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Spectrum is an essential resource to fuel the Internet's future—it can power improved broadband access and spark innovation in wireless technology. And, as with any important resource, effective management can help make sure we're making the most of what's available. Both policy and technology have a role to play in making sure that spectrum is managed, allocated, and shared in ways that can help the Internet grow.

Google's Spectrum Database is one such technology, developed to enable dynamic sharing of TV white space spectrum; this allows parties to use spectrum when they need it, and make it available to other users when they don't. In July 2013, we were certified by the FCC to operate the database for commercial use. Since then, early testers have provided feedback and insights on future innovations. Testers included GE Industrial Communications, which used the database to explore how it could enable new communication options for its Industrial Internet products.

Now, we're launching a developer API for the database that enables general exploration for any user, as well as a commercial account option for device manufacturers. The commercial account allows equipment makers to register their devices with our database in order to operate on available TV white space.

Adaptrum is the first device manufacturer to be certified to use our Spectrum Database, and is already using the tool in the field for a white space deployment, providing public Wi-Fi on the campus of West Virginia University (WVU). The white space network, which is managed by Air.U co-founder Declaration Networks, uses Adaptrum's equipment integrated with our Spectrum Database. The collaboration shows how dynamic spectrum sharing can help deliver broadband coverage and capacity to more rural areas.

We hope that the database continues to support new opportunities like the WVU white space network. With forward-looking policy as well technology advances, we can further encourage dynamic spectrum sharing and the wireless innovation that it supports.

Please contact GE Industrial Communications, Air.U, or Adaptrum for more information on their work.
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posted by Richard Salgado, Legal Director, Law Enforcement and Information Security

In a year in which government surveillance has dominated the headlines, today we're updating our Transparency Report for the eighth time. Since we began sharing these figures with you in 2010, requests from governments for user information have increased by more than 100 percent. This comes as usage of our services continues to grow, but also as more governments have made requests than ever before. And these numbers only include the requests we're allowed to publish.


Over the past three years, we've continued to add more details to the report, and we're doing so again today. We're including additional information about legal process for U.S. criminal requests: breaking out emergency disclosures, wiretap orders, pen register orders and other court orders.

We want to go even further. We believe it's your right to know what kinds of requests and how many each government is making of us and other companies. However, the U.S. Department of Justice contends that U.S. law does not allow us to share information about some national security requests that we might receive. Specifically, the U.S. government argues that we cannot share information about the requests we receive (if any) under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. But you deserve to know.

Earlier this year, we brought a federal case to assert that we do indeed have the right to shine more light on the FISA process. In addition, we recently wrote a letter of support for two pieces of legislation currently proposed in the U.S. Congress. And we're asking governments around the world to uphold international legal agreements that respect the laws of different countries and guarantee standards for due process are met.

Our promise to you is to continue to make this report robust, to defend your information from overly broad government requests, and to push for greater transparency around the world.

We strongly believe that the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) must be updated in this Congress, and we urge Congress to expeditiously enact a bright-line, warrant-for-content rule. Governmental entities should be required to obtain a warrant—issued based on a showing of probable cause—before requiring companies like Google to disclose the content of users' electronic communications.
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Happy patent searching!

 Posted by Jon Orwant, Engineering Manager
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Setting up your recovery options can help you get back in
if you get locked out of your Google Account

 2. Add a phone number to your Google Account. Your mobile phone is the best way to regain access to your account if you forget your password. It's like the "fast lane" for account recovery: we text a code to the phone number you've registered with us, and you're back in business in no time. Your phone is more secure and reliable than other means of recovering your account. Methods like “secret” questions (asking your mother’s maiden name or city where you were born) may have answers that are easy to remember, but they are also possible for bad guys to uncover. And we’ve consistently seen that people who register a recovery phone are faster and more successful at getting their accounts back than those recovering their accounts via email.

