal pornography, as long as it complies with the Blogger Content Policy. YouTube, as a community intended to permit sharing, comments, and other user-to-user interactions, has its Community Guidelines that define its own rules of the road. For example, pornography is absolutely not allowed on YouTube.

We try to make it as easy as possible for users to flag content that violates our policies. Here’s a video explaining how flagging works on YouTube. We review flagged content across all our products 24 hours a day, seven days a week to remove offending content from our sites. And if there are local laws where we do business that prohibit content that would otherwise be allowed, we restrict access to that content only in the country that prohibits it. For example, in Turkey, videos that insult the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Ataturk, are illegal. Two years ago, we were notified of such content on YouTube and blocked those videos in Turkey that violated local law. A Turkish court subsequently demanded that we block them globally, which we refused to do, arguing that Turkish law cannot apply outside Turkey. As a result YouTube has been blocked there.

Finally, our ads products have the most restrictive policies, because they are commercial products intended to generate revenue.

These policies are always evolving. Decisions to allow, restrict or remove content from our services and products often require difficult judgment calls. We have spirited debates about the right course of action, whether it’s about our own content policies or the extent to which we resist a government request. In the end, we rely on the principles that sit at the heart of everything we do.

We’ve said them before, but in these particularly challenging times, they bear repeating: We have a bias in favor of people's right to free expression. We are driven by a belief that more information means more choice, more freedom and ultimately more power for the individual.

Posted by Rachel Whetstone, Vice President, Global Communications and Public Affairs

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Hey! My site disappeared!

Occasionally we get questions about why a particular webpage or site has disappeared from Google's search results in Australia.

First, it's important to remember that our search results are generated objectively and are independent of the beliefs and preferences of those who work at Google. We view the comprehensiveness of our search results as an extremely important priority, both in terms of the user's experience as well as protecting freedom of speech. Accordingly, we do not remove a page from our search results simply because its content is unpopular or because we receive complaints about it.

We will, however, remove pages from our results if we believe the page (or its site) violates our Webmaster Guidelines. This most often happens when a website is using unfair methods to try to appear higher in the search rankings. Common guideline violations include cloaking (writing text in such a way that it can be seen by search engines but not by users) or setting up pages/links with the sole purpose of fooling search engines and manipulating search engine results. When a webmaster has fixed the site to meet our guidelines, they can then ask for re-inclusion. We will also remove a site from our search results upon request from the webmaster who is responsible for it.

In addition, we will remove search results which link to website pages if we believe we are required to do so by applicable law. We believe in being transparent about this process, and provide notice in our search results when we have removed URLs in response to a legal request. In their place is a link to chillingeffects.org, which catalogues these removals as well as the legal ground for the removal, e.g. a court decision or a decision by a governmental authority. Anyone can request this type of removal by contacting us. Note that we receive many types of related requests--some part of valid legal process, some not--so we do need to take time to evaluate each request.

It's also important to remember that in the decision of removal, we only remove the specific URLs that have been provided in the request--we do not go about policing the Internet to decide what content should or should not be there.

Posted by Lucinda Barlow, Head of Corporate Communications, Google Australia

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Our views on Mandatory ISP Filtering

At Google we are concerned by the Government's plans to introduce a mandatory filtering regime for Internet Service Providers (ISP) in Australia, the first of its kind amongst western democracies.* Our primary concern is that the scope of content to be filtered is too wide.

We have a bias in favour of people's right to free expression. While we recognise that protecting the free exchange of ideas and information cannot be without some limits, we believe that more information generally means more choice, more freedom and ultimately more power for the individual.

Some limits, like child pornography, are obvious. No Australian wants that to be available – and we agree. Google, like many other Internet companies, has a global, all-product ban against child sexual abuse material and we filter out this content from our search results. But moving to a mandatory ISP filtering regime with a scope that goes well beyond such material is heavy handed and can raise genuine questions about restrictions on access to information.

