January 2013

January 28, is Data Privacy Day, when the world recognizes the importance of preserving your online privacy and security. If it’s like most other days, Google—like many companies that provide online services to users—will receive dozens of letters, faxes and emails from government agencies and courts around the world requesting access to our users’ private account information. Typically this happens in connection with government investigations. It’s important for law enforcement agencies to pursue illegal activity and keep the public safe. We’re a law-abiding company, and we don’t want our services to be used in harmful ways. But it’s just as important that laws protect you against overly broad requests for your personal information. To strike this balance, we’re focused on three initiatives that I’d like to share, so you know what Google is doing to protect your privacy and security.

First, for several years we have advocated for updating laws like the U.S. Electronic Communications Privacy Act, so the same protections that apply to your personal documents that you keep in your home also apply to your email and online documents. We’ll continue this effort strongly in 2013 through our membership in the Digital Due Process coalition and other initiatives.

Second, we’ll continue our long-standing strict process for handling these kinds of requests. When government agencies ask for our users’ personal information—like what you provide when you sign up for a Google Account, or the contents of an email—our team does several things:

• We scrutinize the request carefully to make sure it satisfies the law and our policies. For us to consider complying, it generally must be made in writing, signed by an authorized official of the requesting agency and issued under an appropriate law.
• We evaluate the scope of the request. If it’s overly broad, we may refuse to provide the information or seek to narrow the request. We do this frequently.
• We notify users about legal demands when appropriate so that they can contact the entity requesting it or consult a lawyer. Sometimes we can’t, either because we’re legally prohibited (in which case we sometimes seek to lift gag orders or unseal search warrants) or we don’t have their verified contact information.
• We require that government agencies conducting criminal investigations use a search warrant to compel us to provide a user’s search query information and private content stored in a Google Account—such as Gmail messages, documents, photos and YouTube videos. We believe a warrant is required by the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits unreasonable search and seizure and overrides conflicting provisions in ECPA.

And third, we work hard to provide you with information about government requests.

Over the past week, a number of users of the popular photo sharing app Instagram and parent company Facebook have been locked out of their accounts and prompted by both services to upload images of their government issued photo IDs to regain access.

Concerned users seeking to regain account access have turned to several outlets online, including Yahoo Answers, to try and determine whether or not the prompts asking for images of their IDs are real or are hacking attempts. More frustrating still for some users, not all IDs have been accepted, leading Facebook and Instagram to send follow-up emails asking users to provide more documentation, including their birth certificates, if necessary.

Antigua threatened to ignore U.S. copyrights in retaliation for an online gaming ban that the tiny Caribbean nation says has “devastated” its economy.

The country sought and received the World Trade Organization's authorization to set up a website to sell materials that infringe on U.S. copyrights without paying the American copyright holders. The decision could rekindle congressional concerns about subjugating U.S. policy to international law and complicate President Obama’s second-term trade agenda. The Antiguan government said, however, that it still hopes to reach a deal with the United States and avoid the retaliation.

This year's average Super Bowl commercial price is expected to climb to about the same level as a year ago -- close to 10% -- with many commercials bought at $4 million for a 30-second commercial. Average pricing for a 30-second commercial for this year's big football game on Feb. 3 on CBS featuring the Baltimore Ravens and San Francisco 49ers will hit around $3.8 million, according to industry executives. Nielsen says Super Bowl pricing in 2012 on NBC was $3.4 million on average for a 30-second commercial, up around 9% or $300,000 from 2011. Automotive commercials has been more dominant than ever. Nielsen says automotive was the top category, outspending beer category by nearly threefold in 2012: $90.5 million. (Auto was at a collective $23 million in 2008). The beer category was a distant second place at $31.5 million in 2012. Movie marketers and soft drink advertisers came next, each at around $21 million. Next was general consumer advertisers at about $10 million.