Facebook. Follow us on twitter in September Harvard universitys institute of politics in the Internet Association hosted a conference on internet policy and it included a panel of executives from google yahoo facebook yelp tripadvisor and ebay along with federal and local government professionals. Topics covered include Consumer Privacy and government regulation of the internet this. Is three hours well, good morning good morning i feel like we should vote on something but we are not going to do that. My name is jonathan zitran and on behalf of the Harvard Kennedy school of politics and center of society and the Internet Association, i am delighted to welcome everybody both here and in the Virtual World because warning with he are Live Streaming right now we are Live Streaming at least as far as i know. I would give the ur. If you are on the live stream you know it. If you are here you dont need it and we are also being recorded for posterity. Our good friends and neighbors at s cspan cable span will be putting this up against the friday night battle between the house of representatives subcommittee on Veterans Affairs and a briefing of the Treasury Department and i think we are looking pretty good so just be aware. We are broadcasting we are located here in the malcon penalty house and fifth floor of the Kennedy School named after john f. Kennedy. And the institute of politics here has been from the start designed to inspire and to support the political aspirations and Public Service of young people something that president kennedy was also wellknown for who can forget his speech after ask not what you can do for yourself but app what you can do for your country and how far seeing it is was to see the role of coding in the ecosystem for the future of the country and the world this morning, we will unfold as two panels i will be moderating the first one on quote will the government break the internet . The law of headlines says the answer to any question that the headline is no we will have to investigate and then we will have at 11 00 the second Panel Moderated by nicko melee on why internet policy matters. So this is really a rare and special opportunity to gather the Amazing Group of people that we have around the table here today. We hope in the limited time to make the most of it and before we start our first panel, i am very pleased to turn the mic over to Michael Beckerman from the Internet Association michael . Thank you thank you jonathan. Thank you to Harvard Institute of politics and bjerke man Center Photograph partnering for this important sip owes yum will the government agree with you . The answer is no the policy issues that we will talk about today with ecoreform. Government surveillance. And internet government nancy and Net Neutrality are very important to the future of the internet and matteres to all of those Internet Users all over the world and important policy issues as we get into the election psyche that will voters care about and certainly for all of the business thats care about. So we are looking forward to a great conversation. Thank you for taking the time to moderate. Pleasure all right so i am now going to take off the introducers hat to put on the moderators hat that means that i will get up and find away to get into the middle of the well so i can look at people [laughter] so this is where we need jeopardy music or something lets see if this will work all right. So hello, everybody. As you may have noticed to call this a panel is generous. This is a roundtable that has right angles and if i do my calculations right with approximately 25 people on the panel, and roughly 85 minutes to do it introductions alone would not be done before the time it is done. So we have a special configuration here. I want to use that to our advantage rather than disadvantage this. Is how i suggest that we do it first to bear in mind and to adopt the ideal as we proceed that we are speaking for terity. Dont forget c span is recording this so imagine the 20 years from now when people have jet packs and swedish philosopher Nick Bostroms ai has taken over and the book spoiler alert that he came out with it doesnt look good for us but they will be looking back nostalgically at 2014 and maybe the names of the companies will have changed maybe the configuration of network has changed. And i urge as we discuss to think about what we would be saying to somebody in the future about the issue thats we are facing right now. I think that it will keep us at the right level of importance for what we want to say and also it will let us give you license to explain a little bit an issue that is among the many people here that are in dealing with governments all of the time on this. That may be representing government. We have short hands for all sorts of things to be able to unpack the short hands so that there is a little bit of a translation available for others. I think that would be quite good that also means since we will not do intro ducks around the table when you first speak of up, please feel free to introduce yourself and do an extra beat. Dont say i am from e bay. Say ebay that you may remember as whatever it is that ebay does [laughter] we will explain this. Complexities of ebay when the time comes. Electronic bay, i understand that to mean. Or maybe not technically, the echo bay echo bay. It had been taken. Url. We have laurened something where is echo bay today . Crushed [laughter] super intelligence so the extra beat on the introduction and another guide line that i would give given this format is this is crazy of but often especially it seems to me in Government Affairs are points are usually three in number and i would like to adjust that to one [laughter] give or take. I guess if you have zero points that is not good. So