Australia Blog
News and notes from Google Down Under
Google on the ACCC Digital Platforms Inquiry
Tuesday, September 17, 2019
Technology has provided significant opportunities for Australian consumers and businesses. And the potential upside is huge -
research
suggests that Australia stands to gain $1.2 trillion in economic benefit between 2015 and 2030 if it can successfully drive investment in productivity-enhancing technology.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s
Digital Platforms Inquiry
(DPI) explored the pace of digital transformation within the media sector and across the Australian economy. Last week we provided a submission as part of the Treasury consultation process on the DPI Final Report.
This process provides an opportunity for Australia to consider its place in the global digital economy and to review the rules of engagement between Australian consumers, businesses, and technology providers.
In Australia,
Alphabeta
estimated that to date in 2019, Google Search, grants from Google to the non-profit sector, and Google advertising tools have helped connect more than 1.1 million businesses, website publishers, and non-profits to consumers globally. The benefits realised by businesses using Google’s platforms enabled them to support up to
116,200
jobs in Australia, two-thirds in small and medium-sized businesses.
Google’s technology helps Australians find information and create content. More than one hour of Australian content is uploaded to YouTube
every minute
and, on an average night, Google Search and other Google tools like YouTube help Australian students research answers to
25 million homework questions
.
Our ability to create products that are useful and successful relies on carefully balancing the interests of our users, publishers, and advertisers.
For consumers, we need to ensure that we provide the most relevant results and also ensure we keep their information safe and private - over the last 10 years Google has developed innovative privacy tools like
Google Account
and
Google Takeout
, which give consumers greater transparency and control over their data.
For publishers, large and small, we provide the ability to monetise their content with advertising and send over 24 billion visits (or clicks) to news publishers every month globally - that adds up to 9,000 visits a second.
For advertisers, again large and small, we need to ensure that we deliver effective advertising solutions across Search, YouTube and the Google Display Network. For Google to succeed, all three stakeholders need to succeed.
Google supports the DPI’s objectives to promote public interest journalism and digital media literacy, foster a dynamic and competitive digital ecosystem, protect consumer privacy, and drive greater understanding of data collection, but notes these should be balanced with the interests of consumers and wider social and economic objectives.
Google is broadly supportive of many of the Final Report's 23 recommendations, but some require further analysis on the associated costs and benefits. Two recommendations are of particular concern, specifically changes to Android defaults and aspects of the proposed publisher code.
Firstly, the recommendation to directly intervene in the Android operating system does not take into account Australian market conditions and competition laws, and provides no justification for focusing on Android when Apple’s iOS is the most-used mobile operating system in Australia (as noted in the Final Report) and Microsoft’s Windows remains the
most-used
PC-based operating system.
Secondly, the proposal for regulator-sanctioned negotiation of revenue sharing between platforms and news publishers - as part of the code contemplated by Recommendation 7 - overlooks existing commercial arrangements between Google and Australian news publishers and the broader value that Google provides through referred web traffic and technology.
In total in 2018, Google sent more than 2 billion clicks to Australian news publishers from Australian users, and more than 1 billion additional clicks to Australian news publishers from users globally. Our
Google News Initiative
supports news publishers of all sizes to develop, test and implement innovative approaches to drive revenue for publishers and support greater media literacy among consumers.
Recently
we made ranking updates and published changes to our search rater guidelines to help better recognise original reporting and surface it more prominently in Search.
Google welcomes the opportunity for further consultation. We look forward to continuing to engage with all interested parties, including Government and industry, in the coming weeks.
Posted by Melanie Silva, Managing Director, Google Australia
New report highlights Google Australia’s economic contribution
Wednesday, September 11, 2019
Just how much do digital tools like Google Search and Maps save Aussie businesses in time and money? And what is Google doing for job creation, whether it’s employing people directly - or helping others to do so by using Google’s business tools to grow their own businesses?
With the release of
new research
by economists
AlphaBeta
, we now have updated answers to these questions - and more!
Caption: Google Maps helps transport businesses get from place to place more efficiently.
In fact, AlphaBeta found that Google’s advertising and productivity platforms are helping more than a million Aussie businesses and have helped deliver business benefits in the order of $35 billion so far this year — in a big boost to small business growth, job creation and national productivity. This is more than double the
2015 estimate
, reflecting the continued growth of Australia’s digital economy.
