The FTC's advertising town hall, and our new privacy channel
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Intermediary liability and the future of the Internet in India
Sunday, October 14, 2007
While we thank the Committee for its hard work and thoughtful deliberations, we're troubled by this tone and line of thinking. If implemented, these recommendations would create a hostile environment in India for Internet services, and for the entrepreneurs and innovators working to create the next set of revolutionary Internet technologies for Indian users.
For intermediary websites to be held liable for the "reckless activities" of others is fundamentally unjust, ignores the origin of the content, misunderstands the size and scale of the Internet, and fails to appreciate the great benefits yielded to the vast majority of Indian users by these information platforms.
At Google we take issues like cybercrime, the transmission of illegal content, and its harm on victims very seriously. We work with government authorities to ensure Google's platforms in India are not used illegally and that they are in full compliance with our own terms and conditions. We also work diligently to ensure our own community standards (like orkut's, for example) are not violated on our sites.
It would be technologically infeasible for ISPs and web companies to pre-screen each and every bit of content being uploaded onto our platforms, especially as the amount of information coming online increases exponentially in India and around the world. More importantly, imposing such a burdensome standard would crush innovation, throttle Indian competitiveness, and prevent entrepreneurs from deploying new services in the first place, a truly unfortunate outcome for the growth of the Internet in India.
It is possible that this portion of the Committee's report is based on a misapprehension of the intent of the proposed amendment. Specifically, the Committee may have believed that the proposed amendment would provide absolute immunity to Internet intermediaries, and wished to stress the need for a clear obligation to react promptly when put on notice of unlawful content. If this was, in fact, the case, the Committee's intent, its report would be consistent with the proposed amendment, and in line with global best practices. If not, the Committee's position would likely result in the hobbling of the Internet in India. For that reason, we intend to seek clarification of the Committee's understandings and intent.
The choice for the Indian government is stark: If it wishes to enable Indians to have access to cutting-edge Internet services, and to promote innovation on the Internet, the Department of Information Technology should uphold the principle of qualified safe harbors for Internet intermediaries.
Pro-consumer spectrum auction rules at risk at the FCC?
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Similarly, the “handset locking prohibited rule” states explicitly that
“no licensee may disable features on handsets it provides to customers….”
Needless to say, any attempt to change the reading of this rules language would seriously undermine the promise of consumers seeking more choices of wireless providers and services. Earlier this week, we sent a letter to the FCC urging the agency to resist this late-proposed rule change.
We are still carefully analyzing whether and how we might participate in the upcoming auction. However, if we do end up bidding and ultimately win the spectrum in question, we would ensure that consumers have the right to decide which devices and applications they want to use on our network. We would also encourage third party software applications -- even those that compete directly with our own services -- on the theory that users deserve the right to pick and choose the programs they want to use online.
We think the Internet offers the optimal model for what best serves the interests of all consumers. To that end, we hope the FCC sticks to its guns as it tries to introduce the open ethos of the 'Net to a small segment of the closed wireless world.
