joegratz.net

I’m liveblogging from Blog Law and Blogging for Lawyers, presented by Law Seminars International.

Glenn Otis Brown:

[He’s product counsel at Google, in addition to the stuff in the bio linked above.]

Tools. Blog-related tools Google runs include Blogger, BlogSpot, Orkut, Google Pages, Google Blog Search, and Google Reader.

Blogs. There are a lot of Google blogs. Each product has a blog. We tell employees who blog personally to stick to their NDAs and other confidentiality agreements. There are a lot of internal blogs, too.

Law. With regard to defamation, we rely on the CDA. We aren’t in a position to be arbiters of the truth. The EFF Legal Guide for Bloggers is a good resource for this sort of question.

With regard to copyright, we rely on section 512. We get a lot of complaints that don’t meet the 512 requirements.

When we do take something down, we submit the letter to chillingeffects.org. This provides a public reason for any edits made to the database.

Policy. We sometimes take action even though we don’t necessarily put a splash page in front of pornographic or otherwise objectionable content. That also takes them out of the random rotation.

Q: Are there localized versions? A: Nope. Q: How do you deal with French laws against Nazi speech? A: Our position is that this is a U.S. service. This gets us blocked in, say, Iran, but that’s the price we pay.

AdSense. He talks about the Christian Science Monitor article on “Google’s Hidden Payroll.”

[Here we start Q&A with both Lauren and Glenn.]

Q: How does the net neutrality debate shake out in Congress? Lauren: It’s hard to predict what Congress will do, but their hand may be forced by the telecom companies’ actions in the market. We’re hoping to see tech companies step up their efforts to keep the net end-to-end.

Q: What’s to stop Google from refusing to pay if the telecom companies shake them down for access to the pipes? Glenn: Broadband isn’t a very competitive market, so relying on the market to work isn’t great.

Q: How many staff does it take to deal with the flagging? Glenn: It generates a lot of work, but it’s important.

Q: Are you looking at copyright questions on the merits? A: Sometimes. The obvious cases get responses saying that you haven’t alleged a valid copyright interest.

Q: What about 2257? Is this a problem? Glenn: We’re engaged in policy discussions in Washington, but things haven’t changed too much yet.

Q: What about splogs? Are you doing more than 512 requires? A: We’re making it harder to create accounts with a bot. We haven’t taken any legal action against sploggers, but I wouldn’t rule it out.

Q: What is an ideal to combat the telecom lobby on net neutrality issues? Primarily nonprofits? What’s most effective? Lauren: Not just nonprofits. Companies need to step forward and make the business case.

Q: Are private networks’ rules a threat to net neutrality? A: Tiered access in emergencies is fine, but the trigger must be neutral. Q: There are several kinds of networks — they’re not all the same. Is the assault on network neutrality going to be structured in a way that threatens all networks equally, or will some (like retail customers) be more threatened than others? Lauren: I don’t know enough about your clients to say much.

Q: Is this whole vague description of “favoring some content over other” is the problem with getting traction on the Hill? Glenn: Net Neutrality means lots of different things to lots of different people. Vint Cerf’s testimony before Congress was very clear, and Google stands behind it. [Cerf, who invented large chunks of the internet’s architecture, works at Google now.]

Q: Senior VCs I talk to say it’ll never happpen. Are they in denial? Also, is this different internationally? Glenn: On the first, I don’t know; on the second, there’s more broadband competition elsewhere. Lauren: I hope the VCs are right. But telecom companies are a strong business interest in favor of a tiered internet. [She talks about Susan Crawford’s talk at the Cultural Environmentalism conference.]