Posted by Richard Whitt, Washington Telecom and Media Counsel

The U.S. government's current spectrum policies have an unfortunate tendency to block out new entrants and innovative new uses of spectrum, such as widely-available Internet access. As has been pointed out by various studies, the vast majority of viable spectrum in this country simply goes unused, or else is grossly underutilized. We typically use only about 5 percent of available spectrum, and even that minimal use is inefficient compared to what is technically possible today.

We believe there's a better way to put this spectrum to use to provide more broadband options for consumers. The FCC is about to auction off a large segment of spectrum in the 700 MHz band as part of the digital TV transition. As you may have read, we filed a letter with the FCC on Monday in which we suggested that whomever wins this spectrum at auction should be allowed to employ "dynamic spectrum management techniques" -- including an AdWords-like auction of spectrum -- which would allow more efficient usage of the spectrum, primarily for wireless broadband services.

What might these techniques look like? While dynamic auctions could take many possible forms, the central concept is to utilize intelligent communications devices to resolve spectrum access contention. One example is a real-time airwaves auction, in which a spectrum licensee could bestow the right to transmit an amount of power for a unit of time, with the total amount of power in any location being limited to a specified cap. The airwaves auction would be managed via the Internet by a central clearinghouse.

A second example is device-driven registration fees, under which a communications device itself could become key to the payment process. For example, the consumer's price to purchase a device could include an airwaves registration fee (say, $5.00- 10.00), which would grant the ability to gain unlimited use at a specified power level. The device could include collision-detection and back-off features (similar to Wi-Fi) to limit congestion.

Some people have asked whether Google plans to bid on spectrum ourselves. Our support for allocating spectrum more efficiently does not necessarily signal our intention to participate in the auction, although we haven't yet made any final decisions. Regardless of which entities ultimately bid at the auction, however, we believe that the FCC should be adopting service rules and band plans that encourage competitive entry by new and innovative broadband companies.

For us, the bottom line is that the longtime methods of allocating spectrum still have not made wireless broadband commonplace across America. We are proposing that the existing service rules should allow more flexible commercial arrangements such as dynamic auctions, which over the long term would help reduce prices for consumers, promote new service offerings, and make broadband more available.

Posted by Pablo Chavez, Policy Counsel, and Keith Wolfe, Global Mobility Manager

Google's continued success depends on our ability to recruit and retain the best and brightest. One of the tools we've used to do that is the U.S. H-1B visa program, which allows foreign-born workers with specialized skills to work in the U.S. on a temporary basis.

Unfortunately, the current program just isn't keeping pace with the number of high-skilled immigrants who want to work at companies like Google. Last month, the U.S. government started accepting applications for H-1B visas for the period starting this fall, and was quickly swamped with more than 123,000 petitions in just the first two days. Because Congress has only allowed 65,000 visas each year, they are being awarded by a lottery system.

Why does this matter? In disciplines like math, science and engineering, half or more of the post-graduate degrees at U.S. universities are awarded to foreign nationals, and keeping those workers in the U.S. is key to our future economic growth. In fact, immigrants have played a critical role in the explosion of the U.S. Internet economy. According to the National Venture Capital Association, over the past 15 years one out of every four public companies backed by venture capital was started by an immigrant -- including Google and eBay. Here at Google, about seven to ten percent of our U.S.-based employees are in the U.S. on an H-1B visa. Without these employees, we might not be able to develop future life-changing products like the next Gmail or Google Earth.

When there aren't enough H-1B visas, some of our most talented employees have to leave the U.S. When that happens we do our best to relocate those Googlers to one of our other offices around the world, although we'd much prefer to have them stay working here in the U.S. (their expertise may be best suited to projects we're working on in the U.S., plus we don't have offices everywhere). When we can't relocate them, we may lose them entirely.

So we need to reform the H-1B program -- especially by expanding the number of visas awarded each year. This is an essential step toward keeping the U.S. high-tech industry competitive with the rest of the world.

To press this issue, Google recently joined a coalition called Compete America, a group of companies, educators, research groups and trade associations that is working hard on these issues in Washington. Increasing the annual cap on H-1Bs is the group's top priority, and we'll be working with Congress to enact reforms to the program. Our goal is to accomplish immigration reform for high-skilled workers before the 2008 presidential elections and hopefully sooner.

Posted by Jamie Brown, Federal Relations Counsel

There’s a lot of interest here in Washington about online video and some of the policy issues surrounding its explosive growth. The House Energy and Commerce Committee has been holding a series of hearings looking at new technologies, and invited YouTube’s Chad Hurley to testify at today’s hearing focusing on online video.

Committee Chairman Ed Markey (who posted his own video of a chairman’s-eye view of the hearing – surely a YouTube first) welcomed Chad, as well the leaders of TiVo, Sling Media, and HDNet.

“It's my first appearance in front of a Congressional committee," Chad told the committee, "and I hope I don't mess up because if I do, it will end up on You Tube." Chad focused on three of YouTube’s goals: promoting community, advancing democracy, and driving economic growth.

He told the story of Leigh Buckley, a mother of two from Derry, New Hampshire, who discovered that she was suffering from leukemia. A family friend made and posted a video about Leigh’s search for a bone marrow donor on YouTube; that video helped draw more than a thousand people to a registry drive. A donor was found, in Denmark, and Leigh began treatments last Friday to prepare her for the transplant.

Chad also talked about YouTube’s You Choose ’08 program, which helps inform voters where political candidates stand. Seventeen presidential candidates are currently on YouTube, and already they've combined to post over 500 videos that have been viewed millions of times.

In the area of economic growth, Chad noted that YouTube is helping recording artists attract contracts with major labels, and giving owners of small businesses, such as real estate agents and music teachers a significantly less expensive way of finding new customers.

