Google Data » Adam Kovacevich

Keeping Google and America Competitive

Adam Kovacevich — Mon, 14 May 2007 22:26:00 +0000

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.

Mr. Hurley Goes to Washington

Adam Kovacevich — Thu, 10 May 2007 22:25:00 +0000

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.

Google Politics, French Elections Edition

Adam Kovacevich — Wed, 09 May 2007 22:24:00 +0000

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.

Maps Mashups Hit Capitol Hill

Adam Kovacevich — Tue, 08 May 2007 22:23:00 +0000

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.

McCain Talks Tech Policy at the Googleplex

Adam Kovacevich — Mon, 07 May 2007 22:21:00 +0000

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.

Tapping the Nation’s Airwaves for More Net Access

Adam Kovacevich — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 22:21:00 +0000

Posted by Richard Whitt, Washington Telecom and Media Counsel

Later this year, the federal government plans to auction off spectrum -- the invisible airwaves that have brought us radio and television service -- as part of the transition from analog to digital TV broadcasts. The Federal Communications Commission is right now developing rules for how that auction will proceed. As the LA Times recently editorialized:

The FCC's goal for the auction should be to encourage the development of more broadband Internet services. So much of the economy's potential depends on high-speed Internet access, yet the U.S. lags many Asian and European countries in the percentage of broadband users.

We couldn't agree more. In the United States, spectrum traditionally has been allocated in a fragmented, inefficient manner. As a result, entities find it increasingly difficult to secure the spectrum they need to provide end users with advanced Internet applications over fixed and mobile broadband networks. Google has joined together with several other technology companies in the "Coalition for 4G in America" to advocate a few basic auction rules that would help foster national market entry by innovative new players. As the Times put it:

The commission should heed recommendations from high-tech and satellite TV firms, which say a 10% increase in the size of the current plan's blocks would allow for more types of wireless broadband technology. Having more sources of broadband is particularly important in rural areas, where high-speed Internet service has been scarce. The rules should also allow bidders to offer a premium for a national set of licenses, which would encourage the creation of national broadband networks while deterring present broadband suppliers from hoarding the airwaves in a single region. Those suppliers might still try to buy national licenses and offer services that don't compete with their DSL offerings.

By structuring the upcoming auction in this way, the FCC could take a big step forward to promoting both competition and high-tech innovation...steps that one day could make broadband much more affordable and readily available to consumers across the country.

Utah’s Unconstitutional Ban on Comparative Keyword Advertising

Adam Kovacevich — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 22:16:00 +0000

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

Remember the Coke and Pepsi TV ads from the "cola wars" of the 80s and 90s, when the cola giants sponsored taste tests, hired rock stars, and spent a lot of time arguing that one formula of sugar water was better than the other? How about the Bounty paper towel ads, in which one towel picked up what appeared to be a gallon of liquid spills while the competitor's towel seemed to have the absorption capacity of a rock? Though these comparative ads are good for consumers, promote competition, and symbolize free speech, Utah last week passed a misguided law attempting to prevent consumers from seeing these kind of ads online.

According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the law -- which was passed and signed into law without any hearings or notice -- would "allow trademark owners to prevent their marks from being used as keywords to generate comparative ads. If this law takes effect, a company like Chevrolet couldn't purchase 'sponsored link' space on the Google results page when a user types 'Toyota' as part of a search query -- at least if the latter term is registered in Utah as an 'electronic registration mark.'" But don't just take EFF's word for it. Utah's own general counsel told legislators that the bill was probably unconstitutional because it would disrupt interstate commerce. (Constitutional Law 101: the regulation of interstate commerce is the responsibility of the U.S. Congress.)

The law clearly runs counter to both trademark law and capitalism, both of which embrace comparative advertising. For years, federal courts have upheld the right to use trademarked terms in comparative ads. And competition -- which generally helps lower prices and benefits consumers -- is fueled in part by companies being able to use advertising to draw contrasts with their competitors.

Aside from its obvious constitutional flaws, the bill presents other problems. It lets individuals and companies register "electronic registration marks" even if they don't actually own the trademark. So this new law so it could cause a free-for-all in which any individual or company could claim another company's trademark as their own "electronic registration mark." Maybe the Utah legislature was looking for ways to create a 21st century gold rush.

The bill also isn't limited to online uses. Any use of a trademark in connection with comparative advertising would be a violation -- including a supermarket checkout coupon that gives you a discount for Huggies next time if you bought Pampers this time. It also does away with two critical components of federal trademark law -- that a trademark be protectable and that infringement occurs only when there is a likelihood of confusion. That could open the door for generic or descriptive terms (i.e., "water," "food," "supermarket") to be registered, preventing anyone from using them in connection with advertising.

Finally, this law could also infringe on free speech, by preventing an advocacy group from placing an ad in protest of a company's business practices.

The new law is very likely to be challenged in court, and we believe it will be struck down. We'll certainly be working with other Internet companies to help educate officials in Utah about the consequences of this bad piece of legislation.