Category Archives: Google India Blog

The Official Google Blog for India

More transparency and control in your Google Account

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/YbBCZGhf0H5ZxdRcbyzZ-RPKwKqNgXd3Vc-YBizQqr5mLvEA1HGSm4nvvhGJtpX6SRwCLWkFsegfvgaRy7Cc-tlt7Jj63Wsolw5MQNGPabS6FnU9jbsEoybT38ZqVwFEGcDQRXe_ Jan Hannemann Product Manager Google Account
Several years ago, we brought our privacy and security settings together in one place to make it easier for you to choose the options that are right for you. Billions of people have now visited their Google Account and over 20 million people do so every day.


Today, we’re announcing an improved Google Account experience. It includes new features to more easily navigate your account, more prominent security and privacy options, and detailed summaries of relevant information associated with it—like your personal info, your devices, payment methods, purchases, subscriptions, reservations, and contacts. The new experience is available today for all Android users and will launch on iOS and web later this year.
New ways to find what you need
We’ve added new features in your Google Account to make it even easier to review and control this data. We’ve introduced a new search functionality that enables you to find settings and other info you might be looking for in your account, like how to change your password. When you have a problem but don't quite know what to look for, you can access a new dedicated support section as well. There, you'll find help with common tasks, like upgrading your
account storage, and get answers from community experts.
More helpful privacy and security information
We know that when it comes to data and privacy, one size does not fit all. To help you better understand and take control of your Google Account, we've made all your privacy options easy to review with our new intuitive, user-tested design. You can now more easily find your Activity controls in the Data & Personalization tab and choose what types of activity data are saved in your account to make Google work better for you. There, you’ll also find the recently updated Privacy Checkup that helps you review your privacy settings and explains how they shape your experience across Google services.
In October, we updated our Security Checkup to provide you with an overview of your account security and personalized recommendations. The new Google Account experience builds on this and will show you prominent notices if we detect there’s something you can do to improve your security. For example, we might suggest you remove your account from old devices you’re no longer using or remove unverified apps you had granted access to your account data.


We are committed to providing you with the controls you need to choose what’s right for you. For years, we’ve built and refined tools to help you easily understand, protect, and control your information. As needs around security and privacy evolve, we will continue to improve these important tools to help you control how Google works for you.

By Jan Hannemann, Product Manager, Google Account

Chrome on Android now offlines content on WiFi

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/qJ_gi9ND04dEmfFAYnaA3adkofwivVOvjSpKH2Ig-WJkVHBuIkJeMLhXvkadmy74evZYZxNewt2cJu-CNAZOypfkCeKl9tB9Vip67tBXJJGiu7pC5YNiGrPg32eHoN31EYOh-1qK Amanda Boss Product Manager Offline Chrome for Android
Chrome’s goal is to make the web work well for everyone, everywhere. From building offline capabilities to an automatic data saver, we’ve launched a number of features to improve web accessibility especially tailored to NBU markets. However, it can be frustrating and hard to access the web when you lose connectivity or spend days disconnected. Spotty connectivity shouldn’t stop us from accessing our favourite sites to get information, whether it’s recent news or the latest cricket results.


Today, we’re introducing another way for Chrome on Android users in India, along with more than 100 countries including Nigeria, Indonesia, and Brazil, to surf the web with Chrome on Android devices — even without a constant internet connection. When you’re connected to free, unmetered WiFi, Chrome will automatically download relevant articles, based on what content is most popular in your location. If you’re signed into Chrome, you’ll also get articles that are relevant to you, based on your browsing history. This downloaded content is then available whenever you want to access it, even if you don’t have a connection.
Chrome on Android’s automatically downloaded content is available alongside all of your downloaded content


Keep browsing the web, even offline. You can get this feature by updating to the latest version of Chrome on Android in Google Play.


By Amanda Boss, Product Manager, Offline Chrome for Android

YouTube NextUp is back in India — enter now for a chance to be a part of NextUp’s Class of 2018!

