Posted by Pablo Chavez, Senior Policy Counsel

It's generally understood that Google's free products like Search, Gmail, and many others are supported by advertising. What is not as well known is that, in addition to providing useful products to our users, Google is a platform for and a partner to small businesses across America.

This morning David Fischer, our VP for Global Online Sales and Operations, will testify before the U.S. House Small Business Committee to explain just how Google has become an engine of economic growth and opportunity for hundreds of thousands of small businesses.

In his testimony, David will talk about how Google AdWords enables small businesses of all kinds to place ads for their products and services next to Google search results, giving them access to millions of our users around the world. Small businesses can set their own ad budgets and can arrange to pay only when users click on an ad. As a result, these businesses able to find and connect with new customers more efficiently and cost-effectively.

In addition to helping small businesses find customers and grow, Google's AdSense program has enabled web publishers, an entirely new generation of small businesses, to emerge and thrive on the Internet. As David's testimony puts it,

Our business model enables entrepreneurs, educators, bloggers, and many others to generate revenue by sharing their expertise and opinions with the world. In many cases, these individuals are able to dedicate themselves full-time to their publications because of the support they receive from our advertising programs.

The impact of Google's technology on the small business economy is significant. In 2007, for example, we paid $4.5 billion to AdSense partners who use our ads to earn money from their websites.

Behind those numbers are the real stories of people like Regina Fagan:

One of our Harlem, New York-based advertisers, Grandma's Secrets, has used our advertising tools to gain customers in the region where it delivers baked goods. A minority-owned business, Grandma's Secrets was started in 2001 when Regina Fagan built a website to capitalize on the love for baking she developed as a young child. By targeting her Google advertisements to the New York area, Regina has been able to turn a monthly Google advertising budget of $25 into $4,000 a month in revenue.

And as it turns out, Regina was able to use this revenue to purchase her first home and fulfill a lifelong dream of taking her daughter to Paris.

Finally, David will highlight the fact that small business success stories like Regina's are a powerful testament to the importance of maintaining a free and open Internet. The Internet's freedom and openness gave Google a chance to succeed when it was a brand new business, and it is giving hundreds of thousands of American small businesses today a chance to compete and thrive on the web as well.

UPDATE: Check out video below of David Fischer's testimony:

Posted by Brittany Bohnet, Google Elections Team

(Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog)

As you know, the Democratic primary is coming down to the wire, and American voters are following each set of state results more closely than ever before.

We wondered what would make the difference in the tight Pennsylvania primary—and what those results might indicate about the rest of the primary process and the general election. So we turned to numbers-cruncher Jim Barnes from the National Journal and asked him to weigh in on different sets of demographic data. Jim helped us set up an embeddable Google Map comparing different essential factors for the Democratic primary in Pennsylvania.

As you’re watching the results from this race on April 22, Jim says there are five things to look for—and they have interesting implications for the general election in November:

Age. Barack Obama has generally drawn more support from younger voters while Hillary Clinton’s base has come from older voters. With 15.2 percent of its overall population aged 65 or older, Pennsylvania has the third biggest population of seniors in the country after Florida and West Virginia. The candidate who does a better job turning out this core age group could take a big step towards winning the primary. Take a look at the percentages of registered Democrats by age bracket.

Democratic primary in the 2002 gubernatorial race. In 2002, then-Pennsylvania State Auditor General Bob Casey Jr. lost the Democratic gubernatorial primary to then-Philadelphia mayor Ed Rendell, who went on to capture the statehouse. Casey carried 57 of the state’s 67 counties in that primary, but Rendell won the contest because of his strength in the southeastern part of the state, specifically the four suburban and exurban counties outside of Philadelphia—Bucks, Delaware, Chester and Montgomery—where he carried more that 80 percent of the vote. In the Democratic presidential race, Rendell has endorsed Clinton, and Casey is backing Obama. Whether Rendell can help Clinton hold down Obama’s margins in the Philadelphia area, where he is still popular, or Casey can give Obama a boost among his political base in western, central and northeastern Pennsylvania could be pivotal in this primary’s outcome. Here are county-by-county results for the 2002 Democratic primary for governor.