The recent report by Professors Catharine Lumby, Lelia Green, and John Hartley, Untangling The Net: The Scope of Content Caught By Mandatory Internet Filtering, has found that a wide scope of content could be prohibited under the proposed filtering regime. Refused Classification (or RC) is a broad category of content that includes not just child sexual abuse material but also socially and politically controversial material -- for example, educational content on safer drug use -- as well as the grey realms of material instructing in any crime, including politically controversial crimes such as euthanasia. This type of content may be unpleasant and unpalatable but we believe that government should not have the right to block information which can inform debate of controversial issues.

While the discussion on ISP filtering continues, we should all retain focus on making the Internet safer for people of all ages. Our view is that online safety should focus on user education, user empowerment through technology tools (such as SafeSearch Lock), and cooperation between law enforcement and industry partners. The government has committed to important cybersafety education and engagement programs and yesterday announced additional measures that we welcome.

Exposing politically controversial topics for public debate is vital for democracy. Homosexuality was a crime in Australia until 1976 in ACT, NSW in 1984 and 1997 in Tasmania. Political and social norms change over time and benefit from intense public scrutiny and debate. The openness of the Internet makes this all the more possible and should be protected.

The government has requested comments from interested parties on its proposals for filtering and we encourage everyone to make their views known in this important debate.

Posted by Iarla Flynn, Head of Policy, Google Australia

Updated: December 16, 2009 at 5:00 PM
* Germany and Italy have mandatory ISP filtering, however in both cases they are of a clearly limited scope. In Germany, the scope is child abuse material and in Italy, it is child abuse material and unlawful gambling sites. Australia's proposed regime would uniquely combine a mandatory framework and a much wider scope of content, the first of its kind in the democratic world.

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Have a say in your Broadband Future

The Australian Government is holding an event, Realising Our Broadband Future, at UNSW in Sydney this week to talk about the applications and business models that will thrive in Australia's high speed broadband future. At Google we've been very supportive of the vision for ubiquitous high-speed Internet access in Australia for driving innovation and stimulating the digital economy and we'll be presenting in various sessions at the conference.

On Thursday morning Vint Cerf (our Chief Internet Evangelist) will be giving a keynote address, to be followed by David King (Senior Product Manager at YouTube). David will talk about new business models that are emerging for media companies in the digital economy. I'll be chipping in as Lead Editor on a stream focusing on Smart Infrastructure.

It's great to see Government opening up the event for participation online for everyone in Australia. The Open To Ideas forum lets you submit questions and ideas for discussion as well as voting on other people's ideas - this uses Google Moderator. Make sure you submit your vote today. You can watch live webcasts of the event here.

Posted by Alan Noble, Head of Engineering Google Australia and NZ

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Our commitment to privacy

We get asked about privacy a lot. We recently held a roundtable in Australia to discuss Google's approach to privacy. Here is a summary of what we discussed.

Privacy is a pretty modern concept. There was no such thing as privacy when we humans were all living in the same cave. In the post industrial revolution society, a fairly recent phenomenon in human history, each new information and communications technology - such as cameras, newspapers, radio, TV - has brought convenience and great services, and challenged and changed our notions of privacy.

The Internet has given millions of people access to vast amounts of information and created useful tools and services, and it also presents new challenges for protecting people's 'personal information'.

The concept of privacy is subjective and there is no one size fits all privacy standard. For example, people's attitudes towards sharing personal information about themselves online on social networking sites is more relaxed than in a direct face-to-face environment. Moreover, the privacy expectations of a 21 year old university student will be different from those of an 80 year old grandfather.

Online, companies are supremely accountable to their customers. Competition is one click away, and there is more transparency and accountability than ever. We're exposed to intense scrutiny, and that's a good thing.

Google's mission is to organise the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. We pursue innovative ideas and push the limits of existing technology to provide increased access to information. We recognise our responsibility to protect your privacy. We live and die by your trust. We believe it is possible to deliver leading-edge services and to give you control over your personal information.