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/xZRV-Myrjkn0bNesUU6tKUwj3udM83A3oAZFIpHD9MJu3zHABnu69WyFG_uhHil0QXWZaFIC10hlotQ6f6VrjfRn0t5AkVL_97c8d8uay4wVktilzWy4GDRLF7y1clxNMC3pn8ki Rajant Meshram Manager, YouTube Creator & Artist Development Google Asia Pacific
Whether you are passionate about sharing original comic sketches with the world like BeYou Nick, or are a savvy lifestyle vlogger like Sejal Kumar, YouTube is committed to supporting you at every step of your creator journey. In our endeavour to hone the next generation of creators and artists, YouTube NextUp 2018 Contest is back across YouTube Spaces globally — and this time in Delhi!  


In the past two years, YouTube NextUp has successfully changed the trajectory for over forty (40) Indian creators, and inspired the creator community across the country. Our winners have come from different cities and states throughout the country, with language, genre, and gender being no bar.


Here’s a sneak peek of what goes on in our Creator Camp:
And NextUp is just the beginning of the journey. Our Alumni have gone ahead to diversify their content, expand their reach globally, and even perform at events like YouTube FanFest and walk the red carpet in front of over 10,000 screaming fans. Sign up for NextUp to see if this can be you!
So who’s NextUp? We’re looking for passionate and motivated YouTube creators who are ready to create more compelling stories with better production skills; those who are seeking mentorship from production and channel development experts, and eager participants looking for an opportunity to collaborate with talented creators and be a part of the global NextUp community.  
Up to 12 YouTube channels from India will be selected as winners to join the NextUp Class of 2018. If selected, you will be eligible to receive:
-A week of intensive production classes and filming opportunities at YouTube Space or   production studio in October, 2018
-Educational workshops and skill-sharing sessions designed by production experts, top creators and content specialists
-INR 67,500 voucher towards production gear
-At least 3 months of ongoing support from the YouTube Content Partnerships team
To enter the India YouTube NextUp Contest, see full details (including the eligibility requirements and contest rules) at youtube.com/nextup. We’re excited to see what you’ll come up with!


Posted by Rajant Meshram, Manager, YouTube Creator & Artist Development, Google Asia Pacific, recently watched FilterCopy Vs JordIndian | YOLO: You Only Laugh Once | S01E01

Introducing the Google News Initiative India Training Network

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/51dqE4egSh16lemo1IpnnGPPQzpWXhTlaFJaYG3dtfBThZjNY4Cpw0xJKPqvTSI8yWeY4SMPZq7uK3h0dEB1AaRYtk0fo87Udof7upaF_tA-arNm_Fb0o5NAeY-vukrPfMZnS1ns Irene Jay Liu News Lab Lead, APAC Google
Supporting trusted, authoritative journalism is a top priority for Google, which is why we are proud to announce the launch of the Google News Initiative Training Network in India in partnership with BoomLive, DataLeads and Internews.

This training network aims to support journalists from across India in their fight against misinformation, providing in-depth and hands-on verification training to 8000 journalists across English and six other Indian languages over the next one year. The training will equip them with best-in-class skills required to debunk fake news.
The Network will select 200 journalists from cities across India, who will hone their  skills in verification and training during 5-day train-the-trainer boot camps. They will be trained in-person by global verification experts and top Indian fact-checkers, including First Draft, Storyful, AltNews, BoomLive, Factchecker.in and DataLeads.

The network of certified trainers will train more journalists in and around their region at 2-day, 1-day and half-day workshops organised by the Network. Training workshops will be conducted in English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Marathi and Kannada in cities across India.
If you are a newsroom, press club or journalism college interested in joining this fight against misinformation and hosting one of these trainings for your teams/ members/ students, please share your interest here.

If you are a journalist or journalism professor keen to join this fight against misinformation by learning verification skills and techniques from these experts, please apply here. Applications are considered on a rolling basis, with limited seats for each language.