how about just one figure on one thing with the lab relation and we will keep the conversation because there will be a conversation flowing rather than sort of there are three different reason force that. It reminds me of other things said 20 minuting a to make it harder to follow. Does it sound good . Yes and as michael hinted we have sort of the Mclaughlin Group esq the set of issue thats we will work through and i will not keep them hidden. We will talk a little bit about the liability. And surveillance both public and private and about neutrality that appears to be in the news these days and about finally net government nancy and the thick eight of which there is no return so i hope to be able to touch and integrate across all of them. So lets jump in i want to think a little bit about the category of socalled intermediary liability that i understand to mean governments often directly regulate people and other times they realize dont regulate people regulate anybody or any institution in between the government and the people. And mandates there and then you will still affect regulation and possibly in the more subtle and powerful way. We have seen the examples of that and copy write infringement and defamation as the internet has grown from the early 9 0s and the american context we have seen some balance struck good or bad in what government may or may not require of the intermediary. So i guess really, one example of that going over right now. Is coming in from europe with the newly recognized right to be forgotten and adam where are you . Here. I do not know why it did not occur to me adam ask you first to weigh in on the right to be forgotten but tell us what company you are from . And how is it going . Sir, i am adam i lead the google u. S. Public policy efforts and google is a Search Engine company that does a lot. It was a Search Engine company [laughter] and it did a lot of really great thing humble. Humble. Humble so um. The right to be forgotten is the interesting i think issue that i think is one of the things that i think a lot of us probably here in the u. S. Would look at the ruling of this European Court of justice and they think that this is you know. Outside of the bounds of certainly not something that would deem track here in the u. S. Due to the first a menment and the strong liability principles but i think that it is important to acknowledge some of the feelings that motivate the desire for a right to be forgotten the fact is that there is more information about all of us online than ever before and that is true. A lot of the search costs for finding information that used to be hard to find have been obliterated. It used to be that you could fine information about a persons criminal record by going to the basement of city hall and the internet has obliterated that in a lot of positive ways but the fact is that people are concerned about the impact. I this i that one of the things that you know. Concern necessary about the discussion of the right to be forgotten is that it has not been that balanced with some of the other competing values such as primarily the values of the free expregnant and the benefit of the consumer right to know particularly about things like you know. Whether a vendor has had bad reviews against them or whether a potential babysitter had criminal things. This is something that people could request to be search results and that is something very anticonsumerism adam does this represent a shift in 2014 in thinking with google from a stance that used to say we indeck the internet. If you have a problem with that consult the internet to the stance that says there is a lot of tricky things to balance here. We may have kwbls with the privately activated process where a person is to come to google it will and fill out of a form and a link will go down between the person and the information. But this is a new reality and there is a lot more stuff online i think that the reality is and one of the reasons why the court case in europe is has been heavily dissected in some ways it hinges on if google is more like a Data Processor that the court ruled that it is or whether it is more like a newspaper or journalistic organization which we are showing some kind of priority and reality is that Google Search results do both. Indeck the web and there is a function of saying that we believe that the results are more important to the user than others last question on the mechanics of it, how is it going . Give us the sense of the flow of coming in after the opinion came down. And are there plans to open it up voluntarily to the other citizens . I have a small list in my pocket of things you know. We have received in the order of a 100,000 requests and we have the backlog of requests we have to go through these one by one. Are there jobs that are posted for google right to be forgotten processors . There arent as far as i am aware unfortunately, some of cases that we have seen you know have been former politicians asking to have news of their criminal convictions removed these things are in our view not in the public interest. One the thing that we are monitoring is that there is some interest on the part of regulators and policymakers and places like latin america and asia in the european right to be forgotten and looking at that and saying is this something to consider . That concerns us obviously. And you are so far only limiting the right to where it is required of you to implement right. To european citizens and within our european domain only in european port holes of google right. European localized european versions of google that means if i am in britain and i am alert enough to say that i would like google. Com i can perform a search . Thats right that is an area of contention too i imagine