Google's approach to privacy is founded on transparency, choice and security. We tell you what information we collect and what we do with it, and we build innovative tools and features that put you in control of your information. We don't hold data hostage. We protect your personal information and use it responsibly. We don't sell it, we don't collect it without permission, and we don't use it to serve ads without permission. Education is also important. The Google Privacy Centre, with a wealth of information and videos on each product, is linked directly from the Google home page.

Many Google services, including Search, can be used anonymously - without providing any personally identifying information at all. For products which you use with more personal information such as Gmail, Docs and Picasa, you need to have a Google Account and to log in. Signing in to your Google Account unlocks a personalised experience such as Web History to give you personalised search results based on your activity when you're signed in. We also give you the ability to share information between the services you use in a way that's transparent to you, such as accessing your Gmail contacts from your Google Calendar or adding an event mentioned in an email to your Google Calendar.

We use information in aggregate form in our server logs to work out how people are using Google and to make overall improvements. We don't need personal information to do this. For example, we use our aggregated server logs to figure out when something's not working properly or crashes, what website layouts are the fastest to load in your browser, how many users clicked on a particular ad or search result, or how many search results people click on before they find what they're looking for, as well as to detect spam, click fraud and viruses. There's more detail in this blog post from Hal Varian on how Google uses data.

Finally, we believe that the best privacy protection is in good product design. As the web evolves and our notions of privacy with it, Google will continue to innovate around privacy and build privacy protections into our products from the ground up, as we are doing today with Google Wave.

Posted by Iarla Flynn, Policy Team

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Government 2.0 on the web groove train

In June Lindsay Tanner (the Minister for Finance and Deregulation) launched the Govt 2.0 Taskforce. The Taskforce, made up of technical experts, policy experts, and entrepreneurs, is going full steam ahead. It's charged with accelerating Government onto the web groove train and driving open access to publicly funded information. The Taskforce's blog has already generated a lively and intelligent debate around a host of important issues. Alan Noble (our head of engineering) is a member of the Taskforce and his initial aims for the taskforce are here.

At Google we're strong believers that information is more powerful when it's set free. It's great to see the gathering momentum of moves in Australia to free up government-held information and embrace the web.

In July the Taskforce produced an Issues Paper which asks for input from the public on how to build a pro-disclosure culture within Government and how best to approach the greater release of government information. We submitted a response to the Issues Paper which outlined the following points:

We strongly endorse the Paper's proposal to change the policy and culture of Federal Government and its agencies to ensure that Government-held information is made available more easily to everyone; it's a strategic resource, created or collected at the expense of taxpayers. Our view is that this information should be released quickly, in full, in multiple (open) formats and leveraging available technology solutions (e.g. Sitemaps), under permissive and transparent licence terms (such as a Creative Commons licence), and generally for free.

Government-held information should also be released primarily in raw form. Government should not try to add value or create "retail" consumer experiences - "wholesale" release of data will be quicker, cheaper and more effective.

Of course, not all information held by government is appropriate to be released. There must be certain restrictions for protection of national security, privacy, the formulation of policy within Government, and commercial confidentiality.

The Issues Paper raises the idea of creating a central point of entry for accessing Government data (the data.gov model). On this issue we draw on Alan Noble's second Taskforce blog about data.gov lessons from the open source world, which uses an analogy from Eric Raymond on the risks associated with “a huge, ambitious, centralised undertaking” or “cathedral” versus a more decentralised “bazaar” of agency sites that “is flexible and economical and supports evolutionary change". While we believe the two can work together, our view is that Government should not delay releasing data by cathedral building.

Driving this change in how government information is perceived and used will require a significant change of culture within Government. Actually using communication and collaboration tools, being active participants in the online community, and relaxing the rules (and mindsets) to allow this - will certainly help drive this process. We call this the web groove train. We'd like to see Government jump on board.