There will be three rounds of applications to become a Google-certified trainer:
  • Round 1: Deadline is July 5 for the first English train-the-trainer boot camp, which will be held in Gurugram from July 30-August 3
  • Round 2: Deadline is July 15 for trainers in Hindi, Kannada and Tamil and English
  • Round 3: Deadline is September 15 for trainers in Telugu, Marathi and Bengali and English
Separate train-the-trainer boot camps will be organised for English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Kannada and Bengali journalists across cities in India starting end of July:
Selected trainers will be alerted about the dates and venue of the boot camp via email. The Network will take care of your flights, accommodation and transfers to and from the venue for these 5 days and for any travel, if needed, to workshops that will be organised by the network. Trainers will be entitled to a stipend to compensate for the time they will need to commit to do trainings.


When journalists and communities work together, armed with the online tools to verify information, they can build a bulwark of trusted media to fight the tide of misinformation.


More power to fact-checking!


By Irene Jay Liu, News Lab Lead, APAC

400 Wi-Fi enabled train stations in India and counting


For almost two centuries, train stations have launched billions of life-changing journeys in India.
But now, those journeys may not even require boarding a train. Since 2015, we have been working with
our incredible partners Indian Railways and RailTel to bring public Wi-Fi to India’s train stations,
empowering people to take new online journeys.

Shrinath is a porter at Ernakulam Junction station in Cochin, the busiest railway station in South India.
His big dream was to become a civil servant in his home state of Kerala. During his tea breaks, he used
the free high speed Wi-Fi available at the railway station to study online materials in preparation for the
Kerala Public Service entrance examinations. We’re happy to report: Shrinath passed it with flying colors.

Congratulations to Shrinath who scored 82 percent for the Kerala Civil Service examination!

Sometimes, the journeys we take are for the people we love. Helen is an auto rickshaw driver who spends long hours every day ferrying passengers through traffic jams and bad weather in Kollam. She’s working hard for additional income so she can give her son the best possible education. Often, it’s not money that she needs, but rather access to knowledge. While waiting for passengers at Kollam train station, she never fails to whip out her mobile phone and use the Wi-Fi in the station to download educational material for him.


Helen Jose is a working mother from Kollam who uses Google Station to download study material for her son.
The Wi-Fi in these stations comes from a journey that Indian Railways, RailTel and us embarked on two
and a half years ago. In 2015, our CEO Sundar Pichai and Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a
project to provide high speed public Wi-Fi in 400 train stations across India. The first Wi-Fi enabled
railway station, Mumbai Central, went live on January 2016. We later rolled out a global public Wi-Fi
program called Google Station based on the model that we developed in India.


Our journey in India has shown us the tremendous potential of public Wi-Fi programs in creating
opportunities, and we believe that the benefits of getting people online can and must be replicated
beyond borders. We’ve launched Google Station in Indonesia and Mexico, and will take it to even more
countries soon. As we take Google Station global,Today, we’re proud to announce that Dibrugarh railway
station in Assam state, northeast India is the 400th train station in India to be powered by public Wi-Fi.
There are now over 8 million people getting online with Google Station every month. On average, people
consume 350MB of data per session, roughly the size of a half hour television episode and over half of
the people using Google Station engage in multiple online sessions a day. Some are watching videos,
some are chatting with friends, but like Shrinath and Helen, they are actively seeking that Wi-Fi
connection to get things done during their day.


Although we have hit the target of 400 train stations, our journey remains unfinished. India has the
second largest population of internet users in the world, but there are still almost a billion Indians who
aren’t online. There are millions of other life-changing journeys that still haven’t been taken. We realize
that not everyone in India lives or works near a train station, so we’re moving beyond train stations and
into the rest of the cities. Google Station is now also available in 150 locations in Pune, Maharashtra,
and more Smart Cities are coming soon.

