Private quarters for the president and first lady. This is not part of the tour that is offered to the public. This is never been open to the public. Because of the cspan special access, you are getting to see this. Its not open to our visitors on a daily basis. The remarkable thing about this space is its a living breathing thing, it hasnt changed it also is resident johnson died in 1973. There is a document signed by the archivist of the United States. It nothing in this room it can change. We are here on the 100th block of congress avenue here in austin. It this is an important historic site. This is where waterloo was. It was a cluster of cabins. Im standing at the spot where the cabin was. This is where the mayor was staying when he and the rest of the men got wind of this buffalo herd. The men jumped on their horses. In those days this was just a muddy ravine that led north. The men galloped on their horses and they had stuffed their belts for pistols and road into the midst of this herd of buffalo. Asthey shot an enormous buffalo. They went to the top of the hill and told everybody that this should be the future empire. Wants all of our events from austin today on cspan2 and on American History tv on cspan3. Harvards institute of politics held a conference in cambridge massachusetts. There was a discussion on government policy and effects of the internet. There were representatives from online services. This is an hour and a half. Good morning. I feel like we should a vote on something. On behalf of the institute of politics and the internet association, i am delighted to welcome everybody here and in the Virtual World because we are Live Streaming right now. We are Live Streaming as far as i know. You already know it if you are on the live stream. If you are here, you dont need it. We are being recorded for posterity by our good friends and neighbors at cspan. They will be putting this up against the friday night battle between the house of representativessubcommittee on veterans affairs. I think we are looking pretty good. We are broadcasting. Be aware. We are in the penthouse on the fifth floor of the kennedy school. The school is named after john f. Kennedy. The institute of politics here has been from the start designed it to support the political aspirations and Public Service of young people, something president candidate was wellknown for. Who can forget his speech . How far seeing it was to see the role of coding and the App Ecosystem for the future of the country in the world. We will unfold as two panels. I will be moderating the first one on a will the government break the internet . The answer to any question in a headline is no, but we will have to investigate. Then we will have a second Panel Moderated on why internet policy matters. This is a rare and special opportunity to gather the Amazing Group of people we have around the table today. We hope we make the most of it. Before we start the first panel i am pleased to turn the mic over to Michael Beckerman from the internet association. Thanks to the Harvard Institute of politics for partnering with us. We are going to ask the question will the government break the internet . These are important to the future of the internet and the Internet Users and companies around the world. As we get into an election cycle that voters care about, were looking forward to a great conversation. Thank you for moderating. I am going to take off the introducers have to put on the moderators hat. Im going to get into the middle of the well. This is where we need jeopardy music. Lets see if this will work. All right. As you may have noticed, i have called this panel. This is a roundtable that has right angles. We have approximately 25 people on the panel. There are roughly 85 minutes to do this. Introductions would not be done before the time is done. We have a special configuration. I want to use this to our advantage. This is how we suggest we do it. To bear in mind and adopt the ideal as we proceed, we are speaking for posterity. Dont forget that cspan is recording this. Imagine the 20 years from now when people have a jet packs and Nick Bostroms ai has taken over. It doesnt look good for us. They will be looking back nostalgically at 2014. Maybe the names of the companies will have changed. I urge us as we discussed to think about what we would be saying to somebody in the future about the issues we are facing now. I think that will keep us at the right level of importance for what we want to say and it gives license to explain a little bit the issue that among many people here dealing with governments all the time on this who may represent government, we have shorthands for all sorts of things. There needs to be a translation available for others. I think that would be quite good. That also means that since we are not doing introductions around the table, when you first speak up, feel free to introduce yourself and do an extra beat. Dont just say ebay, say as you may remember as. Or maybe not. Echo bay. We have already learned something today [laughter] an extra beat on the introduction. The one other guideline i would give is often and especially in government affairs, our points are usually three in number. I like to adjust that to one. Give or take. How about just one thing with an elaboration and we can keep the conversation flowing rather than there being three different reasons. That will make it harder to follow. Sound good . Yes . As michael hinted, we have a Mclaughlin Group asesque set of issues. We will talk about liability and a surveillance and Net Neutrality, this is in the news recently. Finally, that governance. The thicket from which there is no return. We want to touch and integrate on all of them. I want to think a little bit about the category of intimate year he intermediary