Posted by Susan Molinari, Vice President of Government Affairs and Public Policy

There are few issues more horrifying than human slavery and trafficking. Yesterday, the House of Representatives took important steps to address these issues by passing twelve bills aimed at helping the victims and calling attention to these criminal acts. We are encouraged by the actions taken yesterday and applaud the House’s leadership.

We recently heard about a number of these bills from Members of both the House and Senate at an event Google hosted with the McCain Institute and Rights4Girls. In addition to the launch of the No Such Thing campaign to eradicate the term “child prostitute,” we heard from organizations on the frontlines of the modern anti-trafficking movement, including the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), Polaris, and Thorn: Digital Defenders of Children, about how they are using technology to stop human trafficking and help those who have been trafficked. You can watch the event here and here.

Collaboration and technology are key weapons in the fight. That’s why Google recently launched a new feature in our search results with Polaris, connecting victims of human trafficking with organizations who can help. We also worked with Polaris, La Strada International, and Liberty Asia to launch the Global Human Trafficking Hotline Network, to connect global hotlines and better help victims and prevention efforts. Google also has a zero-tolerance policy for any ads for paid sex acts, and we work around the clock to fight illegal content and abuse on our platforms.

Fighting human slavery and trafficking is not a partisan issue. The more voices who say it is morally unacceptable to enslave and exploit humans, the more we can reduce the demand and help the victims. There’s more work to be done, so let’s keep going — together.

Posted by Liz Eraker, Policy Counsel

We are strong believers in the importance of abuse reporting tools that identify harmful and illegal content online. That’s why we are proud to say we recently helped The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) launch a newly redesigned CyberTipline — the national reporting mechanism for cases of child sexual exploitation — to better protect all Internet users.

NCMEC receives a staggering amount of information. Since the CyberTipline’s inception over a decade ago, it has handled more than 1.25 million reports of child sexual exploitation. The National Center is at the forefront of efforts to protect society’s most vulnerable individuals by providing tools and resources for reporting abuse and working with law enforcement on child sexual exploitation investigations.

We are proud to have assisted NCMEC in building a more user-friendly and seamless reporting system for both the public and electronic service providers. In the spirit of our continued partnership with NCMEC, we hope that these improvements will help to better facilitate CyberTipline reporting and encourage more Internet users to join the fight against child sexual exploitation.

More details about the new CyberTipline are available on the NCMEC website here.

Posted by David Green, Public Affairs Fellow

My father was in the Army while I was growing up and I moved around a lot. It was fun and exciting but occasionally a little sad since every two years I packed up my things and said goodbye to my friends. We always promised to stay in touch but as addresses changed and phone numbers got lost we eventually drifted apart.

Thanks to technology, military children today have a much easier time keeping in touch with old friends and making new ones at the same time. During a time of increased deployments and separation the Internet also makes talking to family halfway around the world a snap. In fact, military families use the Internet at greater rates than the civilian population.

Knowing the pitfalls of the Internet and how to navigate it safely helps adolescents and parents protect themselves and establishes a safer online environment. That’s why we think it’s important to help military families be smart and safe online. Today, we’re proud to announce that we’ve teamed up with the organization Blue Star Families to promote and distribute our Digital Literacy curriculum to their members worldwide through their website and social networks.

Blue Star Families is a group of military spouses and families from all over the country who work hard to to support, connect and empower military families. Last Veterans Day, we partnered with them to distribute priority Google Voice invitations, helping families stay in closer touch with their loved ones.

Being a military kid is tough enough. By working with organizations like Blue Star Families our goal is to help kids today keep in touch, safely, online.

Posted by Mandy Albanese, Policy Communications

Today we're releasing the latest in a series of online safety videos as part of our Digital Literacy campaign. As we engage more students, parents and teachers about how to make good decisions online, many have noted how difficult it is to identify and avoid online scams. We know how tricky scammers can be. Our new video, Steering Clear of Cyber Tricks, shares some tips on how to avoid tricky online scams.