We remain committed to making the internet accessible and useful for everyone in India.


Posted by, Caesar Sengupta, VP, Next Billion Users

Introducing Neighbourly: the app for trusted, neighbourhood answers

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/oZ0ANX7W6sAazvXii6YC4GA1PMkFV_kyas6z_3f8XWsl0TOq5vcztp9powlEUhDvzbGcS-5xY7EYu80GoZ86CgNJVTfx4K4t0plQByfg0gKve00pZyyc0McKWNU5IWDMpsHvTZPD Caesar Sengupta VP Next Billion Users Team
The Beta app is available in Mumbai starting today


Life happens close to home. In the course of a day, local questions come up all the time: Know a good pediatrician for my daughter? Which film festivals in our locality have free entry for kids? Any reliable mechanics nearby?


In cities across India, it’s getting harder to get good answers to these questions because cities keep changing, including the people who live there. People nearby often have the exact information you need, but they’re too busy these days to stop and chat on the street or in the park. And group chats keep getting bigger and noisier — and often fill up with those "Good Morning" messages.


And yet we need answers. That's why we built Neighbourly, a neighbourhood app that helps you ask your neighbours questions, share local expertise, and keep up with your neighbourhood. With Neighbourly, your questions get routed to the relevant neighbours instantly, and then they can write back with the most up-to-date and accurate info.
Neighbourly is a human, helpful and local way to ask and answer neighbourhood questions


Neighbourly helps you:

  • Ask your neighbours questions. Ask a question for your family, and it's routed to the neighbourhood experts who can help. Using Google's voice recognition, you can speak your question or answer into the app, just like talking to a neighbour. It works in English and eight Indian languages.
  • Share your local expertise. Easily swipe left and right through the questions and give answers. The more you answer, the more you’re recognized for your local expertise. Plus, every time you answer, that information directly helps one of your neighbours and makes your entire neighbourhood more informed.
  • Keep up with your neighbourhood safely. Browse, ask and answer questions without sharing all of your personal information. Personal details like your phone number, full name and other contact information are kept private when you use Neighbourly. And every member that joins Neighbourly makes the Neighbourly Promise so we can all work together to keep the app’s community safe and helpful.


Starting today, we’re making a Beta version of Neighbourly available on the Google Play Store for all smartphones in Mumbai running Android 4.3 (Jelly Bean) and higher. If you live outside Mumbai, join our waitlist and invite your neighbours. We’ll be looking to expand to other neighbourhoods across India that are excited to try Neighbourly.


Today is the first step for Neighbourly, and we want your feedback. We hope Neighbourly, like Google Search, can be another way you find the information you need, and, in the process, make neighbourhoods everywhere feel even more neighbourly.

Posted by Caesar Sengupta, VP, Next Billion Users Team

Announcing the Google Search Conference 2018

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-1ii-cICCLcM/Ww-029GPuVI/AAAAAAAAQw4/mAmkFqDlshAbOL88BaSULV0y9phWo0XeQCL0BGAYYCw/h988/2018-05-31.jpg Vandana Bharvani Director, Research & Outreach ”Trust & Safety”

Regional language Internet usage is growing at an unprecedented pace in India and generating great demand for local language content. While many publishers have focused on Hindi, there is now growing demand for other regional languages. We are delighted to share that we are bringing back the Google Search conference with an objective to help Indian language publishers make the most of the opportunity and bridge the Indian language content gap that exists on the web today.


We will be hosting conferences across 11 cities in India to help local language publishers and webmasters better understand how they can make their content easily accessible to the growing number of Internet users across India. In addition to Hindi, this year we will cover four other Indian languages such as Tamil, Telugu, Marathi and Bengali.