liability. Governments regulate people. At other times, they realize dont regulate people, regulate any institution in between the government and the people and put mandates there and then you can still effectuate regulation in a more powerful way. Copyright infringement defamation, these are examples. As the internet has grown in the american context, weve seen some balance struck in what the government may require of intermediaries. One example is coming from europe with a newly recognized right to be forgotten. Adam, where are you . I dont know why it occurred to me that adam should be asked first to weigh in on the right to be forgotten. Tell us what company you are from and how is it going . I am adam and i lead googles u. S. Policy efforts. Google is a Search Engine company was a Search Engine company that did a lot of great things. [laughter] humble. The right to be forgotten is an interesting issue that a lot of us in the u. S. Look at the ruling of this European Court of justice and think this is outside the bounds and not something that would gain traction here due to our First Amendment and strong intermediary liability principles. I think its important to acknowledge some of the feelings that motivate the desire for a right to be forgotten. There is more information about all of us online than ever before. That is true. A lot of the search costs for finding bangs have been things have been obliterated. You can find a criminal record in the basement of city hall. The internet has obliterated that. People are concerned about the impact. What concerns me about the right to be forgotten is it has not been balanced with some of the other competing values such as the values of Free Expression and the benefit of the consumers right to know about things like whether a vendor has had bad reviews against them or a babysitter has had criminal offenses. These are things that people could request to be removed from search results and i think thats very anticonsumerist. Is this a shift in thinking with google from a stance that used to say we index the internet. If you have a problem with that, please consult the internet. Now its tricky things that need to be balanced and may have quibbles with a privately activated process where a person comes to google and maybe a link goes down between a person and the information. This is a new reality. The reality is and why the court case has been heavily dissected is it hinges on whether google is a data processor, which the court ruled it is, or a newspaper or journalistic organization. We are showing some prioritization, which we are. Search results do both. They believe that these results are more important to the user than others. On the mechanics of it, how is it going . Give us a sense of the flow coming after the opinion came down. Are there plans to open u it up . We have received 100,000 requests. We have a backlog of requests. We have to go through these one by one. Are their jobs posted for google right to be forgotten processors . Some of the cases we have seen have been former politicians asking to have news of their criminal convictions removed. In our view, these are not in the Public Interest area. There is some interest in the part of regulators and policymakers in parts of latin america and asia looking at that, this is something we should consider. So far, you are limiting this to where it is required of you to implement. Only within our european domain. Only in localized portholes. Portals. If i am alert enough to say i can perform a search in england. Are there other companies at the table that watching this very closely . If youre not a Search Engine is right to be forgotten implicating what you do, either now or in the future . Its remarkably quiet. This is a Search Engine specific thing . Wow. Braddock . I thought i saw a hand go up . No you didnt. Fair enough. I am a senior counsel at trip advisor. We were once the Worlds Largest travel site. That point in time is now. It will be disingenuous to say were not watching with interest how this unfolds. We have looked at the European Court justice decision and we have seen how google has reacted to it. There is a proposed directive that we dont know whether it will be enacted or not. We dont know what form it will take. How they will implemented implemented . The decision raises more questions than it answers. Who falls into the exception . What is a relevant and who decides that . Should google not allow the intervention . Matters of Public Interest. Where is that line drawn . A politician is one thing. A b b owner providing poor service to customers, where does that fall in the line it . I think there are a lot of open questions. Adam was saying its 2014. Its not as simple as let the internet deal with it. There are lots of equities to be balanced. This is the new reality. Is there a similar thing going on on sites like trip advisor that solicit reviews and other information from people that might make institutions it might make or break a hotel if it gets a certain ranking or review. This generally gets sorted out in your commitment to your users. Are there ways in which this could go awry . I think each individual platform has the rules and egos that ethan os ethan os ethos users come to expect. I dont know when you what the government determining whats irrelevant. Take them down. We got rid of the cockroaches. The prior owners are in jail. How would i do that through a contact form . At trip advisor, there are situations where we will remove reviews. Change of ownership is the most common one. Major renovations, you just put in new wings and hired new management. There are judgments. Are those judgments made according to your conscience and what makes for a Good Business . Is there a shadow of Government Intervention should you do that wrong . I know that