Posted by Iarla Flynn, Public Policy and Government Affairs

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Safer Internet Day

Today is Safer Internet Day, an international initiative that aims to give children, parents and teachers sound advice on how best to manage online risks, so that their online experiences are safe and positive. Google Australia is a partner for the day, which is supported by the Australian Communications and Media Authority.

To mark the day, we're launching a dedicated Australian page containing online safety and security tips, as well as a new Australian Safety Centre on YouTube, containing straightforward online safety tips and resources from experts and prominent Australian safety organisations.

We've worked with Bravehearts, Reach Out, Kids Helpline, NetAlert.gov.au and Cybersmart Kids Online to launch the YouTube Safety Centre and have included information on how to report concerns to the Australian Federal Police.

The YouTube Safety Centre includes information about a range of issues including YouTube community guidelines violations, cyber citizenship, teen safety, hateful content, harassment and cyberbullying.  It also makes it easier for you to access YouTube's Help and Safety Tool, which gives you granular control over your channel (like blocking comments from specific users) and the ability to quickly report concerns. 

When it comes to online safety, our approach is to:

• Empower parents with tools to help them choose what content their children see online;
• Educate children and parents on how to stay safe online;
• Protect children by working with law enforcement and industry.

Our SafeSearch feature screens for sites that contain adult sites and eliminates them from search results. While no filter is 100% accurate, our filter uses advanced technology to check keywords, phrases, and URLs. You can modify your computer's SafeSearch settings by clicking on the Preferences link to the right of the Google search box.

We hope these resources are useful for all parents, families and internet users.

Posted by Carolyn Dalton, Head of Government Affairs and Public Policy

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The Government is blogging

A few days ago, the Australian Government embarked on an e-government initiative - online policy consultation to "improve the processes for e-democracy in Australia". The Government has announced an online consultation on the future of Australia's digital economy through the Digital Economy Blog.

We think it's great that the Australian Government is taking steps to engage online with all Australians in an open, interactive way. Online consultation and blogging is something that Australian users and businesses have been doing for a while and it's good to see the Government getting in on the act.

We recently posted to the blog in response to the Open Access to Public Sector Information topic, setting out our views on the types of public sector information that should be made available.

In addition, we're pleased that the Department of Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy's YouTube channel also showcases some videos of the Minister's addresses to the Digital Economy Forum earlier this year. There's a whole range of politicians using channels like YouTube to communicate with Australians - including the Prime Minister, the Premier of Victoria, the Leader of the Opposition to name just a few.

Check out the Digital Economy Blog and have your say.

Posted by Carolyn Dalton, Head of Public Policy and Government Affairs

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Working with Bravehearts

Today is White Balloon Day. An annual event run by Bravehearts, Australia's largest child protection advocacy group, White Balloon Day is a very important event during National Child Protection Week. White Balloon Day’s overarching message is to "Break the Silence on Child Sexual Assault" by raising awareness and by show of balloons, demonstrating community desire for Australian children to be safe.

We've been working with Bravehearts to raise awareness of the day and encourage all Australians to buy special white balloons. We've been doing this by providing Google Grants, so that when Internet users search for relevant terms on Google, "Sponsored Links" for White Balloon Day appear alongside search results.

We also created a special Google Maps "My Map", showing the Mowerthon journey of Claude Harvey, "The Lawnmower Man", as he mowed his way 850kms from the Gold Coast to Sydney to raise funds and awareness for victims of sexual assault for White Balloon Day.

Google Australia and Bravehearts are committed to deepening their ties for White Balloon Day in future years, by using new media and technologies to educate families about how to stay safe online and raise awareness of the tools that empower families to control their activity online.

We share Bravehearts' belief that new technologies and new media are a vital way to educate children and parents about family safety online. We hope to work together to help parents and kids take advantage of tools that help put them in control of their online experiences and make Web surfing safer.