Geography and growth. Based on the results seven weeks ago for the primary next door in Ohio, Clinton should be favored in the Keystone State, but Pennsylvania is more diverse state in terms of its patterns of growth. It has rural and metropolitan areas that are losing population, and fast-growing exurbs. For Obama to do well, he must win not only in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, but also in some of the faster-growing parts of the state. Track the rate of population growth in Pennsylvania counties from 2000-2007.

Race. Obama has had some difficulty winning a significant share of support from white voters in most of the 2008 Democratic presidential primaries, but at the same time he has dominated Clinton in regard to the African-American vote in these contests. Here is the racial breakdown of Pennsylvania's 67 counties.

Religion. Obama and Clinton recently participated in a forum on issues of faith that was held at Messiah College in Pennsylvania. So far in this primary season, Sen. Obama has done well among Democratic primary voters who identify as Protestants and other denominations, but lagged among Catholics. Review the data on religious adherence by county.

As technology continues to be an influential part of this race for President, we hope you can use this map to gain a better understanding about which factors are causing Pennsylvania citizens to cast their vote. Try using the data to make your own predictions for the Pennsylvania outcome, then check if you're right by following live results tonight on Google Maps.

Posted by Jen Marsh, Program Coordinator, and Liz Eraker, Policy Analyst

As we first told you last year, the Google public policy team is launching a new effort -- the Google Policy Fellowship -- to support students interested in potential careers in Internet law and technology, and the organizations working on these issues. Our first class of fellows will work for ten weeks this summer at public interest organizations involved in debates on broadband and access policy, content regulation, copyright reform, consumer privacy, open government, and more.

We were overwhelmed by the roughly 350 applications that we received from highly qualified and talented students across the country interested in our beta summer. After careful consideration by the host organizations, 12 fellows were selected to participate in our 2008 program. Here's the full list along with their host organizations:

• Elizabeth Broomfield, Yale University - Media Access Project
• Ren Bucholz, York University - Electronic Frontier Foundation
• Fiona De Young, University of Texas at Austin - American Library Association
• Alex Harris, Harvard University - Competitive Enterprise Institute
• Margot Kaminski, Yale University School of Law - Electronic Frontier Foundation
• Alex Kanous, University of Michigan School of Information - Public Knowledge
• Jonathan Law, University of Illinois College of Law - Public Knowledge
• Aaron Massey, North Carolina State University - Cato Institute
• Paul Otto, Duke Law School - Center for Democracy and Technology
• Victor Pickard, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign - New America Foundation
• Nicholas Proferes, Georgetown University - Internet Education Foundation
• Vera Ranieri, Harvard Law School - Center for Democracy and Technology

Congratulations to these students, and a big thank you again to everyone who applied.

If these fellows are any indication of what the future of Internet policy looks like, the Net -- and its users -- are in great shape. Keep an eye out this summer for news from our 2008 GPF class.

Posted by Andrew McLaughlin, Director of Global Public Policy

Hundreds of millions of users around the world use Google Earth. Many of them have strong -- and sometimes conflicting -- opinions about how places should be named and where borders should be drawn. Disputes over place names and territorial borders exist in nearly every region, and constitute some of the most emotionally charged geopolitical issues in the world today. Since we launched Google Earth in 2004, we have done our best to anticipate these controversies and to address them in a principled, rigorous, and consistent way.

We want Google Earth to merit users' trust as an authoritative reference for geographic information; to do that we're aiming to be transparent about the policies we follow when we encounter sensitive geopolitical disputes. In this blog post, I present our approach to naming bodies of water. In future blog posts, I'll discuss our policies on issues like place names, border locations, the content of placemarks generated by the Google Earth community, and the reasons for the blurred imagery that appears in a number of locations.

Like any cartographic publisher, our policies have come under scrutiny from many groups, particularly when multiple countries disagree about the correct name for a shared body of water. While most bodies of water have a common name (think "Pacific Ocean"), others are called different names by different countries and cultures. Some variations in placenames are attributable to language-based variations (think "Germany" in English, "l'Allemagne" in French, "Deutschland" in German, etc.). Other differences, however, reflect broader political, historical, or cultural disputes. For example, the body of water between the Japanese archipelago and the Korean peninsula is known as the "Sea of Japan" in Japan, but as the "East Sea" in South Korea.