Conference cities and dates -


  • Gurgaon on June 20 (Wednesday)
  • Pune on June 22 (Friday)
  • Indore on July 2 (Monday)
  • Patna on July 4 (Wednesday)
  • Lucknow on July 6 (Friday)
  • Hyderabad on July 16 (Monday)
  • Visakhapatnam on July 18 (Wednesday)
  • Kolkata on July 20 (Friday)
  • Coimbatore on July 30 (Monday)
  • Chennai on Aug 1 (Wednesday)
  • Bengaluru on Aug 3 (Friday) - this event is focused on women webmasters


At each day-long conference, members of the Google Webmaster Outreach team will talk about a host of topics including ‘How Search Works’, ‘Tips for better visibility of Indian language websites in Google Search’, ‘Best practices for mobile-friendly websites’, ‘Google’s Search quality guidelines’ and many other important topics. We are also including a  session from the Google AdSense team to elucidate their policies and share how to avoid mistakes while running AdSense on your sites.


Please note that this is an invite-only event and filling out the form does not guarantee your spot at the conference. Please register your interest here! (The registration for the aforementioned cities closes 10 days before the listed date). Once selected, you will receive an invitation email from us confirming the venue details.



Posted by Vandana Bharvani, Director, Research & Outreach - Trust & Safety

A letter to the parents…

https://img.youtube.com/vi/thK42Zcf5DI/maxresdefault.jpg Sunita Mohanty ”Google”
https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/FPah9vHhSfiZKBJGVIN3j1-smL6rzZuAS70CyRSgZ6S3YmZZYP9waTnHh3xqjzx-cK97JVVknwSq9KgyqNLgg_kj5z9AFsV-yJAVB04h7U3bE4IhEyNfLqgR8DyuaI7LcQ4pBf3W Sunita Mohanty Director Trust & Safety Google India
Dear Parents,


It's that time of the year when the temperatures are rising, schools are closed for vacations and more often than not, kids are glued to their screens! Yes it's summertime, and while you may be worried about your kids spending some extra hours on the Internet, we feel you can use that time to bond with them, learn together, encourage them to make new discoveries and help them be responsible explorers of the web.


So whether you are planning a holiday, choose to stay indoors to beat the heat, or simply want to help kids pick a hobby, we want to make the journey to your destination meaningful and fun!


We have partnered with our product leaders to bring to you, a series of activities you can do along with your kids to make this a memorable #SummerWithGoogle at the Summer Camp.


The road to the summer camp will include four assignments that will make the ‘Summer of 2018’ last a lifetime. From exploring the country that is home to all the pandas in the world on Google Earth, to saying gracias and por favor as you learn phrases in Spanish and other languages on Google Translate; taking dramatic virtual tours of museums to make your own gallery on Google Arts & Culture and ultimately building your very own app to share your summer experience.


Each assignment will also carry questions on the four fundamental codes of being Internet Awesome and teach the young internet explorers a lesson or two on how to be -- Internet Smart, Internet Alert, Internet Strong, Internet Kind and Internet Brave. Learn more here.

The assignments can be accessed on the #SummerWithGoogle website and Google’s social media handles every week, and will be accompanied by a set of instructions that will answer all your “how to” questions. Each assignment will be linked to the previous one, so its important you take out that one hour in a week, and carry positive marking for every correct answer you give. There will be subjective questions too, that will bring alive every child’s creativity and imagination.

At the end of four weeks, we will host a fun filled Summer Camp at Google’s Gurgaon and Hyderabad campus, flying upto 100 participants along with their guardians from across the country. If you don’t want your child to miss the Summer Camp, help them participate by following these four easy steps.
We are hoping that our fun assignments will bring you and your kids the next wanderlust experience you have been craving for and make you learn many things in the process.

Your first assignment is here:


Stay tuned for more from us.


