Author Archives: European Public Policy Blog

Renewing our pledge to the Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs

Digital skills are crucial to Europe’s future growth and success. We know that the current skills gap will only grow with up to 900,000 jobs going unfilled in 2020. This matters because it prevents businesses from taking new orders, building new products and offering additional services to their customers. It is a real dampener to growth.

That’s why Google is committed to helping more Europeans acquire these essential digital skills. And it’s why we’re proud to be part of the European Commission’s Grand Coalition for Digital Jobs. Today, at the Net Futures 2015 event, we updated our pledge to the Coalition, and included our recent commitment to train up to 1 million Europeans by 2016.

In 2013 when we signed up, we committed to help 20,000 entrepreneurs, train up to 100,000 school children in computer science and build links with universities. We have already outgrown our ambitions. We organized hundreds of events, reaching tens of thousands of entrepreneurs. By the end of 2014, we had reached over a million school children. Finally, we launched 25+ open online courses in collaboration with universities across Europe, focusing on the themes of maths, computer science, entrepreneurship, digital marketing and law.

And we’re continuing to train Europeans and their businesses. This year for instance, we expect to reach 50,000 entrepreneurs directly in our three Google campuses - in London, Warsaw and Madrid - and through our partnerships with The Factory in Berlin and NUMA in Paris. Also, we want to grow our partnerships. Last year, our partners Startup Weekend and Startup Grind held events in 32 and 20 countries in Europe respectively and our Google for Entrepreneurs Week took place in 14 countries. This is a huge testament to the enthusiasm that is out there. We’re excited to see what this year will bring. 

As we announced last month, we are also doubling down on our investment in helping small and medium sized businesses through our Growth Engine campaigns. Our initiatives already include Weltweit Wachsen in Germany, focusing on exports; Activate in Spain, where we are helping unemployed people get back to work by training them on web development, digital marketing and e-commerce; Made in Italy, where we are supporting Italian craftsmanship by showing them how to trade their wares online; Google Pour les Pros in France where we support SMEs via meetings at their shops, train them on digital skills and match them with young graduates, and Digital Garage, where we will offer face to face training to small businesses in five UK cities.

We believe in young people too. Our computer science education programme will work with seven STEM and computer science education organisations this year, to deliver training to 100,000 young people from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and ethnic minorities as well as girls in the UK, France, the Netherlands, Ireland, Spain, Hungary and Romania.

Working together to ensure entrepreneurial minds are equipped with the skills they need, remains central to our commitment to Europe.

Posted by: Matt Brittin, President, EMEA Business and Operations, Google

TechRaking London: muckrakers tackle climate change

A free and robust press is a fundamental pillar of an open and democratic society. Ever since the earliest newspapers, journalists have worked hard to give the public the information they need to bring about better communities. In today’s world, new technologies offer new opportunities for great journalism focused on the public good.

In that spirit, the News Lab at Google is teaming up with The Center for Investigative Reporting in 2015 for a series of events that will connect journalists, technologists and designers and develop transformative solutions to some of the challenges faced by communities around the world.

The name of the series is TechRaking - a modern twist on an early twentieth century term for investigative journalism, “muckraking” - and our first event will be in London on March 25th.

Each TechRaking event will focus on a specific design challenge. The focus of TechRaking London will be climate change. Participants will be asked to design a product or service that engages audiences and inspires them to tackle climate change, while also revealing the scale of the issue in new and insightful ways. Additional TechRaking events, on other themes, will follow in Berlin and Paris, as well as in the US and Canada.

The best ideas from TechRaking, as judged by an independent panel, will come to life as services, products and practices in journalism, thanks to our partnership with TWG, who will be providing design and development time to turn top ideas into working prototypes. We hope these collaborations will result in new public tools to help us all ensure journalism, through technology, ensures access to critical information for everyone.

Posted by Ryan Bruno, Manager, News Lab

Taking street art from the wall to your screens

For hundreds of years, street art has transformed our public spaces into open-air galleries, adding vibrancy to urban landscapes. But using the city as a canvas often means these artworks are here today, gone tomorrow. With the Google Art Project, we’re working to preserve this ephemeral art form and make it available to fans around the world, anywhere and anytime.