The report
also found that digital tools like Google Search and Maps have saved Aussie businesses 97 million hours - a saving valued at $2.9 billion - by helping businesses find information faster, and get from A to B more quickly. Check out the infographic below for more on the economic contributions identified in the research:
Caption: Infographic showing different aspects of Google Australia’s economic impact as
estimated by AlphaBeta.
The report
is a reminder that digital tools can be a big driver for job creation, productivity gains, and small business growth in Australia. Of course it’s important we have the right settings in place to allow Australia to realise the full potential of our growing tech sector and digital economy.
This new research follows the recent release of
report
for industry group
DIGI
that found the tech sector could contribute up to $207 billion a year to the economy by 2030 (a 70% increase on the 2018 figure of $122 billion).
Posted by Michael Cooley, Senior Policy Manager, Google Australia
Google brings digital skills training to nation’s capital
Wednesday, September 11, 2019
Canberrans had the chance to pick up vital new digital skills as free
Grow with Google
workshops were held in the nation’s capital.
It was great to join more than 500 Canberra businesses, not-for-profit organisations, educators, students, locals who turned out at the Eastlake Football Club to hear from experts on digital tools and tips.
Grow with Google
aims to give Australians access to digital skills training, both online and in-person, to help them make the most of the Internet. Since 2014, Google has trained
more than half a million people
across Australia through online and in-person digital skills training, as well as curriculum integrated through school and partner programs.
At today’s event, local Canberra businesses learned how to grow their presence online and engage customers, educators learned how they could find valuable information and engage students in learning opportunities, and individuals at all stages of the digital journey picked up new skills and tips.
We know there are enormous opportunities for those who take advantage of digital tools, but there’s also a skills gap with many people unsure how to go about it.
Grow with Google
aims to help business owners, students, teachers, and not-for-profits build their skills, with lessons for people at all stages of the digital journey.
And it seems Canberrans are hungrier than most to learn about small business topics — according to
Google Search Trends
, Canberrans are more interested in small business as a topic on Google Search than any other state or territory in Australia.
Many Canberra businesses are already doing great things online like
Little Sprout
, a sustainable toy store that has built a strong digital presence and loyal following with customers.
Grow with Google was launched in March 2019 and includes an online learning hub accessible from anywhere, on any device, with hundreds of handy training modules. The next Grow with Google event will be held in Wagga Wagga on Friday 27 September. Find out more at:
g.co/GrowWagga
Posted by Mel Silva, Country Director, Google Australia
Nest Hub Max, the newest member of the Google Nest family, is available from September 10 in Australia
Monday, September 9, 2019
Nest Hub Max, the newest member of the Google Nest family, is available from September 10 at retailers and on the
Google Store
in Australia. Designed to be the hub for any home, Hub Max is your kitchen TV, home (video) phone, bulletin board, kitchen timer, photo frame, home monitoring camera and more—all in one display.
My family has been using our Nest Hub Max in the kitchen, and it’s been especially fun to see how it helps keep all of us entertained, connected and in sync. Since we’ve had some time to get to know the product, I wanted to share some of the ways we’ve been using Hub Max in our busy household:
Starting my day on the right track
My experience with Hub Max starts when I come downstairs each morning – and I kick off my day with personalised help with a feature called Face Match. For each person in your family who chooses to turn it on, the Assistant guides you through the process of creating a face model, which is encrypted and stored on the device. This means my Assistant greets me with personalised information to start my day: the weather in my suburb, how my commute is looking, and even a news briefing that I can watch while I finish up the dishes that I couldn’t resist leaving undone the previous night. In Australia, you can enjoy news briefings from ABC NEWS, Fox Sports, CommSec and more.
Keeping an eye on home from work
My husband and I both love Hub Max’s built-in Nest Cam, especially when we have to work late and want to check in via the Home app. We can easily get alerts from the Nest app when someone enters the room, and we can view the live stream from our phones to see how dinnertime is going. I can even use Talk and Listen to chat via the Nest Cam, even when I’m away from home. Or if I want to say a bit more, I can use the Google Duo app on my phone to send a video message to my husband that he’ll receive when he walks up to the Hub Max.
