Introducing Google's European Public Policy Blog
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Welcome to Google's new voice on public policy in Europe.
Since its beginning, Google has taken an innovative approach to achieving its mission of organizing information and making it accessible and useful. This includes how we communicate with policy makers and users. We don't merely publish position papers or press releases, but a blog. We want to be transparent about our positions and the reasons behind them.
Google's European policy team represents our messages and opinions in Brussels and around Europe, engaging with policymakers and the press on issues that affect the Internet and its role in modern society. You can expect to see us post about the benefits of the open internet, open standards, freedom of speech, innovation, competition, user information and user choice, along with variety of pressing policy topics ranging from privacy, copyright and trademark protection, content regulation, and broadband policy.
In 2007, we introduced Google's Public Policy blog edited out of Washington. As Andrew McLaughlin, our Global Director of Public Policy and Government Affairs said at the time of that launch: "Yes, we're a multinational corporation that argues for our positions before officials, legislators, and opinion leaders. At the same time, we want our users to be part of the effort, to know what we're saying and why, and to help us refine and improve our policy positions and advocacy strategies. With input and ideas from our users, we'll surely do a better job of fighting for our common interests."
This rationale remains the same, only now we're "going local" and bringing the same Googley style to public policy communications to Europe. European-based Googlers will write and edit. You may wonder why the blog contains more than a months' worth of posts, given that we're only just now launching. We tested out the blog internally to limber up our blogging muscles. Now that we're going public, we thought it'd be fun to share our earlier internal posts. In the weeks and months ahead, expect to hear more from us on all sorts of issues.
We hope this blog will serve as a resource for policy stakeholders, the press and users throughout Europe. We welcome a conversation - feedback is vital - so please do leave your comments below.
Posted by Simon Hampton & Susan Pointer, Directors for European Public Policy and Government Affairs
Since its beginning, Google has taken an innovative approach to achieving its mission of organizing information and making it accessible and useful. This includes how we communicate with policy makers and users. We don't merely publish position papers or press releases, but a blog. We want to be transparent about our positions and the reasons behind them.
Google's European policy team represents our messages and opinions in Brussels and around Europe, engaging with policymakers and the press on issues that affect the Internet and its role in modern society. You can expect to see us post about the benefits of the open internet, open standards, freedom of speech, innovation, competition, user information and user choice, along with variety of pressing policy topics ranging from privacy, copyright and trademark protection, content regulation, and broadband policy.
In 2007, we introduced Google's Public Policy blog edited out of Washington. As Andrew McLaughlin, our Global Director of Public Policy and Government Affairs said at the time of that launch: "Yes, we're a multinational corporation that argues for our positions before officials, legislators, and opinion leaders. At the same time, we want our users to be part of the effort, to know what we're saying and why, and to help us refine and improve our policy positions and advocacy strategies. With input and ideas from our users, we'll surely do a better job of fighting for our common interests."
This rationale remains the same, only now we're "going local" and bringing the same Googley style to public policy communications to Europe. European-based Googlers will write and edit. You may wonder why the blog contains more than a months' worth of posts, given that we're only just now launching. We tested out the blog internally to limber up our blogging muscles. Now that we're going public, we thought it'd be fun to share our earlier internal posts. In the weeks and months ahead, expect to hear more from us on all sorts of issues.
We hope this blog will serve as a resource for policy stakeholders, the press and users throughout Europe. We welcome a conversation - feedback is vital - so please do leave your comments below.
Posted by Simon Hampton & Susan Pointer, Directors for European Public Policy and Government Affairs
Welcome online. It's a very good thing Google now get localised in Europe, regarding public policy as well. If the challenges are pretty the same as in the US, the approach and the way you can educate fragmented markets is obviously different.
ReplyDeleteI look forward to read from you
Jean-Yves Huwart
Entreprise Globale
Hello from Spain!
ReplyDeleteIt's really encouraging to see a big company sharing it's ideas, viewpoints and motivations. I like your Washington based public policy blog, but I really look forward to reading this european version.
Keep working, you are changing the world!