Last June, as a first step, we added more than 5,000 images of street art and around 100 exhibitions, curated by galleries around the world, to the Google Art Project. Today, we’re more than doubling the number of street artworks available in high resolution to over 10.000, working in tandem with 86 art organizations from 34 countries.


New immersive experiences
From stencil to sculpture installations, mosaic and collage, a great variety of styles from around the world are now represented on the Google Art Project.

Are you ready for an urban art safari around the world? Hit the streets with Street View and listen to the stories behind the art: travel from Sweden’s most famous street festival to New York city’s rooftops where you will discover water tanks wrapped with art. Or enjoy a break in Buenos Aires, where abandoned walls in the northern neighborhoods of the city became a source of inspiration for street artists from all over the world.

If you want to know more about local street art scenes, places and practitioners, don't worry - we’ve put 260 digital exhibits online [link] for you to explore and a dozen immersive street view tours! For example you can now take a virtual tour of London’s trendy East End, home to some the world’s finest artworks, enjoy the colourful murals of Los Angeles’ Winston Street (aka Indian Alley), learn more about the longest open air gallery in the world in Berlin and see how street artists get inspired by 17th and 18th century paintings.


When the web and street art meet, the walls can come to life: discover the mesmerizing work of artists like INSA or Checko who painted, photographed, re-painted and then re-photographed a wall to create animated street art: the so-called GIF-iti.


Bringing street art into our daily lives
We're also excited to offer new ways of experiencing street art in your daily life - at home, at work, on the go - with the introduction of street art to Chrome, Chromecast, Android Wear and to your mobile devices.

Turn your TV screen into a vibrant backdrop of street artworks, download new partner apps on your phone or tablet for a tour of Melbourne's famous laneways, an art safari in Portugal, or a glimpse of the multicoloured murals that are covering Delhi, Lima and Honolulu. Finally, turn your smartwatch into a colourful artwork with our new Street Art Watch Faces! And if you want to discover a new artwork every time you open a browser tab in Chrome with the new Google Art Project Chrome extension.

So much goes into making a piece of street art. Yet its transient nature puts it at risk of being scrubbed out and lost forever. The Google Art Project allows these works of art to transcend the walls, be transported to your screen and live on. Visit the Google Cultural Institute and follow @googleart to discover more.

Posted by Lucy Schwartz, Program Manager, Google Cultural Institute

The Digital Garage


How does a company founded in a Silicon Valley get to Leeds Dock? We arrived there this week by understanding that the benefits of the Internet and digital technology are not the privilege of a select few, but are transforming businesses from all parts of the economy and all parts of the country.

Google has long been committed to getting British businesses online. So much so that our programmes, Getting British Business Online and Google Juice Bars have already helped 250,000 UK SMEs become digital businesses. Today we are announcing that we will do even more in the UK by committing to digital skills training for 200,000 small businesses by 2016 through Google’s Digital Garages.  

Google’s search engine helps businesses connect with customers, and is an engine of growth for UK businesses. For instance, Roy Powell from Blinds R Us started his business in Leeds back in 1986. It supplies and fits made-to-measure blinds. He told us that without Google+ and Google Maps, customers would not know about him and his business. Google has helped Roy grow his customer base well beyond his traditional reach of Leeds.

Blinds R Us is an example of the power of the Internet for small businesses. In his report, Growing Your Business, Lord Young reported that small businesses with a strong web presence grow more than twice as quickly as those without. But we know that many businesses have yet to reach the full potential that digital offers and that any need a turbo charge.

To address this, Google is launching The Digital Garage, a multi-million pound programme that will provide digital skills training to 200,000 SMEs both online and in person at pop-up training venues across the UK.

Digital Garages will be based in the heart of local communities, where residents will be able to learn how to use the power of the Internet to reach beyond their traditional markets and find new customers well beyond their traditional boundaries.