Yours Truly,

Sunita Mohanty, On Behalf of Google

Helping over 15M women in 1,50,000 villages unlock their true potential through the Internet Saathi Program

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/rnJrb19VCN1ykhn0KdKlCMxSDeRjfd59ODXqoVHpnyovQPUaCbdzpEahSo1B9tpJa1r9RTi4Lh4lwNBIkLQdn7-DnOqPrsfLmiAo0bmIjzO2Y5pJu-RR48Xtqhi2crcyZNFf5gh_ Sapna Chadha Director of Marketing, Southeast Asia & India Google
When we first met Parveen Begum -- an Internet Saathi, from a small village in Guntur, last year, she had many apprehensions and asked, ‘Is the Internet meant for me?’, ‘Will my family allow me to step outside the house to train other women?’,  ‘How will the people of my village react to this change?’. And she isn't alone. Hundreds and Thousands of women we meet along the journey of the Internet Saathi program, ask us similar questions. But today, Parveen Begu and 48000 other Internet Saathis have not only learnt to use the Internet themselves, but have also helped over 15M women in 150000 villages to unlock their true potential.

These women have gone ahead to do amazing things, once they learn to use the Internet and one such story is that of Padmavati from Guntur who was trained by Parveen Begum. Padmavati started her own business of lemongrass oil. She learnt the production process and techniques and then came up with the idea of setting up a small production plant in Guntur.

Today is an important day for the Internet Saathi program,  as we reach the halfway point for our milestone. The program is spread across the villages of Rajasthan, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Assam, West Bengal, Tripura, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Haryana, Tamil Nadu and has also expanded to four new states -- Uttarakhand, Goa, Karnataka, and Telangana, in the past couple of months.


We are committed to bridging the digital gender divide in India and will continue to work towards reaching our larger ambition of 300,000 villages across India i.e. covering 50% of total villages in the country.

The program focuses on educating women to use the internet, who then impart training to other women in their community and neighboring villages.  What’s incredible to see is the impact the program has had on millions of women, their families and communities.

We are grateful to Tata Trusts, our onground NGO partners, local activists and several Google volunteers who have contributed to the success of this program. We watch with pride as the family of 48000 Internet Saathis grows!

By Sapna Chadha, Director of Marketing, Southeast Asia & India, Google

Our preparations for Europe’s new data protection law

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/uSETWnToRpqIkw0r7NTbtF89EgFo96ZE2d3Oo0_rrkhUFKI06ddL94GQib7CJSt6Bz8Lnk7SLiuDX_vp2kCpBonQ5tGz43APcaMPf-773AWce-tZzOMJqOH4sM4lDkblWsAlFIsa William Malcolm Director, Privacy Legal EMEA Google
Last year, we outlined Google’s commitment to comply with Europe’s new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), across all of the services we provide in the European Union. We’ve been working on our compliance efforts for over eighteen months, and ahead of the new law coming into effect, here’s an update on some of the key steps we've taken.


Improved user transparency
We’re updating our current Privacy Policy to make it easier to understand what information we collect, and why we collect it. We’ve improved the navigation and organization of the policy to make it easier to find what you’re looking for; explained our practices in more detail and with clearer language; and added more detail about the options you have to manage, export, and delete data from our services. The policy now also includes explanatory videos and illustrations, because a visual description can be easier to understand than text alone. And we've made it easier to jump to your privacy settings directly from the policy, helping you make choices about your privacy.
Although we’re taking these steps to make our Privacy Policy easier to understand, it’s important to note that nothing is changing about your current settings or how your information is processed. You’ll continue to have granular control over the data you share with us when you use our services, but with clearer explanations. The updated policy is already available to read and we’ll be emailing all of our users about it individually.