Peace of mind
Nest Hub Max has been designed with your privacy in mind and has multiple features to control its built-in Nest Cam. Per our
privacy commitments
, there’s a green light on the front of Hub Max that indicates when the camera is streaming, and nothing is streamed or recorded unless you explicitly enable it. When a verified member of our household views the stream remotely via the Nest app, the light blinks green. In addition, there are multiple controls to disable the camera and mics, including a hardware switch that lets you physically disable both (and this can’t be overridden via the Home app remotely). Of course, you can always access, review and delete your footage and queries at any time via the
Nest app
and
My Activity.
Dinnertime is family time
From guided recipes to how-to videos, Nest Hub Max is our digital sous chef that helps us whip up family dinners. There are millions of inspiring recipes from leading publishers (in Australia, you can enjoy recipes from Woolworths, Gourmet Traveller, Genius Kitchen, Food Network and more). We eat dinner as a family in the kitchen, and we’ve realised this is also the perfect time for our sons to catch up with their grandparents every evening. Thanks to Duo on our Hub Max, it’s easy to stay connected—they just lets us know which grandma he’s in the mood to chat with, and with a quick “Hey Google, video call Mum,” either of us can invite our parents to join the fun. And with the auto framing feature, the camera automatically adjusts to keep us in view, even as we move around the kitchen to prep the evening’s meal.
After dinner is party time
The premium stereo speakers on Hub Max have made family dance parties a regular tradition in the Morgenroth household. And whenever we’re starting to get tired (or just tired of hearing “Gangnam Style” for the eighth time in a row — yes, really!), the Quick Gestures feature lets us simply just look at the device and raise a hand to pause the music.
Winding down
Finally, Hub Max is the perfect companion as we’re tidying up after putting our sons to bed. For some evening entertainment, we enjoy our favourite TV shows and YouTube content right on Nest Hub Max (and in Australia, you can stream shows with a Stan subscription). And just before I turn off the lights for the night, I always find myself reliving a favourite family memory, thanks to our shared Google Photos album that we’ve displayed using Hub Max’s photo frame feature. Whether it’s a wedding photo, our son’s first steps or our last vacation, Hub Max never fails to bring a smile to my face.
Nest Hub Max is available in chalk and charcoal for RRP $349 starting September 10 at Harvey Norman, JB Hi-Fi, The Good Guys, Officeworks and the
Google Store
– as well as Optus in the coming months.
Posted by Katie Morgenroth, Nest Industrial Design Manager
Creating map icons that reflect the culture and traditions of Indigenous Australians
Thursday, August 22, 2019
Editor’s note:
Today’s post is by Andrew Dowding, Managing Director of Winyama, a digital mapping company based in Perth, and Dennis Golding, Freelance Designer with Google’s Creative Lab. Dowding, a Ngarluma person from the West Pilbara, led last month’s
Indigenous Mapping Workshop
in Perth. At the workshop, Golding, a descendant of the Kamilaroi/Gamillaraay people from the North West of New South Wales, presented
new mapping icon designs
to help Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities map cultural and natural resources. Below, Dowding and Golding explain the creative process behind the icons.
Humankind’s earliest maps, usually created by Indigenous peoples, were drawn by hand in sand or engraved onto rocks. In a sense, the drawings—many of which still exist today—were versions of today’s online map pins and icons, intended to guide people to important places and show our connection to the land.
As more Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians assert their traditional ties to their lands, they need modern-day replacements for sand and rock drawings. At the Indigenous Mapping Workshop, we helped Australia’s Indigenous peoples use mapping tools like Google Earth to visualise their lands and preserve cultural knowledge about their country for future generations.
Google Maps icons already do a great job of telling us where we can grab a coffee or find a place to stay. However, we want to share a different kind of knowledge with our communities: knowledge about where to find cultural sites and where specific animals often gather. We need to guide people to traditional foods, shelter, animals, and sacred spaces. When we’re explaining what life is like in our country, we need icons showing bush tomatoes or berries, and icons that represent people around campfires.
Icons with meaning for highly diverse Indigenous communities
With 100 Indigenous community members coming together in Perth, the Indigenous Mapping Workshop was the perfect place to present icon designs reflecting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples’ cultures. Our plan was to bring 20 icon designs to the workshop, where we’d collaborate with community members on ideas for more icons, eventually ending up with a group of 50 icons that covered a range of Indigenous experiences, places, and practices. With these icons in hand, mapping workshop attendees can visualise their significant places and tell Indigenous stories using maps.
But before we created the icon concepts, we acknowledged our design challenges:
Australia’s Indigenous communities are not homogenous.