Google cannot deliver a programme of this scale alone. So to reach the widest number of participants, we have been working nationally and locally with organisations including the CBI, FSB, Chamber of Commerce and LEPs. Our first Digital Garage, The Leeds Garage will open to the public for six months beginning March 30th offering courses, one-to-one mentoring sessions, Code Clubs and much more.  

In addition to skilling the businesses of today, we’re keen to nurture future talent. With funding from Google.org we are investing in computer science training for more than 25,000 Leeds teachers in partnership with Code Club Pro, Computing at Schools (CAS) and Raspberry Pi. Workshops and events for teachers will be held at Digital Garages and in local schools. Google will likewise offer online training resources and donate Raspberry Pis for use in classrooms.

Our vision is simple: businesses of all sizes stand to benefit from the transformative power of the digital era. It is Google’s responsibility, as both a catalyst and an engine for growth, to help individual businesses prosper, and the UK economy grow.  

Posted by Eileen Naughton, Managing Director of Google UK and Ireland

Protecting people across the web with Google Safe Browsing



Editor’s note: Online security is on everybody's minds these days, so we want to give you updates about various ways Google keeps you safe online. Today, on the web’s birthday, we’re highlighting recent improvements to Safe Browsing, technology that protects more than 1.1 billion people all over the world.

As the web continues to evolve, it’s important that user protections develop in lockstep so that people stay safe online. Our Safe Browsing technology may not be quite as old as the web—which celebrates its 26th birthday today—but ever since Safe Browsing launched nearly eight years ago, it’s continually adapted to protect web users, everywhere.
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Safe Browsing gives users—both on Google and across on the web—information they need to steer clear of danger. The dangerous sites detected by Safe Browsing generally fall into two categories: sites that attack users intentionally with either malware, phishing, or unwanted software that is deceptive or hard to uninstall, or sites that attack users unintentionally because they have been compromised, often without the site’s owner realizing this has happened.

Once we detect these sites, Safe Browsing warns people about them in a variety of ways.  You’ve probably come across a warning like this in Chrome, Firefox or Safari; it’s powered by Safe Browsing:
Today, Safe Browsing shows people more than 5 million warnings per day for all sorts of malicious sites and unwanted software, and discovers more than 50,000 malware sites and more than 90,000 phishing sites every month. If you’re interested, you can see information about the dangerous sites that are detected by this technology anytime in our Safe Browsing Transparency Report.

We also use Safe Browsing technology to warn website owners or operators about issues with their sites so they can quickly fix them. We provide basic site maintenance tips, as well as specific Safe Browsing notifications in Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics. Often site owners don’t realize there are issues with their sites until they get these notifications.

Recent developments

Since its earliest days, Safe Browsing has been widely available, and free—for users, site owners, and other companies—to use and integrate into their own products.  In the early days, we focused on detecting dangerous sites and then showing people warnings:
old safe browsing warning.png
An early Safe Browsing notification, c. 2007. These would appear in the top right corner of people’s web browsers when they visited a site that had been flagged by Safe Browsing as potentially dangerous.

But, just as attacks become more sophisticated, we’ve made sure our own technologies have kept up. Over the years, we’ve built Safe Browsing into other Google products to help protect people in more places:


  • Safe Browsing API: We already make Safe Browsing data available for free to developers. This week we’re adding information about sites that host unwanted software, allowing developers to better protect their users as well.
  • Google Analytics: We recently integrated Safe Browsing notifications into Google Analytics, so site owners can quickly take action to protect their users if there are issues with their websites. Previously, we’d only provided these warnings via our Webmaster Tools service.
  • Ads: We’ve also recently begun to identify ads that target people with unwanted software.

As the web grows up, Safe Browsing technology will, too. We’re looking forward to protecting the web, and its users, for many birthdays to come.