Posted by Pete Lidwell, Product Manager and Aaron Arcos, Engineer

(Cross-posted from Official Google Blog)

When you're searching on Google, we think you should have the choice to keep adult content out of your search results. That's why we developed SafeSearch, a feature that lets you filter sexually explicit web sites and images from your search results. While no filter is 100% accurate, SafeSearch helps you avoid content you may prefer not to see or would rather your children did not stumble across. We think it works pretty well, but we're always looking for ways to improve the feature.

Today we're launching a feature that lets you lock your SafeSearch setting to the Strict level
of filtering. When you lock SafeSearch, two things will change. First, you'll need to enter your password to change the setting. Second, the Google search results page will be visibly different to indicate that SafeSearch is locked:



Even from across the room, the colored balls give parents and teachers a clear visual cue that SafeSearch is still locked. And if you don't see them, it's quick and easy to verify and re-lock SafeSearch.

To use SafeSearch lock, go to the "Search Settings" page on Google. For detailed instructions, check out this video.



We hope you and your family find exactly what you’re looking for in Google search results — and nothing more.

Posted by Dorothy Chou, Policy Analyst

It's important that parents and educators help kids to develop healthy, safe, and responsible online habits. But this can be a challenge, even for the tech-savviest families.

That's why we're launching a tour with iKeepSafe to help parents and educators across the country become more involved in kids' online activities. To kick-off the tour, we're sponsoring a panel discussion on Capitol Hill to address some of the key issues around digital media literacy, including how to talk to kids about maintaining their online reputations.

Over the past year, we've been working with the PointSmart.ClickSafe. Task Force to help policy leaders get up to speed on many online safety topics. This initiative is a direct outcome of the recommendations the group released in July.

"Playing and Staying Safe Online"
An expert panel discussion on how to help kids become responsible members of the digital community.

Panelists:

• Dr. Michael Rich, Director of the Center on Media and Child Health at Children's Hospital Boston, Harvard Medical School and Harvard School of Public Health
• Dr. Harry Bloom, Director, California Technology Assistance Project
• Lt. Joe Laramie, Director, Missouri ICAC Task Force
• Darlene Faster, COO, Center for Social and Emotional Education
  

Moderator:

• Marsali Hancock, iKeepSafe President
  

With special presentations from Google and WoogiWorld.

When: Tuesday, November 3, Noon - 1:30pm
Where: Room B-354, Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, D.C.

Lunch will be served.

Please click here to RSVP.

We look forward to seeing you tomorrow on Capitol Hill. Stay tuned for more announcements about when we'll be coming to your local community -- and in the meantime, check out our new instructional videos to about how to help your family stay safe on the Web:

Posted by Alice Wu, Policy Specialist, YouTube

With more and more kids going online, whether to connect over social networking sites, mingle in chat rooms or play games, it's become increasingly important for families, schools and service providers to work together to ensure that the younger generation understands their responsibilities while they explore the virtual world.

A few weeks ago, Google participated in the 21st Annual Crimes Against Children Conference in Dallas, where over 3,500 members of law enforcement, child advocacy groups, the tech industry and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) convened to share ideas, discuss strategies and explore new technologies designed to combat the many and varied forms of crimes against children. We had the opportunity to describe some of the positive steps Google is taking to educate and safeguard minors who use our products and services, as well as the unique ways we support the individuals on our staff who do child exploitation-related work.

According to a recent NCMEC study in patterns and trends in online child victimization, the past few years have seen a 6% increase in reports of kids providing images and videos of themselves when asked by online acquaintances; sending naked photos of themselves through text messages ("sexting"); and cyber-bullying. This new trend underscores the need to educate our younger users, their families and teachers on ways to create and enjoy safe online experiences.

We're doing our part by working with child safety organizations and law enforcement around the globe to spread positive messages about life online. For example, in mid-September, we're launching a global training program on YouTube to help teens teach other teens about these issues. This is just one step among many that we're taking to help create a generation of responsible digital citizens.