You can check out our Tips for Online Safety and Online Family Safety Guide for helping families stay safe online. These provide quick links to tools like Google SafeSearch and other resources. Google SafeSearch is a tool that allows users to filter unwanted content from their search results. (You can customise your SafeSearch settings by clicking on the 'Search Preferences' link to the right of the search box on Google.com.au).

So please support Bravehearts, buy a white balloon today, and help break the silence.

Posted by Carolyn Dalton, Head of Public Policy and Government Affairs, Australia and New Zealand

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Supporting a faster, more accessible, more open Internet in Australia

Posted by Carolyn Dalton, Head of Government Affairs & Public Policy - Australia & NZ

Google's services – web search, Gmail, Google Maps, and YouTube – help to connect millions of individuals, groups and businesses around the world.  The technologies of connection are especially useful and important in a geographically vast and isolated country like Australia.  As Google's CEO Eric Schmidt told Australian reporters during a visit to Sydney in March 2008: 

"Google is helping Australians overcome the ‘tyranny of distance’.  We measure distances not in hundreds of kilometres, but in milliseconds." 

The same can be said of services provided by other online innovators – diverse names such as Yahoo, eBay, Wikipedia, wotif.com, MySpace, SEEK and Facebook – all of which are popular in Australia, and all of which enhance the ability of Australians to connect, to share, to learn, and to reach customers and audiences regardless of their location. At Google Australia, we've been pleased to play a role in this over the past years.

At the risk of stating the obvious, the economic and social benefits that flow from speedy and affordable Internet connectivity are numerous:

• It spurs creativity, promoting the creation of user generated content that is facilitated by “Web 2.0” applications such as YouTube;
  
  
• It drives new forms of economic activity, allowing (i) Australian businesses to reach new customers around the world through online advertising, (ii) Australian publishers to earn money by creating locally and globally compelling content, and (iii) Australian web developers to create innovative internet-based businesses;
  
  
• It creates new forms of social engagement and interaction such as social networking, Internet voice links, video sharing and citizen participation in democracy (as seen in the 2007 Google Australian election initiative);
  
  
• It cuts costs for Australian enterprises, government agencies and educational bodies, as they are enabled to utilise Web-based applications in ‘the cloud’, making their documents securely available from any computer with an Internet connection at greatly reduced cost;
  
  
• It empowers community groups, educational institutions and government agencies to reach constituencies (and each other) in new and innovative ways -- for example, the Catholic Church’s use of social networking for the upcoming World Youth Dayin Sydney, UNSW’s YouTube channel that assists in remote education, and Transperth’s use of Google Maps to provide public transport details to users.
  

For Australian users, communities and businesses to realise these enormous benefits, no infrastructure is more crucial than advanced communications networks.  Indeed, the United Nations has recognised broadband as essential infrastructure, just as necessary as water and electricity.

Google Australia's vision is of an Australia in which competitive broadband Internet is universally accessible, at best-in-world speeds and at affordable prices.  As you may be aware, the Federal Government has committed A$4.7 billion to subsidise the rollout of a fibre network accessible to at least 98% of the Australian population. Along with inviting bids from parties to build and operate the infrastructure, the Government has reached out for comment on what regulatory safeguards are necessary to maximise the public benefit.

Google is born of a highly competitive ecosystem – the open Internet – in which alternative services are only ever a click away, and where success only comes by providing superior services, constant technological improvement, and earning users’ trust.  We aim to provide our users with the best possible experience and service in a competitive, open and innovative environment, one click at a time. 

We believe that similar principles of openness, innovation and competition should be built into the regulatory framework governing Australia’s future national broadband network. Simply put, in a global economy, an open Internet and a competitive broadband market is necessary to ensure that all Australian consumers and Australian businesses can share in the benefits of the digital economy.