Posted by: Panayiotis Mavrommatis, Safe Browsing Team

Taking ‘Grow Greek Tourism’ to the next level

Tourism has always been a sector of major importance for Greece. In 2014, it is estimated to have contributed 17 billion euros to the Greek economy, accounting for more than 20.5% of GDP and 20% of employment. The opportunity for further development thanks to the web is significant as it is estimated that an increase in the online activities of the Greek tourism industry throughout the year could grow Greek GDP by 3% and create 100,000 new jobs.

Thousands of small and medium sized businesses in Greece already use the internet to connect with customers from all over the world. For instance, there’s Aleka’s House, a stone guest house in Pelion, that now attracts tourists throughout the year with the help of the web: “We have identified the countries where we see most searches for off-season holidays and created online campaigns. By doing this, we managed to attract tourists from abroad and increase bookings”, said Lena, Aleka’s House owner.

To make these opportunities available to a wider number of SMBs, we launched a pilot project in September, in collaboration with the Minister of Tourism, the National Tourism Board and the Federation of Tourism Enterprises, aimed at teaching digital skills to local businesses active in tourism.

More than 600 companies participated in the first two trainings, but we want to do more and hear more success stories from Greek travel businesses. So we are very excited to announce today that we'll bring Grow Greek Tourism to 5 additional regions in Greece, reaching thousands of SMBs.

Thanks to the trainings we’ll set up, businesses will be empowered to use the internet to bring more tourists to their hotels, restaurants and sites. They will learn how to use search trends to identify new markets for incoming tourists, online marketing techniques to drive interest in their businesses and be inspired by national and international examples. They will also receive support to use key digital tools for increasing their visibility as well as promoting their products.
The owner of Yoga On Crete, a yoga retreat, explains how she used the web to make her dream come true

Events will take place in Kalamata and Mykonos οn March 23rd and 27th and in Corfu, Thessaloniki, Rhodes and Athens on April 16th, 21th, 24th and 29th respectively. All local businesses - directly or indirectly related to tourism - are invited to subscribe to the free events, through the initiative’s website at g.co/GrowGreekTourism.

Posted by Dionisis Kolokotsas, Public Policy & Government Relations Manager, Athens

A growth engine for European Business

"In Sweden, it's important to wear nice socks," Marc Verschueren explained in Brussels last week, "because when you visit someone's house, you take your shoes off." That single cultural insight spawned a business that has made colourful socks cool in over 35 countries around the world. Marc shared how their success was made possible because of the Internet and Google products like AdWords at an event we hosted to highlight how Google is a growth engine for European businesses.

And there were many other great stories shared that morning. Tricia Cusden travelled over from the UK where her company Look Fabulous Forever is based. She explained how she managed to turn makeup for older women into a YouTube hit, reaching close to 600,000 views for her video tutorials. “We created this very successful business in one year and that is enormously exciting,” said Tricia who is now very happy to be a 67 year old grandmother with a fabulous career ahead of her.


Matt Brittin, who heads up Google’s Business and Operations across EMEA, encouraged Europe to embrace technology as an engine for growth. “Today, every business should be a digital business because every customer is a digital customer,” he said. He emphasized the huge growth opportunity for Europe if we can complete the Digital Single Market and unlock the potential of 500 million consumers.

The event marked the launch of something we are all very excited about at Google. We are giving over a thousand successful European businesses a voice so that they can take the lead and inspire entrepreneurs all over Europe to take steps to grow their business online. Check out their stories here.

We also announced our commitment to support the growth of the Digital Single Market by helping 1 million Europeans acquire essential digital skills by 2016. To deliver on our promise, we are committing over €25 million to build a Europe-wide training hub and expand existing initiatives like Activate in Spain, Weltweit Wachsen in Germany and the Made in Italy programme.

It is only by plugging the digital skills gap in Europe that we will be able to help millions of citizens become entrepreneurs and millions of small businesses reach their full potential. This is a message that resonated with policy makers during the event as Kristian Hedberg, Deputy Head of Commissioner Bieńkowska’s Cabinet, framed the issues when he said, “What keeps Europe back is fragmentation”. And we couldn't agree more with Eva Paunova, Member of the European Parliament, who rightly said that training young people in these key skills will go a long way in strengthening youth employment.