As the publishers of a geographic reference tool, we believe that Google should not choose sides in international geopolitical disputes. For this reason, we've chosen to implement a uniform policy of Primary Local Usage.

Under this policy, the English Google Earth client displays the primary, common, local name(s) given to a body of water by the sovereign nations that border it. If all bordering countries agree on the name, then the common single name is displayed (e.g. "Caribbean Sea" in English, "Mar Caribe" in Spanish, etc.). But if different countries dispute the proper name for a body of water, our policy is to display both names, with each label placed closer to the country or countries that use it.

One of the great features of Google Earth is that it enables us to provide significantly greater amounts of information than flat paper maps. So in addition to showing both disputed names, we also provide a clickable text box that provides some more detailed explanatory text. For example, if you click on the "Yellow Sea" or "West Sea" placemarks, you will get: "The Yellow Sea is the common English name associated with this maritime feature, known in China as Huáng Hǎi or 黄海 (Mandarin). In Korea, this feature is commonly referred to as the West Sea; in Korean Sŏ Hae or 서해 (Hangul)".

For language clients other than English, we display only the preferred name in the relevant language. For example, the Japanese client of Google Earth shows "Sea of Japan" in Japanese (日本海), while the Korean version shows "East Sea" in Korean (동해). In these cases, we still include both labels in the click-box political annotation. We believe this solution makes our product more helpful to users in each language by presenting the name they expect to see, but without sidestepping the existence of a disputed alternative name. In that way, we provide more, rather than less, information while maintaining a good user interface and experience.

When our policy says that we display the "primary, common, local" names for a body of water, each of those three adjectives has an important and distinct meaning. By saying "primary", we aim to include names of dominant use, rather than having to add every conceivable local nickname or variation. By saying "common", we mean to include names which are in widespread daily use, rather than giving immediate recognition to any arbitrary governmental re-naming. In other words, if a ruler announced that henceforth the Pacific Ocean would be named after her mother, we would not add that placemark unless and until the name came into common usage. Finally, by saying "local", we aim to reflect the primary and common names used by countries that actually border the body of water, as they are the countries recognized under international law as having a special sovereign stake in it.

In our view, the Primary Local Usage rule generates the optimal combination of neutrality, objectivity, and legitimacy. We also hope that it meets the expectations of the vast majority of our users and demonstrates the proper sensitivity to these important geopolitical disputes.

Alternative Policies We Considered

As we worked our way through the current set of disputed names for bodies of water, we considered and ultimately decided against several alternative policy approaches, including:

Authoritative International Institutions. We considered attempting to extricate Google entirely from the problem of deciding placenames by simply deferring to the determinations of an existing, authoritative, multilateral or multistakeholder institution. Under this policy, we would simply adopt in toto the naming choices set by that body, without exercising any independent judgment of our own. In particular, we considered using the publications and documents of the United Nations Cartographic Section as the authoritative references for naming bodies of water. Under scrutiny, though, the U.N. Cartographic Section's publications do not provide the level of coverage and detail that we hope to achieve for Google Earth. Moreover, quite understandably, the United Nations as an institution does not take official positions on geographical names (which would occasionally require it to take sides among the competing claims of two or more member states), but instead the Cartographic Section only issues guidance in the form of "informational practices" for use in U.N. documents and publications. Moreover, the U.N. is viewed by some as a politicized organization, favoring the claims of some countries and regions over others. Also within the U.N. system, we looked at the reports of the U.N. Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names, which convenes every five years. That Conference, however, does not take positions on geopolitical disputes between countries, and so reliance on its reports is not a realistic option.

We also considered adopting the names used by the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO), an international group that works, among other things, to standardize nautical charts and documents. But the IHO's naming work in recent decades has focused on (a) the naming of undersea features, and (b) setting the boundaries and limits of oceans and seas. It has not undertaken to resolve current geopolitical disputes. Moreover, the organization's membership includes the national hydrographic offices of fewer than half of all countries.