your lawyer is at the table. He is sitting right here. [laughter] those are made for what is best for the community. The more experiences you are able to offer up to someone who is trying to figure out what to expect when they take time off and spend their hardearned money and take their kids somewhere, the quantity is very helpful. There are certain things we determined that are irrelevant. Maybe they should be forgotten. In certain situations, you put new linens on your beds, we are not going to change everything. Anything else on the right to be forgotten before we move along . I cant tell its because its uncontroversial or because its totally controversy all. Controversy all. [applause] i just want to add one thing. This wont go away as an issue. The debate will be the next arena where this takes place. We have precedent under the fair credit reporting act where we say that information should be used like bankruptcy or foreclosure, it cant be used to get somebody past 10 years. Weve made a judgment through legislation in this country that information has an expiration date. We acknowledge that there is value in the meantime. We dont want it to be held against somebody forever. We will have to weigh a lot of these things legislatively about how we feel a persons history ought to follow them prefer that certain types for certain types of information. We require sex offenders to register forever. If you look at france, they believe any crime should be expunged from your record once you have done your time. They want people to have a clean slate. We will have to make these judgments legislatively. Its easier when the information is in the hands of the government. Once its in the Public Domain its much harder to effectuate putting the genie back in the bottle. Five to 10 years from now, will there be an american right to be forgotten recognize legislatively or as a matter of Customer Service . Not on the scale, it will be miniature laws and other steps taken to it dress certain types of information. Two address certain types of information. To address certain types of information. Are some of the accordance is with american law, before the modern lab and the companies here were up and running, are those holding up well . Defamation in another state law claims that 70 might bring often involved an intermediary, those tend to be off the table through the Communications Act decency act. We see section 512 of the copyright act which encourages intermediaries in many circumstances against Copyright Infringement claims, even if the site is the way in which the infringement is happening if they take things down when asked. Is that holding up well . Is there a problem anybody would have to tweak that in america one way or the other . This is the most wonderfully i am with ebay. We do payments through paypal and we have a Small Company called a stub hub for ticket sales. This goes to your questions about the Communications Decency act. If you look we would have said today that the internet had been broken. The irony of section 230 is a law meant to limit speech on the web ended up being one of the greatest proponents. Part of this is the government acting in ways that doesnt come out the way it came out. I do the two did get anywhere close to passing section 230 in the United States. As the far end of the pendulum it allows everybody to start from a position of we are going to work to keep openness as the basic principle and work act from there with the exceptions. It sounds like you are saying, congress, keep up the good work. Thanks so much for your enlightened legislation. A senator from nebraska ended up being a visionary that he never expected to be. You can layer on acceptable use policies, things that in the companys judgment like auctions that are prohibited. Part of the protection that these acts provide is the ability for companies to exercise judgment and to get rid of things they believe are in the consumers interest. When theres been a conflict in a commerce, the Rolex Company has a litter of kittens over fake wetsuits watches being sold on ebay, is that settled now . I would say that the great copyright and trademark wars over the internet are not settled. There is the ability for people to push the envelope. For the vast majority of commerce, its a much better situation than it had been. I think there is no reason to reopen the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and most companies have adopted similar statutes and regulations. Can i ask you to weigh on this question . I am also from trip advisor. We used to do an online review. We confront this regularly. I would agree with todd. As the state of it is today in the United States, 230 is a terrific help to our Business Model and others here today. It is under threat from time to time. There was a group of state ags but you or two ago a year or two ago trying to claw back some of those restrictions. Europe is more unsettled in terms of the regularity and the rules of the road there. It is a less friendly environment for the intermediary. Nothing in particular you would ask of the government . Nothing you are fearing it will do . On the u. S. Side . No. Internationally, i think clarity. The big ask would be what it looks like. Its unlikely that would be passed today. It may be a difficult road to get past internationally. Maybe i can ask you, tell us where youre from. I am at the Republican Senatorial committee. The Republican Party over the last 20 years has had an amazing resurgence, it is a great, golden age, as we all know. [laughter] and how much would an issue like the one we were just talking about be on the radar whether for a campaign, or for policymaking, or is this kind of in the weeds . Presently today is an issue that is largely to the weeds which is a benefit to the Tech Industr