We are optimistic of the opportunities for growth in Europe and of the vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystems that are supported by the Internet. Our commitment to train 1 million Europeans in digital skills is just one more way we can help support more businesses to use the web. As Matt said at the event, “it is entrepreneurs and startups that are the key to Europe’s growth.”

Posted by: Sylwia Giepmans-Stepien from the Google Public Policy team

Google is a growth engine for European business

Last month I got an email from a proud daughter in the UK whose mother Tricia Cusden used Google tools to launch a makeup business called Look Fabulous Forever. She used Search to find suppliers; she built a following using YouTube to show older women makeup tips; and she’s using Google Adwords to find customers online. To date, her YouTube channel has racked up over half-a-million views, and her company now exports products to 24 countries around the world.

Today we are launching an initiative spotlighting hundreds of European entrepreneurs like Tricia who have used Google products as a growth engine for their businesses. We’re also announcing that Google will train 1 million Europeans to learn crucial digital skills by 2016. Not long ago, small businesses could only afford to source and sell locally. Global marketing and distribution were out of reach for all but the biggest. Today, any business can reach a global market using the Internet, allowing even the smallest businesses to be a multinational.

If you have a product or service, Google AdWords can connect your business with potential customers. Take Berto Salotti, a furniture-maker who has shared his story as part of our project. In 2002, after 30 years of production, Berto had six employees based in Meda, Italy, where they sold most of their furniture. Today, after marketing online through Adwords, they’ve quadrupled in both size and revenue and have customers worldwide.

Eumelia is an ecotourism farm and guesthouse based in rural Greece that uses Google tools to reach out to prospective visitors as far away as Japan and Australia. The company’s founder, Frangiskos, said AdWords is “the best way for a small, local business to have global impact.” And Dutch office supply company DiscountOffice said Adwords "levels the playing field", allowing them "to compete with big multinationals from the beginning.”

But it’s not just online marketing through AdWords that helps businesses grow; YouTube has helped European creators and entrepreneurs attract fans and customers using the power of video. Marie Lopez is like many 19-year-old Parisians. She loves fashion, design and makeup. But what makes Marie different is that she has more than one million people around the world who subscribe to her YouTube channel, EnjoyPhoenix. Having amassed over 120 million views, Marie is now developing her own line of products and working with top brands like L’Oreal. Today, thousands of YouTube channels are making six figures annually and total revenue amongst our YouTubers has grown by 50 percent in each of the last two years.

Google Play is also a huge growth engine for European developers, connecting them to a booming global app economy. Launched in Spain, WePlan is a free Android app that looks at how people use their phones, and recommends the best carriers for their needs. Today it has more than 100,000 users in 24 countries. And WePlan has gone from five to 18 employees in just two years. Last year, Google paid out more than €4.4 billion to developers like WePlan.

We are excited that businesses all around Europe are using the technology we provide as an engine for their growth. To see more of these stories, check out this video:



It’s clear that the opportunities for businesses in the digital age are immense--there are many more ways to reach customers than anyone could have imagined not that long ago. But, for Europe to reach its full potential, we need to clear the way for companies online. We need a single market in the digital world that reflects the single market we enjoy in the physical world already. With over two dozen regulatory and frameworks to contend with, businesses stumble when they seek to sell, grow or hire across borders. The European Commission has rightly identified the digital single market as one of Europe’s top priorities.

Of course, the opportunities afforded by the digital economy are still limited if people don’t have the right skills. At current rates, the EU predicts a shortfall of 900,000 jobs by 2020 due to a lack of digital skills, and there are many businesses that want to get online but don’t know where to start. At Google we’re playing our part. Over the last year we have have helped tens of thousands of German entrepreneurs export through partnerships with DHL, PayPal and Commerzbank. We have trained tens of thousands of young, unemployed people in Spain with free courses on subjects like web development, digital marketing, and ecommerce. And, we have shown thousands of traditional Italian craftspeople how to sell and market their wares online.