Geographic Organizations. We considered adopting the naming conventions of one or more widely-respected national-level geographic organizations like the US National Geographic Society and the UK Royal Geographical Society. But these organizations exist only in a handful of large, rich economies, and many believe they do not represent the views and values of other parts of the world. They also occasionally reach differing conclusions on names and naming conventions, and it would be difficult to set a neutral, objective rule for deciding which organization to follow.

Academics. Finally, we also considered conducting a survey of credentialed geography academics to assess their views as to the proper name(s) to be displayed. But this option too is fraught with likely bias -- the mere process of choosing which academics to survey would be highly subjective. And we reasoned that if our chosen experts were evenly split or undecided, we'd still be no closer to delegating the responsibility to outside authorities.

All things considered, we believe that the Primary Local Usage rule, if rigorously and evenhandedly applied, is a better choice than any of these three alternatives. Of course, we recognize that this policy will leave some people unhappy about a resulting name that is displayed for each disputed body of water. But we hope they will accept that showing all the names of primary and common use by all the countries bordering a body of water is fair and diplomatic.

Perhaps most importantly, we also recognize that we have no monopoly on geographic truth. Debate about the right policies and practices for Google Earth is valuable. Happily enough, one of the great features of Google Earth is its ability to support the creation and display of data layers by an interested person. It is our fervent hope that different communities will use Google Earth as an open platform to create content that accurately reflects their views. We welcome additions to our community and web layers so that users can access all points of view.

Posted by Nicole Wong, Deputy General Counsel

What sort of principles should determine what kinds of ads users see on the Internet, and where? Last November, the Federal Trade Commission held a town hall meeting that brought together Internet companies, consumer and privacy advocates, government representatives, and Internet users to discuss the consumer benefits and potential privacy issues raised by behavioral advertising.

Shortly thereafter, the FTC released draft self-regulatory principles prepared by the Commission's staff for online behavioral advertising, and invited comments from industry stakeholders. And late last week, we provided our comments on the FTC’s draft principles.

Google's comments underscore our support for the Commission's proposed self-regulatory approach, which we believe is the most appropriate method of ensuring innovation, competition, and consumer protection in this space.

We hope that our comments and others' result in a set of privacy principles that can be implemented by industry and provide consumers with appropriate levels of transparency and choice -- two of the design principles that constitute the bedrock of Google's privacy practices. We would expect that such principles would be widely adopted by the online advertising industry and would serve as a model for industry self-regulation in jurisdictions beyond the U.S.

We look forward to continued engagement with the FTC on developing a set of workable self-regulatory practices. And we welcome your input - what do you think about the FTC principles and Google's comments?

Posted by Peter Fleischer, Global Privacy Counsel

Today, a Google search is far more likely to provide you with the information you're looking for than it did a few years ago. This has not happened by accident. It is the result of our engineers painstakingly analysing the patterns in our server logs to improve the relevance of our searches. At the same time, we have developed privacy policies designed to give users choices over the information they share with us.

Against this backdrop, the European Commission's Article 29 Data Protection Working Party -- named after the rules they are monitoring –- has been conducting a lengthy inquiry into the question of online privacy. While the working party has welcomed our decision to anonymise data logs after 18 months as a positive privacy protective step, it suggested in findings released today that this period might still be too long.

We believe that data retention requirements have to take into account the need to provide quality products and services for users, like accurate search results, as well as system security and integrity concerns. We have recently discussed some of the many ways that using this data helps improve users' experience, from making our products safe, to preventing fraud, to building language models to improve search results. This perspective -- the ways in which data is used to improve consumers' experience on the web -- is unfortunately sometimes lacking in discussions about online privacy.

The Working Party's findings also stated that IP addresses should be treated as personal information, with the full weight of data protection laws. Based on our own analysis, we believe that whether or not an IP address is personal data depends on how the data is being used.

The findings are another important step in an ongoing dialogue about protecting user privacy online – a discussion in which Google will continue to be engaged. It's also a debate in which we hope our users will participate.

Posted by Richard Whitt, Washington Telecom and Media Counsel, and Joseph Faber, Corporate Counsel

For three weeks at the end of January and early February, a small team of us holed up in double super secret "war rooms" in Mountain View, CA and Washington, D.C. to bid on Google's behalf in the FCC spectrum auction. Bidding took place electronically, and literally billions of dollars were at stake with every mouse click. And because of the FCC's strict anti-collusion rules, we couldn't tell a soul what was going on behind closed doors.