You can also get a text message if Google detects that something suspicious is going on with your account. Giving a recovery phone number to Google won’t result in you being signed up for marketing lists or getting more calls from telemarketers. 3. Keep your recovery options up to date. It’s a good idea to check your recovery options every so often. For example, if you change your phone number after setting up your recovery options, take just a minute to update your recovery settings to match. We'll remind you of your current settings every so often to make it easier for you to keep them up to date.

That’s it! You can either update your recovery options next time you’re prompted, or you can take two minutes to do it right now on our Account recovery options page. For more advice on how to protect yourself and your family online, visit our Good to Know site, or check out some of the other posts in our series on staying safe and secure.
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Posted by Duane Valz, Senior Patent Counsel


Open-source software has accelerated the pace of innovation in computing, leading to better products and services at lower cost. But as the impact of open-source software has grown, so too has the number of patent attacks against it.

In March, we announced an Open Patent Non-Assertion (OPN) Pledge—committing not to sue any user, distributor or developer of open-source software on specified patents, unless first attacked. Our goal was to encourage pro-competitive, defensive uses of patents to support open-source innovation.

Today we are pleased to expand the OPN Pledge to include an additional 79 patents. These patents cover software used to efficiently operate data centers, including middleware, distributed storage management, distributed database management, and alarm monitoring.

We acquired these patents from IBM and CA Technologies, companies that in 2005 were among the first to make open-source patent pledges. The goal of the patent system is to foster innovation, and we aim to use patents, whether acquired or developed internally, in support of that goal.

You can learn more about this second group of patents and the Pledge itself on our site, which we’ve also updated to make it easier to browse and download data on pledged patents.

To date, the patents we’ve included in the Pledge have generally related to “back-end” technologies: servers, data centers, and the like. But open-source software is also transforming the development of consumer products that people use every day—so stay tuned for additional extensions to patents covering those sorts of technologies.


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2. Protect your phone from suspicious apps. We automatically scan Google Play to block and remove harmful apps. That makes Google Play the safest place to get Android apps. But Google Play can also help protect you even for apps you get elsewhere, like the web or a third-party app store. The first time you start to install an app from an unknown source, a message will pop up asking if you’d like Google to scan the file to make sure it’s not harmful. Tap “OK” to let Google help protect you from harmful apps.

 3. Locate, ring and wipe a misplaced device. Have you ever lost your phone in between the couch cushions or left it in a restaurant? Later this month, you will be able to use a new service called Android Device Manager, which can quickly ring your phone at maximum volume so you can find it (even if it’s been silenced), or locate it on a map, in real time, using Android Device Manager. If your phone can’t be recovered, or has been stolen, you can quickly and securely erase all of the data on your device to keep your data from ending up in the wrong hands. The Android Device Manager will be available for devices running Android 2.2 and above, as part of Google Play. You can read the full announcement on the Android blog.


For more advice on how to protect yourself and your family online, visit our Good to Know site, and stay tuned for more posts in our security series.

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Nearly 45 million Americans are affected by illnesses like depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Every day, thousands of nonprofit organizations across the country are providing critical life-saving assistance for people who increasingly turn to online communities for help.

On Wednesday, Google, Twitter and Facebook are joining the national conversation about mental health in the United States and will host a training session for mental health organizations - both large and small - about how to use social media platforms to raise awareness and create new avenues for public discussion. The presentations will include best practices for setting up organizational accounts, building communities of followers, conducting outreach, integrating multimedia, and measuring success.

The training session will be hosted in Google’s Washington DC office from 1:30 - 3:30 pm. Attendees can register to join the event or watch the livestream on YouTube.
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With more than 30 trillion individual pages on the web, online piracy and counterfeit remains a challenge. Google takes that challenge seriously. Using cutting-edge technology like YouTube’s Content ID and innovative copyright removal tools for Web Search, we develop and deploy antipiracy solutions with the support of hundreds of Google employees.  In addition to developing legitimate, innovative, and convenient content offerings (such as Google Play and YouTube, through which our partners together generate hundreds of millions of dollars), we continue to develop solutions to help fight piracy and counterfeit online. We think one of the most effective ways to do this is to cut off the money supply to rogue sites that specialize in piracy or counterfeiting. To that end, in 2012 we disabled ad serving to 46,000 sites for violating our policies on copyright infringing content and shut down more than 82,000 accounts for attempting to advertise counterfeit goods. Nearly 99% of our account suspensions were discovered through our own detection efforts and risk models.  