But we want to do more. So, today we’ve announced that Google will train 1 million Europeans in crucial digital skills by 2016. We will invest an additional €25M to broaden our current programs and take them to new markets across Europe to train more small businesses on the digital skills they so need. We’ll build a Europe-wide training hub to support businesses anywhere in Europe to get training online.

Some people look at the state of the economy in Europe and are pessimistic. We see something else: a huge diversity of businesses and entrepreneurs with creativity, ambition, and talent -- all using digital tools to create jobs and boost the economy.


Posted by Matt Brittin, President, EMEA Business and Operations, Google

News Impact Summit on tour in Europe

From the carved stone tablet to today’s touchscreen devices, the ways in which people consume journalism have evolved as technology has advanced. So too have the ways in which journalists practice their craft - a mobile device can be used to conduct interviews, record video, write and file copy. There are myriad exciting ways for reporters to get the story, and enrich it for readers with deep research and interactive tools.

To further empower journalists and grow their digital skills, the News Lab at Google has partnered with the non-profit European Journalism Centre (EJC) to produce a series of eight News Impact Summits across Europe in 2015. The daylong events are free and will feature local practitioners, debates, insights into how stories are produced and hands-on workshops to train on a variety of tools and techniques. Our hope is to equip journalists with new digital skills and to inspire by featuring excellence in journalism from within the community.

The first summit is on February 24 in Brussels and features speakers from the worlds of media and technology including Datawrapper, L’Echo, De Tijd, International Consortium for Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), JournalismFund.eu, Euractiv, the Dutch-Flemish Association for Investigative Journalism (VVOJ), Storycode, the Association of European Journalists, The Financial Times, the PressClub Brussels-Europe and Gruppo L’Espresso.

The Brussels event will have a decidedly EU flavor but others will be centered around the host country. Future summits include March 31 in Hamburg and April 28 in Paris with additional ones to follow in Madrid, London, Amsterdam, Warsaw and Prague.

To register for any of the events, and for program details, please visit newsimpact.io.

Our mission at the News Lab at Google is to collaborate with journalists, entrepreneurs and publishers everywhere through product partnerships, digital tools training, and other initiatives that support the industry as a whole. We’re thrilled to work with the EJC, which fosters both quality journalism and a free press, to help create this opportunity.

Posted by Daniel Sieberg, Head of Media Outreach, the News Lab at Google

SMEs in the Digital Single Market: Europe’s Growth Engine

From farmers to florists, clockmakers to cheesemakers, accountants to antique shops, the web is powering the growth of small businesses across Europe. Entrepreneurs today find their customers online and export their products and services around the globe thanks to the web. Businesses that use the web intensively grow up to four times faster than those that don’t, creating new jobs and opportunities across all sectors.

On February 26th, together with Digital Europe and the Lisbon Council, we’re hosting an event in Brussels to celebrate the success of small, web-savvy European businesses, and we hope you’ll join us.
At SMEs in the Digital Single Market: Creating Growth in Europe, you can:

  • Meet 20 small business owners from 10 countries that are using the web to get ahead. They’ll explain their journey from bright idea to thriving business - and how Europe’s Digital Single Market will help them grow further and faster.
  • Hear a keynote speech from Matt Brittin, Google’s President, Business and Operations, EMEA, who will outline how every day, small businesses across Europe are using Google’s online tools as a growth engine to help them compete on the global stage
  • Listen to Internet entrepreneurs including the UK’s Look Fabulous Forever, Germany’s Book A Tiger and Sweden’s Happy Socks, who will share their experiences and hopes for Europe’s Digital Single Market in a panel session
  • Debate the policies required to advance Europe’s Digital Single Market with Kristian Hedberg, from Internal Market Commissioner Bienkowska’s cabinet, MEP Eva Paunova and John Higgins, Director-General of Digital Europe.
  • Join us afterwards for a delicious bite of lunch and networking.

A limited number of places are still available, to register, please get in touch via [email protected]

Posted by: Sylwia Giepmans, Senior Policy Analyst, Google