and are there other companies at the table that are watching this very closely . If you are not a Search Engine is right to be forgotten implicating what you do either now or potentially in the future . Remarkably quiet. This is a google and Search Enginespecific thing . Wow brad . I thought that i saw a hand go up. No. You didnt but [laughter] fair enough brad young and i am a Senior Council with tripadvisor which at one point in time the Worlds Largest travel site and we focus on user reviews of Hotel Restaurants and a tracks around the world. At one point in time is not now [laughter] i understand that and it would be disingenuous to say that we are not watching with interest how everything unfolds obviously we have looked at the European Court of justice decision and we have seen how google has react today it much and also there is a you know a proposed directive before the eu that we do not know whether it will be enacted or not so what form it will take and if it is how each member count reef the e. U. Will implement that directive and in our view and speaking just on be had an of tripadvisor the issue will raise more questions than answers i think it is who the Data Processor or falls into the news exemption and what is irrelevant. Who will decide what is irrelevant the moment that google subject to appeal will google not end up allowing the intervention by the complaint . Right matters of public interest. Right where is that line drien this is a politician is one thing. And b and b owner providing poor service to his paying customers and public. Where will that fall on the line there. Is open questions that i think well so let me ask you show adam was saying look. This is 2014. And it is not a simple as it is the internet deal with it there are a lot of equities to be balanced. And there is plenty of to quibble with with a given mandate this. Is the new reality is there a similar thing going on in the class of sites like tripadvisor . That affirmatively solicit reviews and the other information from the people that may make institutions i imagine that it will make or barak a hotel if it will get a certain ranking or a review. Is it your view that this generally gets sorted out and tripadvisors commitment to its users will have the right things happen . Or are there ways of which you can go awry . Um i this i that each individual platform probably has a definitely has a rule and ethos it is running undid in a given time. The community expects to connect. They are always evolving for sure but there is a question i dont know what point in time you want the government to determine you know. Tripadvisor those reviews are from three years ago they are irrelevant. And if somebody is take them down we got rid of the cockroaches and prior owners are in jail yep tripadvisor they should be cleansed. How do you what would you do that through a Contact Us Forum trip advise there are certain situations where we will remove a large amount of reviews change of own or ship being the most common one and major rent vagus right. You put on three new wings and you bring in new management. And a different experience for the consumer. But, there are judgements. And we have made lines that work our user ands are the judgements made according to your conscience and what makes for a Good Business or is there a shadow of Government Intervention if you should do that wrong . No, not at all the lawyers are at the table he is is he sitting right here [laughter] those are made for what is best for the community right right. The larger the volume the more experiences that you are able to offer up to someone that is trying to figure out what to expect when they take their time off and spend hard money and take their kids somewhere the larger and the quantity is very helpful. So we have determined that there are certain things that you know you make the moves, you change ownership, blah, blah blah. At this point in time. They are irrelevant. And maybe they should be forgotten and we should start fresh. And in certain situations you put new linens on the beds we will leave all of the reviews up about the restaurant downstairs and the front desk that is not changing everything. Got it on a map and a registry forever and the other hand you look at countries like france you know. And any crime should be sort of expunked from the record whether have you done your crime. They want people to have a clean slate. We have made judgements and we will need to make the judgements and legislatively. It is easier to do when the information and the question is in the hands of the government deciding when and how to release it. Once it in a Public Domain of course it is harder to affect that genie into the bottle. Your prediction. Five to ten years from now. Will there be an right to be forgotten recognized either legislatively or as a matter of Customer Service with the likes of google . I do not think that there will be a right to be forgotten on the scale of the court improblemed but there will be miniature laws and other steps taken to address particular types of information against Copyright Infringement claims so long as it expeditiously takes it down when asked. Is that holding up well . Did anybody ask about tweeting that received in america . [laughter] tell us where you are from. I am with each day. With internet commerce i do pavements through pay paul and i have a Small Company called a stub of and it goes to your point that the Communications Decency act other than section 230 that the internet had been broken. So the irony is a lot of it was meant to limit on the web to be the greatest proponent. So part of this is government acting in a way that the sponsors you could not have anything to around the world but as far as the pendulum you can start from a positio