In Australia alone, there are hundreds of Indigenous peoples and more than 250 Aboriginal language groups, each with their own artworks, cultures, and lifestyles. A sea turtle icon could mean something to a coastal person, but mean nothing at all to a desert person. We had to tap into a common universe of symbols so that, as much as possible, icon designs would resonate across cultural lines.
Map icons need to be small in scale.
Mapping icons are meant to be clearly read on device screens. We had to reduce designs to their most basic elements, so they’d pop on a map and not melt into the landscape.
Our design style is different.
We like the sharp-edged and computer-designed icon style used in Google Maps, but that style doesn’t match up with Aboriginal art, which relies on hand drawings and isn’t so clean-edged.
Grounding icons in traditional symbols
We’re lucky to have the support of Google’s Sydney-based Creative Lab team on this project. Creative Lab is a group of creators, developers, and filmmakers who explore Google tools and emerging technology; they designed the
Indigenous Mapping Workshop
’s logo. Dennis began working with the Creative Lab in 2018 as its first Aboriginal designer.
To start the design process, Andrew focused on the basic patterns and symbols of Aboriginal art as a visual language for the icons, and gave Dennis some designs from an
Aboriginal art teaching website
.
Dennis—who already has experience creating Indigenous-inspired designs with his
rugby jersey for Australia’s Wallabies team
—started his research on the street, looking at signs. He thought about how signs guide us when we’re walking and driving, and how icons and colors come together to take us from place to place.
He also researched objects that could be used as the basis for icons—like boomerangs, the traditional thrown tool used by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples for hunting, and middens, buried collections of shells that indicate where Indigenous peoples ate meals.
Here’s one of the first mockups, done in Adobe Creative Suite. At this point, we didn’t have icons yet—just some drawings of Indigenous objects.
Dennis wanted the icon designs to be informed by Aboriginal art, but also to be read instantly by the viewer, using a simple and universal style for the entire icon set. We had to pull back a bit from the traditional designs we started with. The symbolism of the icon mattered above all: They had to communicate meaning while still reflecting the past.
Here’s how we simplified the drawings to emphasise the symbolism:
From traditional designs to icons:
Water holes Camp Turtle We also had to think about using color to classify icons—another way to help map-makers and map readers understand the icons and their purpose.
Our first set of icons, with more to come
With our starter set of 20 icons, we were ready to throw this project open to discussion at the Indigenous Mapping Workshop, in hopes of refining the designs we have, understanding the needs of different communities and getting inspiration for more. We decided to add some new icons based on conversations with attendees—for example, icons for wind (which we did not expect!), icons that could mark sites of genocide or acts of brutality against Indigenous communities, and icons that could be gender-based to align with cultural protocols around men’s business and women’s business. There were also instances where people suggested new designs for existing icons like the Pearl Shell and Ceremony icons. We expect that the icon design process will continue for the rest of the year as we share refinements with workshop attendees and consider feedback from different Aboriginal communities.
Dennis Golding chatting with workshop participants about the icon project. Photo credit:
Dion Kickett Photography
Workshop participants were invited to suggest new icons that would support their mapping projects. Photo credit:
Dion Kickett Photography
IMW participants suggested ideas for ceremony and rock art icons. Photo credit:
Dion Kickett Photography
IMW participants suggested ideas for icons that represent significant animals. Photo credit:
Dion Kickett Photography
We’re excited to have
a set of mapping icons
that reflect us and our Aboriginal traditions. Because Australia is so vast, people tend to think of Aboriginal lands as empty landscapes. But as our maps and icons will show, these are vibrant places filled with life and culture—and far from empty.
Andrew Dowding, Managing Director of Winyama, a digital mapping company based in Perth, and Dennis Golding, Freelance Designer with Google’s Creative Lab
Celebrating Aussie sport: More ways to help you explore, learn and get into the games you love
Tuesday, August 20, 2019
Whether we’re playing or barracking, we Aussies take our commitment to sport very seriously. We have public holidays for horse races and grand finals – and 92% of us are interested in sports.* Over generations, sport has become a defining pillar of our identity, values and culture.
This passion for sport comes through in Search. According to Google Trends, Search interest in Australia sport is higher than Search interest in the weather every year – and the most searched Aussie by Aussies this year so far is tennis player and former cricketer, Ash Barty.