Our belief in the possibilities that broadband creates, and our underlying confidence in the innovative power of open and competitive communications environments, motivated us to put together a submission to the Federal Government’s enquiry into the regulatory principles that should govern the national broadband network.  Here's the link to the submissions, including ours.
 
Our submission makes a few important recommendations, including:

• The new broadband network and its owner should preserve the Internet's fundamentally open, neutral, non-discriminatory nature. 
  
  
• The rollout schedule of the new network should have the goal of prioritising those parts of Australia that are currently unserved, or underserved by broadband services. 
  
  
• To ensure competition, the winning bidder for the network should offer services on a wholesale basis to retail competitors on non-discriminatory and equivalent terms as it offers them to its own retail operations (from the perspective of both price and non-price terms and conditions).  Functional or structural separation of the network owner should be considered as options to ensure this.
  
  
• To ensure that those Australians who already have relatively fast Internet do not see a decrease in speed in the short term, existing ADSL 2+ and similar broadband services should co-exist with the new network, at least during a defined transition period.
  
  
• As Australians are increasingly important producers, not simply consumers, of content and applications, the Government should ensure the availability of high symmetrical broadband speeds (both download and upload). 
  
  
• To ensure maximum Internet speeds and efficiencies for Australians accessing the Internet, close attention should be paid to developments in the international capacity market and the peering market.
  

It's very important for all Australians, and for Australia's future economic prosperity, that the new broadband network embraces the right regulatory principles from Day 1.  We hope that you, and our policy makers, will take a look at our recommendations for an open and competitive Internet, where all Australians can get online and enjoy the benefits of world class broadband services. 

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Google and the ACCC

Posted by Rob Shilkin, Head of Corporate Communications & Public Affairs

You may have read that the ACCC recently filed a lawsuit against Google concerning the text ads that appear under the heading "Sponsored Links" on our results page. As these are now formal proceedings, any legal discussion or comment must be pursued in court - we can't discuss any specifics. Nevertheless, we thought you might be interested in some general comments.

This case raises important issues for all search engines, plus the Australian businesses that use them to connect with customers throughout the world. In our view, the ACCC's claims are without merit. Accordingly, we will be vigorously defending against these claims in court.

We will continue our focus on providing Australian businesses, of all sizes, with an affordable and highly effective advertising platform. Search marketing is a particularly important tool for thousands of small businesses. It is lower cost than other advertising platforms and enables them to precisely target to local and overseas customers.

Search marketing is helping small Australian businesses - often geographically isolated and with limited marketing resources - to leverage the power of the Internet to grow their operations and stand out in competitive markets. At Google Australia, we're excited to be a part of this.

As this case moves forward, we will update you with any important developments.

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Policy news @ Google Australia

Posted by Rob Shilkin, Head of Corporate Communications and Public Affairs

I wanted to update you with some great policy announcements that have been keeping us busy over the past week or so.

First, Google announced our plans to go carbon neutral worldwide by the end of 2007. You can read all about the specifics here. And you can see the video of the announcement on YouTube here.

In addition to taking part in this wide ranging global effort, Google Australia has an active self-powered commuting scheme. This scheme sees our employees rewarded for travelling to work by public transport or 'self-powered' means (such as bike, skateboard or walking) with a $100 donation to their chosen charity for every 20 days of participation.

Second, we launched a worldwide public policy blog here. This will be a great way to talk about many of the incredibly important and challenging global policy issues facing the internet - including privacy, child safety, copyright and content regulation. I really want to ensure that there are contributions by Google Australia to this forum, and would love you to post comments, as these issues affect our Australian users and the Australian community.

On that note, we have joined the Australian Information Industry Association (the Australian IT industry body) and are looking forward to very close involvement in their activities. Already, our Engineering Director, Alan Noble, has spoken at their events here and here and next week is speaking here. (In between this, and writing opinion pieces, I am assured that he does occasionally find time to work on Google products).

I'll post more updates on Google Australia policy news in future.

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