Posted by Jennifer Marsh, Policy Analyst

Protecting children online is a shared responsibility. The PointSmart.ClickSafe. Task Force, of which we're a member, is an important example of how industry leaders, safety advocates, and community organizations are working together keep kids safe online.

This morning the Task Force released its Recommendations for Best Practices for Online Safety and Literacy, the culmination of a year-long effort.

The most important and timely recommendation from the report (which previous online safety task forces all agree upon) is the need for digital media literacy and safety education that empowers kids, parents, and educators. It's important that kids of all ages learn what it mean to be a digital citizen and how to navigate the online world safely, and it's equally important that parents and educators have the resources and online tools to help kids make the right choices online. That's why we support the SAFE Internet Act, introduced by Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ) and Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), which would establish a $175 million dollar competitive grant program for state and local education agencies and nonprofit organizations to promote Internet safety education.

For our part, Google's approach to child safety has three primary elements. First, we empower families with powerful and innovative tools to create a safe experience online, like SafeSearch, community flagging tools, and granular privacy controls for our products. Second, we partner with law enforcement and industry partners to stop illegal content and activity online -- we're especially proud of our work with NCMEC and the technology we provided them to fight child exploitation online. Third, we support educational efforts -- both Google and YouTube have developed online safety resources for parents and kids, including a Online Family Safety Guide, and we continue to work and support many of the non-profit organizations doing great work in this space including FOSI, NCMEC, Common Sense Media, and iKeepSafe.

We're committed to helping keep our users safe online, and we look forward to continuing our work with the Task Force to explore and share new and innovative ways to do just that.

Posted by Luc Delany, European Policy Associate

Although there are European laws in place to protect online users (remember, if an act is illegal offline it's illegal online also), legislative processes can be time consuming and have the potential to be out of date before they can be enforced. That's why self-regulation is a crucial tool for industry be able react quickly to immediate policy needs. We applaud the European Commission also for recognising the need for this approach.

On Safer Internet Day, earlier this week, Google signed up to support the "Safer Social Networking Principles" that were agreed between online service providers with the help of the European Commission through its Social Networking Taskforce. We think this is a great initiative and precisely the right approach to be taken to help protect young people on social networking services.

Obviously Google itself is not a social networking service but some elements of certain services do have social elements and we will endeavor to uphold the principles. On YouTube for example, we give users a wealth of safety information in our "Safety Tips" centre featuring tips and guidance on topics like teen safety, cyber citizenship, cyberbullying, hateful content, and privacy. We'll be making a full self-assessment of the principles and our services by April, along with all the other signatories.

The creation of the principles is another step in the developing the maturing self-regulatory approach to child protection on-line, building on initiatives such as Teach Today.

Posted by Pablo Chavez, Senior Policy Counsel

An interesting first (at least as far as we're aware): Google's Street View imagery was used by police officers to help successfully locate a kidnapped child in rural Virginia. Nine year old Natalie Maltais, from Athol, Massachusetts, was found safely at a motel on Tuesday. You can read more in the Worcester Telegram & Gazette.


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Posted by The YouTube Team

(Cross-posted from YouTube Blog)

We've always been committed to providing you the tools to have the best possible YouTube experience. Educating parents, teens, and families on how to stay safe on our site is a critical part of that commitment, so we can't think of a more appropriate place to introduce our new Abuse and Safety Center than at the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI) conference in Washington, D.C., today.


The center features straightforward safety tips and multimedia resources from experts and prominent safety organizations. We are empowering people with the information and tools they need to help them deal with issues like cyberbullying, online harassment, and hateful content.


The new center also makes it easier for you to find our Help and Safety Tool, which lets you report concerns to us and gives you granular control over your channel, like the option of blocking comments from specific users or disabling the video comments feature on specific videos.

The Abuse and Safety Center is easy to find. Just look at the bottom of any YouTube page and click on the link titled "Abuse and Safety Center". From phishing scams to just learning what it means to be a good YouTube citizen, you'll find the information you need.