With this fascination in mind, we’ve been on a mission to help Aussies better connect with and explore the sports they love. Last year, we
launched
live scores, match results, fixtures and ladders across AFL, NRL, Cricket (and more) to help you stay up to date and cheer on your favourite teams. And this year, we
launched voting
in Search, inviting AFL fans to vote for their Friday Night Best on Ground and Player of the Round - directly in Search.
We know rich content and live streaming are important to fans. In the coming months, we’re delivering more tools to help partners bring their live streams and highlights through Search.
Building on these efforts, we’ve been working with more local partners to help people in Australia and around the world explore and learn about our rich sporting heritage.
Today, Google Arts & Culture is launching our first dedicated celebration of sports,
Great Sporting Land
– showcasing the people, moments and places which have shaped our extraordinary sport history. Australia was chosen as the first country to kick off this initiative – a true testament to our weight in the world of sport.
The exhibition
features over 11,000 archived images and videos, and more than 100 original stories from over 30 partners including the Melbourne Cricket Club, Australian Football League, National Portrait Gallery and Bondi Surf Lifesaving. Google’s Art Camera technology also travelled to sporting institutions across the country to capture over 200 pieces of art, archival materials and artefacts in high-resolution gigapixel quality.
Cricket legend Steve Waugh will take you on a tour of the archives of the world-famous Bradman Museum to discover some of the most famous bats in the history of cricket, including hand-etched scores on the back of Don Bradman’s
first bat
. Steve will also take you through a video series that offers never-before-seen insight into his work and memories of the sport.
Zoom into the details of
Don Bradman’s original bat
(here held by Steve Waugh), from the Bradman Museum.
You can also venture to Sydney Cricket Ground's Away Changing Room where visiting players have taken it upon themselves to graffiti their standout batting and bowling figures on the
changing room door.
Sydney Cricket Ground's Away changing room cupboard door, from Sydney Cricket & Sports Grounds
If you’re ready for a dip, put on your togs and take a trip to
Summers Past
—an exhibition celebrating the golden days in the Australian sunshine. You can also
Watch the Waves
(a selection of photographs of surf lifesaving by the National Archives) or explore the
North Bondi Surf Life Saving Club in VR
.
A
lifeguard
watching over swimmers from a lookout, circa 1966, from National Archives of Australia
Whether you’re in Melbourne, Mumbai or Manchester, you can discover the tales, traditions, legends and artifacts that have shaped our great sporting nation at
g.co/GreatSportingLand
– or download the Google Arts & Culture app on iOS or Android.
*BCG Intergenerational Review of Australian Sport 2017, Australian Sports Commission
Posted by Melanie Silva, Managing Director, Google Australia and New Zealand
Scuppering scammers: Scams Awareness Week 2019
Wednesday, August 14, 2019
Romantic scams, investment scams, shopping scams or ‘you’ve won a million dollars’ scams - more than
100,000 Australians
have reported scams this year.
That’s why we're
supporting
the ACCC’s annual
Scams Awareness Week 2019
, which runs from 12-16 August 2019.
Scams Awareness Week
aims to raise awareness and promote education on ways to detect and avoid scams and minimise impact on the community.
At Google, we’re invested in creating safer digital environments where vulnerable members of the community are less likely to fall victim to scams. We have a
dedicated help page
that identifies all of the scams purporting to be from Google.
We also make the web safer from phishing and malware with our
Safe Browsing
warnings in Chrome. Each day we find more than 7,500 unsafe sites, so when you click through to an unsafe page using your Chrome browser, we’ll display a warning and encourage you to go elsewhere. We provide this intel to the
Stop Badware
coalition to help other service providers make the web safer too.
What can you do to help keep your data safe and secure? Take this quick
Security Check-Up
to review your current Google account settings and check out the
five things you can do right now
. You can also visit the
Google Safety Centre
for more advice about staying safe online.
Google works to make our services trustworthy and robust. For example, automatic Gmail spam and phishing filters block
99.9 percent
of suspicious or dangerous emails before they reach you and we block
billions of bad ads
so you’re better protected as you browse the internet.
You’ll see a lot of activity this week raising awareness of online scams through #ScamsWeek19 - a timely reminder of how important it is to review your privacy and security settings and be scam aware!
Posted by Samantha Yorke, Government Affairs and Public Policy Senior Counsel, Google Australia
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