Improved user controls
Every day, nearly 20 million people around the globe visit My Account, our central hub that brings together all the different ways you can review your Google security, privacy and ad settings. As part of our GDPR compliance efforts, we’ve improved both the controls and the clarity of information in My Account so that people are better informed about how and why their data is collected. Within My Account, you can:  

  • Use Activity Controls to choose what activity is saved to your Google Account. We provide simple on/off switches to control Location History, Web and App Activity, YouTube Search History and more, across all devices that are signed in to your account.
  • View or delete data—including search history, location history, browsing history—from our services using My Activity. To make it easier to browse your past online activity, we have given you tools to search by topic, date, and product. You can permanently delete specific activities, entire days or weeks of activity that you don’t want associated with your account.
  • Take a Security Checkup or Privacy Checkup to reassure yourself that your account is secure, and that your privacy settings work for you. We’ve recently added an option that allows you to subscribe to more frequent prompts to take the Privacy Checkup.
  • Manage or mute the ads you see on Google, on websites and in apps using the recently upgraded Ads Settings tool and Mute This Ad control. We have provided more information about how and why certain ads are personalized, and will also be further simplifying the look and feel of these tools in the coming months.
  • Get a clear overview of all the Google products that you use—and the data associated with them—via Google Dashboard. We’ve recently made the Dashboard more mobile-friendly so it's now easy to use across different devices.


Improved data portability
Since its launch in 2011, people around the world have used our Download Your Data tool to export data from products like Google Photos, Drive, Calendar, Google Play Music and Gmail, either to their own computer, or to storage services like OneDrive, Dropbox and Box. We are further improving and expanding this feature, adding more Google services, including more contextual data controls, and creating a new setting that helps people schedule regular downloads.
While we’ve enabled people to download data from our services for many years, the GDPR encourages companies to enable direct service-to-service data transfers where feasible, for example from Google Photos to another photo service. To support that aim, we've recently initiated the Data Transfer Project on GitHub, providing early-stage open source code that will, in time, be of use to any developer wanting to offer seamless transfer of data from one service directly into an alternative (or vice versa).


Parental consent and improved tools for children online.
Under the new rules, companies must get consent from parents to process their children’s data in certain circumstances. To obtain that consent and to make sure that parents and children have the tools to manage their online experiences, we’re rolling out Family Link–already available in various countries around the world–throughout the EU.


Through Family Link, parents can create a Google Account for their child and are required to provide consent for certain processing of their child’s data.  Family Link also allows parents to set certain digital ground rules on their child’s Android device– like approving or blocking apps, keeping an eye on screen time, or remotely locking their child’s device. We plan to evolve Family Link’s functionality over time, working closely with parents and advocacy groups.


Helping our business customers and partners
The GDPR places new obligations on Google, but also on any business providing services to people in the EU.  That includes our partners around the globe: advertisers, publishers, developers and cloud customers. We’ve been working with them to prepare for May 25th, consulting with regulators, civil society groups, academics, industry groups and others.


For our advertising partners, we’ve clarified how our advertising policies will change when the GDPR takes effect. We already ask publishers to get consent from their users for the use of our ad tech on their sites and apps under existing legislation, but we’ve now updated that requirement in line with GDPR guidance. We’re also working closely with our publisher partners to provide a range of tools to help them gather user consent, and have built a solution for publishers that want to show non-personalized ads, using only contextual information.


For our Google Cloud customers, we’ve updated our data processing terms for G Suite and Google Cloud Platform and provided detailed information to customers about our approach to data portability, data incident notifications, secure infrastructure and third party audits and certifications, among other features. For more information, visit the Google Cloud blog.


Strengthening our privacy compliance program
Over the last decade, Google has built a strong global privacy compliance program, taking advice from regulators around the world. Across the company, we have dedicated teams of engineers and compliance experts who work in full-time privacy roles, ensuring that no Google product launches without a comprehensive privacy review. We’ve now further improved our privacy program, enhancing our product launch review processes, and more comprehensively documenting our processing of data, in line with the accountability requirements of the GDPR.


This is a snapshot of things we’ve done to date to be ready for May 25, 2018. But our commitment to compliance with the GDPR, and the rights it gives people, will continue long beyond this date. As we evolve our products over time, we’ll continue to improve our Privacy Program and the protections we offer to users.  Our ambition is to have the highest possible standards of data security and privacy, and to put our users and partners in control.

Posted by William Malcolm, Director, Privacy Legal, EMEA