Finally, check out FOSI's meeting page for more information about our presence at the conference, where Shantal Rands from Google's legal team will receive a FOSI Award for Outstanding Achievement in advancing the goal of a safer Internet. Plus, Andrew McLaughlin, Google's Director of Global Policy & Government Affairs, is speaking about "Protecting Kids and Free Speech Online," and YouTube's Policy Analyst Micah Schaffer will address online safety in social media.

We'll continue to add new information and features to the center, so check back often.

Posted by Patricia Moll, International Policy Manager

As Vint Cerf wrote last December, "Google is dedicated to supporting parents' efforts to educate and protect their children when they go online." Through policies like YouTube's Community Guidelines and easy-to-use technologies like SafeSearch, Google helps families safely enjoy the freedom of expression that is so essential to the Internet.

And we cannot do it alone. Last Wednesday and Thursday, we hosted several events for the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI) at our headquarters in Mountain View. We have been working with FOSI for nearly two years, and in 2007, Vint was a keynote speaker at FOSI's annual conference in Washington, DC. In April of this year, Pablo Chavez of the Google policy team became a member of FOSI's Board of Directors, and we have continued to find opportunities to work with other industry stakeholders, policymakers, and non-profit organizations that care about this issue.

The events this past week are a great example of this kind of cooperation. We kicked off with a screening of the renowned PBS Frontline documentary, Growing Up Online, introduced by Google's Director of Global Public Policy Andrew McLaughlin. After the screening, representatives from organizations such as Common Sense Media, ConnectSafely, and Web Wise Kids participated in a discussion with the film's producer, Rachel Dretzin. Questions focused on changing the conversation about child safety away from the sensationalism of television shows like "To Catch a Predator" to focus instead on how the online lives of our children are extensions of normal adolescent behavior: trying on identities, pushing against authority, and, yes, taking risks.

A key message from the filmmakers is that adolescents do understand the messages about "stranger danger" online and generally have adopted safe practices. The producers cited their own example of not being able to get children to reply to their emailed requests for interviews because the kids wouldn't respond to someone they didn't know. Parental involvement in the online lives of their children remains an essential tool in helping families have safe Internet experiences. You can watch the entire discussion here:



In the afternoon, FOSI CEO Stephen Balkam moderated an invitation-only roundtable, "Searching for Online Safety Solutions." In addition to Google and YouTube, participating organizations included AT&T, Facebook, Loopt, MySpace, Ning, SecondLife, and Yahoo!. Anne Collier, President and Editor of NetFamilyNews and Co-Director of ConnectSafely, provided a sensible introduction to the fast-changing landscape of online safety. Micah Schaffer of YouTube's policy team and I added Google's perspective to the three-hour discussion, in which several speakers called on participants to base their approach to child safety on current research and statistics rather than on political pressures. The practice of partnering with child safety organizations, law enforcement agencies, and education groups has created strong coalitions, and as our work becomes more well-known, we expect to see even greater improvements in safe surfing practices and technologies.

We're happy to see that in so many areas, Google continues to provide positive examples for the industry, and we look forward to continuing our association with FOSI and other organizations to protect online speech while we protect children online. Our engineers will keep working and iterating on innovative tools like SafeSearch that empower parents to choose what's appropriate for their families to see while searching. For more online safety tips and resources, be sure to check out FOSI's YouTube channel and Google's Tips for Online Safety.

Posted by Pablo Chavez, Senior Policy Council

As a member and supporter of the Family Online Safety Institute, we are proud to let you know that FOSI recently launched its own branded YouTube channel. This YouTube channel represents one more example of how FOSI is identifying the best practices, tools, and methods for keeping kids safe online.

The videos on FOSI's channel include an interview with Rachel Dretzin, producer of the PBS documentary "Growing Up Online," whom we will also be hosting with FOSI at the Googleplex in Mountain View on September 17th for a screening of the film.

FOSI is continuing to do great work to help keep families safe online, and we look forward to hosting the next session in their series of roundtable discussions, "Searching for Online Safety Solutions," in September following the documentary screening.