But now that the FCC's rules have lifted, we can. As you probably know by now, Google didn't pick up any spectrum licenses in the auction. Nonetheless, partly as a result of our bidding, consumers soon should have new freedom to get the most out of their mobile phones and other wireless devices.

Google's top priority heading into the auction was to make sure that bidding on the so-called "C Block" reached the $4.6 billion reserve price that would trigger the important "open applications" and "open handsets" license conditions. We were also prepared to gain the nationwide C Block licenses at a price somewhat higher than the reserve price; in fact, for many days during the early course of the auction, we were the high bidder. But it was clear, then and now, that Verizon Wireless ultimately was motivated to bid higher (and had far more financial incentive to gain the licenses).

You may remember that as the FCC was setting rules for the auction last summer, we urged the Commission to adopt four openness conditions. Further, we vowed to bid at least $4.6 billion in the auction if the Commission adopted all four rules. Even though the FCC ultimately agreed to only two of the conditions, which nullified our original pledge, we still believed it was important to demonstrate through action our commitment to a more open wireless world.

We're glad that we did. Based on the way that the bidding played out, our participation in the auction helped ensure that the C Block met the reserve price. In fact, in ten of the bidding rounds we actually raised our own bid -- even though no one was bidding against us -- to ensure aggressive bidding on the C Block. In turn, that helped increase the revenues raised for the U.S. Treasury, while making sure that the openness conditions would be applied to the ultimate licensee.

The end of the auction certainly doesn't mark the end of our efforts toward greater wireless choice and innovation. We will weigh in at the FCC as it sets implementation rules for the C Block, and determines how to move forward with a D Block re-auction. Android is already off to a successful start, and we are likely to see handsets later this year based on the Android platform. We will continue advocating for the FCC to open up the vacant "white spaces" in the TV spectrum band for mobile broadband uses. And as more policymakers and regulators around the world evaluate their own spectrum policies, we'll continue pushing to help make the wireless world look much more like the open platform of the Internet.

What did you think about how the auction turned out?

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

Today marks the annual deadline for employers to submit their H-1B visa applications for 2009. Last year, more than 150,000 applications were submitted in just two days, more than twice the annual limit of 65,000, and many are predicting a similar deluge this year. Unfortunately, due to the artificially low cap on these visas, tens of thousands of highly skilled workers hoping to contribute to the American economy are once again likely to be sent home to work outside of the U.S.

As a technology company, Google's success depends on its ability to attract, hire, and retain the best and brightest wherever they come from. But because of limits on H-1Bs, we are regularly unable to pursue highly qualified foreign-born candidates. Last year, 248 of our visa applications were accepted, but 70 were rejected -- more than 1 in 5 of our total. That's 70 potential U.S. employees who would be creating innovative new Google products, paying taxes, contributing to the U.S. economy, and spurring the creation of additional support jobs at Google.

This year, Google will submit H-1B applications for about 300 potential employees, mostly recent college or graduate school graduates. We know that those employees could have a major impact on Google's future ability to innovate on behalf of our users. From developing products like Google News, Google Maps, and orkut, to managing our business and global marketing operations, highly skilled foreign workers have played -- and continue to play -- a vital role at Google. That's why Laszlo Bock, our Vice President for People Operations, testified on this issue before Congress last spring, and why, as a member of Compete America, we've urged Congress to increase the annual cap.

Several Members of Congress understand that the H-1B cap must be raised if the United States hopes to maintain its status as the world's high-tech leader. Recently Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) introduced legislation that would effectively double the cap in the near-term, and in early March Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) proposed tripling it. And we know that other members of Congress are highly supportive of addressing the H-1B problem as well.

We welcome Congress' work on this issue, and we continue to urge Congress to raise the cap to reflect the growth rate of our technology-driven economy. If Google and other American companies are unable to hire and employ in the U.S. the world's top scientists, mathematicians, and engineers -- many of whom are already here studying at an American university -- foreign competitors will and we will lose opportunities to create more jobs and innovate here at home. As the San Jose Mercury News put it, "we shouldn't close the doors to the Andy Groves and [Sergey] Brins of the future."