Net neutrality,and the idea of keeping the Internet free and open, was a big topic of discussion. For his part, Chad told the committee that “YouTube and many other successful new Internet businesses would never have launched had it not been for this country’s commitment to an open Internet.”

A few Members of Congress asked Chad about how YouTube handles both inappropriate content and copyrighted content. Chad told the committee that videos that include unauthorized copyrights are removed as soon as we are made aware by the rights holder, and those that violate YouTube’s Community Guidelines come down minutes after our users flag them. “As a father of two, that last part is particularly important to me,” he said.

Posted by Olivier Esper, Policy Counsel, Google France

The French presidential elections have just finished and Nicolas Sarkozy was elected with approximately 53% of the votes. In the French version of Google Earth, you can now view a three-dimensional representation of the election results, showing how each candidate fared in each city (pictured, right). Prior to this weekend's election, we offered Google Earth users in France a special elections layer which included information about the candidates and election news.

This campaign also offered some new evidence about the impact of the Internet on politics. Since the previous elections in 2002, the Internet has been taken seriously into account by the French political parties as a platform to interact with citizens. Over the last two years, the parties have expanded their online initiatives, including video podcasts, online petitions and voter registration, web TV, and online voting for internal elections. Although the use of Internet is obviously not the only reason, it's worth noting that the main French political parties have enjoyed over the same period a significant flow of new members (approximately 300,000 new registered members).

Among citizens, the Internet has opened a new space of free expression, in particular when it comes to politics. French people love debating and have embraced blogging as a form of political expression. France has more than 3 million blogs, 7 million blog readers (approximately 60% of French Internet users), and is one of the highest-ranking countries in the world for user time spent reading blogs.

In the end, the key victory for democracy of these French elections was a voting participation rate of 84 percent. This renewed interest of citizens in politics is certainly not to be credited entirely to the Internet, but this new space of free expression has definitely played a key role.

Posted by Adam Kovacevich, Manager, Global Communications and Public Affairs

Late last week, Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson unveiled his own twist on Google's new My Maps feature: a video- and photo-filled geographic tour of his recent visit to Iraq.

Sen. Nelson's map helps bring his Iraq trip alive, from video shot aboard a C-130 carrier jet, to meeting with the Iraqi Deputy President. You can follow his map either on Google Maps, or export the file into KML to view in Google Earth.

Our users have created lots of cool personalized maps since My Maps launched last month, but this is the first time we've seen a Member of Congress use our technology in this way. All in all, it's a pretty creative and compelling way for an elected official to communicate with his constituents, and hopefully more Senators and House members will follow Sen. Nelson's lead.

Posted by Adam Kovacevich, Manager, Global Communications and Public Affairs

This year we've invited all the presidential candidates to come visit Google, and last Friday we hosted Sen. John McCain for the second of these candidate visits (Sen. Hillary Clinton was here in March). Googlers are pretty engaged in the presidential campaign already, and are anxious to hear where the candidates stand.

Lucky for us, the candidates seem eager to accept our invitations. Over the weekend, the AP even suggested that "the Google Interview could become the 21st century equivalent of the candidate's pilgrimage to the General Motors plant."

As you might have guessed, Googlers had lots of interesting questions for Sen. McCain, on topics including Iraq, climate change, and genocide. But one of reasons we've invited all the candidates to Google is to hear their views on some of the issues that affect our company and the technology industry as a whole. Here's what Sen. McCain had to say about some of Google's policy priorities (and where you can find it on the video):

Internet Access (35:40): "Eric just showed me that globe of the world and the places where all of this activity is taking place. And you know, it's wonderful, but as he pointed out, it's also kind of sad, when you look at vast blank spaces on Earth, where still people are unable to share in this incredible, incredible thing that's happening. I lose the ability to describe it, but you look at the whole continent of Africa, as Eric showed me. Isn't that terrible, that those billions of people are unable to have the same privileges that we have, the ability and access to information? I think our job ought to be that some very short time from now, I look at that globe and it's uniform, all over this Earth."

Immigration (59:42): "If Google is going to be able to maintain its supremacy in the world, it's going to have to continue to get the best and the brightest from all over the world. We have to have a comprehensive solution to the immigration problem and we have to enforce our borders, every nation in the world...There must be a temporary work program, it means we must have H-1B visas that meet the requirements...We've got to make sure that young people from all over the world who want to come to our country and are qualified to study in our best institutions have the opportunity to do so."

Competitiveness (35:00): "When I look at what this organization is all about, I think I identify with it more closely than a Democrat does. I believe in less government regulation. I believe the Internet is the greatest invention since the printing press. We all know that. And I believe that the less regulation, the less oversight, and the more that this can flourish...the reason I opposed Internet taxes. The more that this new information technology can flourish, can spread all over the world, the better off the world is going to be."

Trade (61:20): "I'm a free trader. I believe that America can compete with anybody in the world, as long as those markets are open, and as along as there is not barriers to our products. Obviously if someone is blatantly abusing patents, blatently abusing intellectual property rights, etceta...But I think the worst thing that could happen to the United States of America is for us to go into protectionism. I hope we understand the benefits of free trade, and the fact that American products, American ingenuity, American knowledge can prevail any place in the world, and we will and we can. A lot of Americans don't know that 50,000 Americans today make their living off eBay. A lot of people don't appreciate what this information technology has done for America and the world. I'd like to see world free trade, I'd like to see the Doha round succeed."

P.S.: In addition to the complete video of Sen. McCain's talk, be sure to check out CitizenTube's exclusive interview with McCain, where the Senator fielded a few questions from the YouTube community.