Posted by Liz Eraker, Policy Analyst

(Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog)

In the spirit of National Internet Safety Month, we welcomed Ernie Allen, co-founder and president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) to the Googleplex last week to discuss child protection issues.

For those not familiar with it, NCMEC works closely with federal law enforcement across the U.S. to help prevent child abduction and sexual exploitation and to help find missing children. From serving as the clearinghouse for reports of online child pornography to issuing Amber Alerts when children go missing to reuniting families in the wake of Katrina, NCMEC is at the forefront of efforts to protect society's most vulnerable members.

In a policy talk called "Beyond Milk Cartons: Keeping kids safe in a digital world", Ernie provided an overview of NCMEC's work and chatted with Googlers about the ever-changing landscape of child protection challenges shared by parents, educators, advocacy organizations, and technology companies like Google as we work to help families make smart choices online. Watch Ernie's talk on YouTube.

Technology is an invaluable tool for addressing some of these challenges. In a recent example, a team of Google engineers dedicated their 20 percent time over the last year and a half to build cutting-edge software for NCMEC that uses image and video recognition technology to help NCMEC analysts more effectively sort and review incoming reports of child exploitation. NCMEC analysts sort through tens of millions of images in child sexual abuse investigations, and we've tried to leverage our expertise in organizing huge amounts of data to help make their important work more automated and efficient.

When it comes to keeping kids safe on the Internet, we believe that education for families, support for law enforcement, and empowering technology tools, like our SafeSearch filter and the NCMEC software, are all critical pieces of the puzzle.

Tackling online child safety issues is no small task, but we'll continue our collaboration with organizations like NCMEC, along with other partners in schools, government and industry, to take collective strides in the right direction.

Posted by Rishi Jaitly, Policy Analyst - India

As we have highlighted here, online child safety is a big priority for Google. This is especially true in India, an extraordinarily young nation where, as a visit to any local cybercafe will make obvious, young people are leading the charge onto the Internet (in 2001, over 35 percent of India's population was under the age of 15).

This is a crucial time for online child safety in India as Parliament is set to amend the nation's Information Technology laws in its current session. While Members consider many provisions, we hope that the final law retains Section 67 (2) of the Ministry of Information Technology's proposed amendments. This section, which both adds child pornography to the list of offences under the Act and strengthens the punishment for the offence itself, is critical to drawing attention to the issue and to furthering the safety of India's youth online. While adding this provision to law would represent a step forward, we hope the government will continue to focus on child safety issues, especially as they pertain to the Internet. There are many global examples of innovations in this area, including the presence of organizations that enable the reporting of child pornography in the U.S. and U.K.; the Indian government should consider these and other options.

Of course, I've blogged about India's IT Act before (and especially its handling of the issue of intermediary liability). While policy reforms on both intermediary liability and child safety are needed to help position the Internet for growth in India, the issue of child safety presents a unique opportunity to couple advocacy with ground-level programs aimed at making a direct difference in the lives of children.

With this in mind, Google India recently launched "Be NetSmart", a nationwide Internet safety campaign that -- in cooperation with local law enforcement -- aims to educate students, teachers, and parents about the positive and valuable role the Internet can play in modern life, while at the same time conveying important messages about how to be safe, cautious, and smart online.

Mumbai was the site of the first phase of the campaign, and over the course of six weeks, Google employee volunteers and Mumbai Police officials shared the Be NetSmart message with more than 25,000 students and 1,200 school officials across more than 50 schools in India's largest city.

The response in India has been enthusiastic - and has even spurred the creation of several similar programs, including the recent "Get NetSecure Information Security Week" sponsored by the Confederation of Indian Industry and the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology. We welcome all programs that focus on the safety of children online; India's a large country - the more programs, the better.

Posted by Elliot Schrage, Vice President of Global Communications and Public Affairs

(Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog)

Over the years, we've built tools and offered resources to help kids and families stay safe online. Our SafeSearch feature, for example, helps filter explicit content from search results.