There's always more that can be done by the industry to starve these infringing sites of advertising revenues. Today, working with the White House’s Office of the U.S. Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator (IPEC), the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), and other leading ad networks, we are pleased to participate in a set of voluntary Best Practices and Guidelines for Ad Networks to Address Piracy and Counterfeiting.  Under these best practices, Ad Networks will maintain and post policies prohibiting websites that are principally dedicated to selling counterfeit goods or engaging in copyright piracy from participating in the Ad Network’s advertising programs. By working across the industry, these best practices should help reduce the financial incentives for pirate sites by cutting off their revenue supply while maintaining a healthy Internet and promoting innovation.  




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You can turn SafeSearch on or off from the Search Settings page

2. Save and lock your preferences
Once you’ve set your preferences, make sure to click the Save button at the bottom of the page. And if you're signed in to your Google Account, you can also lock the SafeSearch filter so others can’t change your preferences—just click “Lock SafeSearch.” Now the setting is protected with your Google Account password. While no filter is 100 percent perfect, with SafeSearch on you can feel more confident browsing the web with your family.

3. Turn on YouTube Safety Mode
YouTube Safety Mode helps you and your family avoid videos that might be OK with our Community Guidelines, but you might not want popping up on your family computer. Turning on Safety Mode in YouTube takes just one step. Scroll down to the bottom of any YouTube page and click on the button that says “Safety” at the bottom of the page—now you can choose your preferences for Safety Mode.


Click the button that says “Safety” at the bottom of any YouTube page, and then choose your preferences

4. Lock your Safety Mode preferences
Just like with Safe Search, you can also log in with your Google Account and lock YouTube Safety Mode on each one of your computer’s browsers. It will filter videos with mature content, so they won’t show up in video search results, related videos, playlists, shows or films. YouTube Safety Mode will also help hide objectionable comments.

5. Turn on SafeSearch on mobile
SafeSearch is available on your phone or other mobile device, as well as the web. You can turn on SafeSearch for Google on your mobile device by opening your phone’s browser and visiting google.com/preferences. Scroll to the SafeSearch Filters section to select what level of filtering you would like to enable. Be sure to tap “Save Preferences” after you’ve made your selection.

To enable SafeSearch on YouTube’s mobile app, first open your settings, then press “Search.” From there, select “SafeSearch Filtering” and select moderate or strict filtering.

Helping your family have a positive and safe experience with Google is important to you, and it’s important to us, too. That’s why we’ve partnered with parents and experts on free and easy to use tools and resources to help your family stay safe and secure when browsing online. If you’re interested in even more of our tools and tips, please see our Good to Know site, and stay tuned for more security tips throughout the summer.

(Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog)
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Two of the biggest threats online are malicious software (known as malware) that can take control of your computer, and phishing scams that try to trick you into sharing passwords or other private information.

So in 2006 we started a Safe Browsing program to find and flag suspect websites. This means that when you are surfing the web, we can now warn you when a site is unsafe. We're currently flagging up to 10,000 sites a day--and because we share this technology with other browsers there are about 1 billion users we can help keep safe.

But we're always looking for new ways to protect users' security. So today we're launching a new section on our Transparency Report that will shed more light on the sources of malware and phishing attacks.  You can now learn how many people see Safe Browsing warnings each week, where malicious sites are hosted around the world, how quickly websites become reinfected after their owners clean malware from their sites, and other tidbits we’ve surfaced.



Sharing this information also aligns well with our Transparency Report, which already gives information about government requests for user data, government requests to remove content, and current disruptions to our services.