We've also been involved in a variety of local initiatives to educate families about how to stay safe while surfing the web. Here are a few highlights:

• In the U.S., we've worked with Common Sense Media to promote awareness about online safety and have donated hardware and software to improve the ability of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to combat child exploitation.

• Google UK has collaborated with child safety organizations such as Beatbullying and Childnet to raise awareness about cyberbullying and share prevention messages, and with law enforcement authorities, including the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, to fight online exploitation.

• Google India initiated "Be NetSmart," an Internet safety campaign created in cooperation with local law enforcement authorities that aims to educate students, parents, and teachers across the country about the great value the Internet can bring to their lives, while also teaching best practices for safe surfing.

• Google France launched child safety education initiatives including Tour de France des Collèges and Cherche Net that are designed to teach kids how to use the Internet responsibly.

• And Google Germany worked with the national government, industry representatives, and a number of local organizations recently to launch a search engine for children.

As part of these ongoing efforts to provide online safety resources for parents and kids, we've created Tips for Online Safety, a site designed to help families find quick links to safety tools like SafeSearch, as well as new resources, like a video offering online safety pointers that we've developed in partnership with Common Sense Media. In the video, Anne Zehren, president of Common Sense, offers easy-to-implement tips, like how to set privacy and sharing controls on social networking sites and the importance of having reasonable rules for Internet use at home with appropriate levels of supervision.

Users can also download our new Online Family Safety Guide (PDF), which includes useful Internet Safety pointers for parents, or check out a quick tutorial on SafeSearch created by one of our partner organizations, GetNetWise.

We all have roles to play in keeping kids safe online. Parents need to be involved with their kids' online lives and teach them how to make smart decisions. And Internet companies like Google need to continue to empower parents and kids with tools and resources that help put them in control of their online experiences and make web surfing safer.

Posted by Vint Cerf, Chief Internet Evangelist

(Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog)

We know that technologies like the "v-chip" can be used to keep kids from seeing inappropriate content on TV. And while technology has an important role to play in protecting kids online, it's as important that parents implant a symbolic "v-chip" in their children's minds to guide them when it comes to deciding what online content is and is not appropriate.

That was one of the observations I shared this week at the Family Online Safety Institute's conference in Washington, D.C. The Internet provides an amazing opportunity for young people to express themselves creatively and access immense quantities of useful information. Kids are using geospatial, mobile and social networking technologies, for example, to learn in new, interactive ways. The Internet also provides unparalleled opportunities for free expression, enabling kids and adults alike to deliver tremendous benefit to society by voicing sometimes unpopular, inconvenient, or controversial opinions.

At the same time, there is some online content and activity that is unsuitable for younger users. Google is dedicated to supporting parents' efforts to educate and protect their children when they go online. We've invested in developing family safety tools that empower parents to limit what online content their children can discover. Our SafeSearch filter, which users can adjust to block explicit content from their search results, is an example of this type of technology.

On YouTube, where we host user-generated content, we aim to offer a community for free expression that is suitable for teens and protects them from exploitation. Our work to keep YouTube safe for teens includes clear policies about what is and is not acceptable on the site; robust mechanisms to enforce these policies, such as easy tools for users to police the content by flagging inappropriate videos; innovative product features that enable safe behavior; and YouTube safety tips.

We've also partnered with child safety organizations, including CommonSense Media, i-Safe, iKeepSafe, NetFamilyNews, and, of course, the Family Online Safety Institute to increase awareness about online child safety. In addition, we cooperate with law enforcement and industry partners to combat child exploitation and help minimize the uploading of illegal content, offering training and technical assistance to law enforcement officials and providing groups like the National Center For Missing and Exploited Children with technology tools to help them be more effective in their work.

Keeping children safe on the Web is the shared responsibility of parents and families, educators, industry, and government. We have a shared responsibility to help teach children the media literacy skills they need to become savvy online and offline information consumers and, working together, we believe this goal is attainable.