To learn more, explore the new Safe Browsing information on this page. Webmasters and network administrators can find recommendations for dealing with malware infections, including resources like Google Webmaster Tools and Safe Browsing Alerts for Network Administrators.
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Over in New York, Roberto Gil designs and builds children’s furniture—loft beds, bunk beds and entire custom rooms. Casa Kids’ furniture is custom designed for the family to grow along with the child. Roberto works out of his Brooklyn workshop and doesn’t sell to large furniture stores, which means the Casa Kids website is an essential tool for him to connect with potential customers.To grow even further, Roberto began using AdWords in 2010. In the first few months traffic to his site went up 30 percent. Today, two-thirds of his new customers come from Google. Meet Roberto and learn more about how he is making the web work for Casa Kids:


These are just two examples of how the web is working for American businesses. According to a McKinsey study, small businesses that make use of the web are growing twice as fast as those that are not on the web.  That’s because the web is where we go for information and inspiration—from math games to practice over the summer to someone to design and build that perfect bunk bed for your kids. Ninety-seven percent of American Internet users look online for local products and services. Whether we’re on our smartphones, tablets or computers, the web helps us find what we are looking for.

Here at Google, we see firsthand how the web is helping American businesses grow and thrive. Through our search and advertising programs, businesses like Casa Kids find customers, publishers like Hooda Math earn money from their content, and nonprofits solicit donations and volunteers. These tools are how we make money, and they’re also how millions of other U.S. businesses do, too.  

In 2012, Google's search and advertising tools helped provide $94 billion of economic activity for more than 1.9 million American businesses—advertisers, publishers and nonprofits. This represents a 17 percent increase from 2011. Check out the impact made in each state, along with stories of local businesses using the web to grow.

Whether it’s building skills or building furniture, Google helps to build businesses. We're thrilled to be part of such a vibrant industry and are committed to continuing to help make the web work for people and businesses everywhere.
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Editor’s note:  Over the years, we have run a series of blogposts detailing our efforts to remove bad ads from our systems, and describing our approach to handling controversial content on our services.  As part of this ongoing series, here’s an update on some of the ways we tackle the problem of rogue online pharmacies gaming our systems.
For the last several years, Google has worked closely with a number of organizations, government agencies, and businesses to combat rogue online pharmacies from all angles.  

Collectively, we are making it increasingly difficult for these operators to effectively promote their rogue pharmacies online. A variety of websites and web services are refusing ads from suspected rogue pharmacies. Domain name registrars are removing suspect rogue pharmacies from their networks.  Payment processors are blocking payments to these operators, and social networking sites are removing them from their systems too.

As a result, rogue pharmacies continually adapt their online marketing practices, meaning this is an ongoing battle.  We wanted to share some of the steps Google takes to combat them.

Keeping ads safe

Making sure ads appearing on Google and our partner sites are safe continues to be a top priority.  We have extremely stringent ads policies, and use sophisticated automated systems, along with some human review, to identify, block and remove ads suspected of linking to rogue pharmacies.  We disrupt their marketing efforts by making it difficult for rogue pharmacies to abuse our services and evade our filters.

  • Since 2010, we’ve only permitted U.S.-based online pharmacies accredited under the National Association Boards of Pharmacy “VIPPS” program to run pharma ads in our AdWords program.  We were the first online search provider to require this certification - there are less than 40 VIPPS certified pharmacies operating in the U.S.
  • We partner with LegitScript, an independent company with deep knowledge about online pharmacies, to conduct weekly “sweeps” of ads on Google to help ensure that we are keeping our ads safe.
  • According to LegitScript, the number of illegal drug and pharmacy ads on major search engines like Google and Bing has declined by 99.9% percent since 2010.
  • In the last two years alone, Google has blocked or removed from its systems more than 3 million ads by suspected rogue pharmacies.

Search results

Our stance on filtering our search results is well-publicized. We do not remove content from search results except in narrow circumstances (e.g., child sexual abuse imagery, certain links to copyrighted material; spam; malware).

Search results reflect the web and what’s online - the good and the bad.  Filtering a website from search results won’t remove it from the web, or block other websites that link to that website.  It's not Google's place to determine what content should be censored - that responsibility belongs with the courts and the lawmakers.

Google will abide by court decisions deciding which content on the web is and is not legal.   We have always removed from our search results any page found by a legitimate court to be unlawful, whether an online rogue pharmacy or otherwise.

Rogue pharmacies are clearly a matter of public concern. This is why we work closely with the Center for Safe Internet Pharmacies (“CSIP”), a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to stopping rogue online pharmacies and keeping consumers safe on the web.  If a user searches on Google for terms related to online pharmacies or buying pharmaceuticals, a prominent advertisement from CSIP will often appear on the search results page, urging caution and linking to the LegitScript pharmacy verification tool.


CSIP’s ad campaign on Google is funded by a Google Grant, which provides non-profits like CSIP with financial and technical assistance to promote their important missions online.  Campaigns like these help users to better understand the risks involved with rogue pharmacies and fake drugs, at the moment they’re searching for them, and provides users with a simple way to check if any pharmacy they find online is legitimate.

Updating autocomplete predictions

Autocomplete helps our users search faster.  While a user types, autocomplete predicts the user’s most likely search queries based on what the user has already typed. These predictions are an algorithmic reflection of the search terms that are popular with users and on the Internet.  We occasionally tweak autocomplete to prevent shocking or offensive entries from being displayed, but don’t otherwise decide which entries appear in autocomplete.  

Because the feature is algorithmic, some autocomplete entries may include phrases that potentially relate to rogue pharmacies.  We’re evaluating how best to address this issue, have already started running tests on the subject, and always welcome feedback.  

It is still important to understand that - whether or not a predicted query is shown in autocomplete - people can still search for objectionable content that might exist on the web.

Enforcing YouTube guidelines

YouTube has implemented robust community guidelines governing uploaded content and user activity on YouTube.  These guidelines prohibit spam, which includes the posting of large amounts of untargeted, unwanted, and repetitive content. YouTube's guidelines also prohibit the sale of illegal goods or promotion of dangerous activities. Our teams respond around the clock when such content is reported to us. To make the notification process as effective as possible, YouTube provides a flagging tool under every video on the site that lets users and law enforcement easily alert us whenever a video contains content that violates YouTube’s policies regarding pharmaceuticals or illegal drugs.



Earlier this month, YouTube was notified of a number of videos promoting pharmaceuticals that violated its guidelines, and immediately removed them.  YouTube will continue doing so when notified.

Working together with regulators and the industry

In 2010, following discussions with the White House, Google teamed-up with organizations across different industries — including GoDaddy, Microsoft, Visa, Yahoo! —  and took the important step of founding the industry group CSIP. In addition to its public awareness campaigns (such as the one mentioned above), CSIP recently highlighted some industry initiatives by its member companies against rogue pharmacies, and specifically called out the efforts of companies like Google here.

Over the last few years, Google has made thousands of referrals to law enforcement concerning suspected rogue online pharmacies, and will continue to do so.  

In October 2012, we participated in the successful Operation Pangea, in which the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, in partnership with international regulatory and law enforcement agencies, took action against more than 4,100 Internet pharmacies worldwide. We also regularly keep officials up to date on our efforts - in writing and in person.   For example, when the National Association of Attorneys General Intellectual Property Committee invited multiple search engines to participate in discussions with the Committee on November 28, 2012, Google was the only search engine to do so.

*****

The industry as a whole has made significant strides in the fight against rogue pharmacies.  Working together, companies in the private sector, non-profit organizations, and law enforcement have made it increasingly difficult for rogue pharmacies to effectively market their illegal products online, and operators of these sites are being forced to turn to much less effective marketing techniques from the outskirts of the Internet.  

This is great progress, and Google remains committed to working with others in this important fight to protect our users.
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