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Please note: Additional organizations may be added to the program prior to the application deadline. Please check back for additional updates.

American Library Association
Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic
Cato Institute
Center for Democracy and Technology
The Citizen Lab
Competitive Enterprise Institute
Creative Commons
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Future of Music Coalition
Internet Education Foundation
Media Access Project
New America Foundation
Progress and Freedom Foundation
Public Knowledge
Technology Policy Institute

American Library Association

The American Library Association (ALA) is a nonprofit educational organization of over 65,000 librarians, library trustees, and other friends of libraries dedicated to improving library services and promoting the public interest in a free and open information society. http://www.ala.org/

The Office for Information Technology Policy (OITP) advances ALA's public policy activities by helping secure information technology policies that support and encourage efforts of libraries to ensure access to electronic information resources as a means of upholding the public's right to a free and open information society. It works to ensure a library voice in information policy debates and to promote full and equitable intellectual participation by the public by:

Fellowship Focus Areas:

OITP is organized into three substantive programs, to which the Google Fellow would make contributions:

Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic

Please note that CIPPIC will only be considering applications from students enrolled in a law degree.

The Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) is based at the University of Ottawa, Faculty of Law, in Canada's capital city, Ottawa. CIPPIC's mission is to fill voids in public policy debates on technology law issues, ensure balance in policy and law-making processes, and provide legal assistance to under-represented organizations and individuals on matters arising from the use of new technologies; and to provide a high quality and rewarding clinical legal education experience to students of law while accomplishing these goals.

CIPPIC has become a leading voice for under-represented interests in policy debates on internet-related issues such as privacy, copyright law, network neutrality, free speech and online consumer protection in Canada and internationally. Staff and students pursue these issues via legislative advocacy, cooperative policy-making, litigation, research, and public education.

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Cato Institute

The Cato Institute has withdrawn its Fellowship position for 2009. Please contact the program administrators at policyfellowship@google.com if you have any questions. Please visit their website if you would like learn about Cato's other summer opportunities: www.cato.org/jobs/intern

Center for Democracy and Technology

The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit public policy organization dedicated to promoting the democratic potential of today's open, decentralized global Internet. Our mission is to conceptualize, develop, and implement public policies to preserve and enhance free expression, privacy, open access, and other democratic values in the new and increasingly integrated communications environment.

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The Citizen Lab

The Citizen Lab, founded 2001, is an interdisciplinary research and development lab located at the Munk Centre for International Studies at the University of Toronto. Founded and directed by Professor Ron Deibert, the Citizen Lab does research and development at the intersection of technology, global security, and human rights.

Among the Citizen Lab’s main projects are:

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Google Fellows can focus on two areas related to any of these projects:

Competitive Enterprise Institute

The Competitive Enterprise Institute is a 501(c)(3) non-profit public interest organization dedicated to advancing the principles of free enterprise and limited government. We believe that individuals are best helped not by government intervention, but by making their own choices in a free marketplace.

We are nationally recognized as a leading voice on a broad range of regulatory issues-from free market approaches to environmental policy, to antitrust and technology policy, to risk regulation. But CEI is not a traditional "think tank." We frequently produce groundbreaking research on regulatory issues, but our work does not stop there. It is not enough to simply identify and articulate solutions to public policy problems; it is also necessary to defend and promote those solutions at all phases of the public policy debate.

We reach out to the public and the media to ensure that our ideas are heard, work with policymakers to ensure that they are implemented, and, when necessary, take our arguments to court. This "full service approach" to public policy helps make us an effective and powerful force for economic freedom.

The Google Policy Fellow will work closely with CEI policy analysts in researching technology and telecommunications issues and promoting innovative public policy solutions. Fellows will have the opportunity to write position papers, contribute to CEI’s blog, and author opinion essays for placement in newspapers and websites. Fellows will be invited to attend coalition meetings, accompany CEI experts to hearings and depositions, aide in the drafting and submission of commentary to federal agencies, and participate in seminars and roundtable discussions.

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Creative Commons

Creative Commons provides free tools that let authors, scientists, artists, and educators easily mark their creative work with the freedoms they want it to carry. You can use CC to change your copyright terms from "All Rights Reserved" to "Some Rights Reserved." We're a nonprofit organization and everything we do — including the software we create — is free. Too often the debate over creative control tends to the extremes. At one pole is a vision of total control — a world in which every last use of a work is regulated and in which "all rights reserved" (and then some) is the norm. At the other end is a vision of anarchy — a world in which creators enjoy a wide range of freedom but are left vulnerable to exploitation. Balance, compromise, and moderation — once the driving forces of a copyright system that valued innovation and protection equally — have become endangered species.

Creative Commons is working to revive them. We use private rights to create public goods: creative works set free for certain uses. Like the free software and open-source movements, our ends are cooperative and community-minded, but our means are voluntary and libertarian. We work to offer creators a best-of-both-worlds way to protect their works while encouraging certain uses of them — to declare "some rights reserved."

Creative Commons offers six public licenses that help creators achieve these ends. Our Google Policy Fellow will lead research and investigations into high-level policy and community oriented issues relating to the use of our licenses and tools.

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Electronic Frontier Foundation

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is a nonprofit group of lawyers, policy analysts, technologists, and activists working to protect freedom of expression, civil liberties, digital consumer rights and innovation in the online world.

Since it was founded in 1990, EFF has championed the public interest in every critical battle affecting digital rights and achieved significant victories on behalf of consumers and the general public.

EFF fights for freedom primarily in the courts, bringing and defending lawsuits even when that means taking on the US government or large corporations. By mobilizing more than 50,000 concerned citizens through our Action Center, EFF beats back bad legislation. In addition to advising U.S. and international policymakers, EFF educates the press and the public.

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Google Policy Fellows will work closely with mentors in the EFF international policy team and depending on expertise, also with attorneys in the legal team, and focus on policy analysis in one or more of the following areas:

 The Google Policy Fellowship program provided a great mix of freedom and structure. I was able to choose the projects I worked on, and I always felt like my organization there to support me." -- Ren Bucholz (EFF)

Future of Music Coalition

The Future of Music Coalition is a not-for-profit collaboration between members of the music, technology, public policy and intellectual property law communities. The FMC seeks to educate the media, policymakers, and the public about music / technology issues, while also bringing together diverse voices in an effort to come up with creative solutions to some of the challenges in this space. The FMC also aims to identify and promote innovative business models that will help musicians and citizens to benefit from new technologies.

Our policy agenda focuses on three broad themes, all of which have a direct impact on the ability for artists to make a living in the digital economy:

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FMC views policy issues through the frame of research, education and advocacy. The public policy fellow will work with FMC staff to identify issues of particular interest to the fellow, then develop and implement a strategy focusing on:

The Internet Education Foundation

The Internet Education Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to educating the public and policymakers about the potential of a decentralized global Internet to promote democracy, communications, and commerce. Founded in 1997, IEF facilitates many educational projects including: GetNetWise.org, Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee and The State of the Net Project.

GetNetWise is an educational site that contains information to help parents and computer users stay safe online. GetNetWise.org has the laregest searchable database of parental empowerment and cyber security tools on the Internet and uses multimedia audio and video to train users how to use these tools to enhance their safety. The Internet Education Foundation also does additional research and writing in the areas of online safety and security.

The Congressional Internet Caucus Advisory Committee is a diverse group of public interest, non profit and industry groups working to educate the Congress and the public about important Internet-related policy issues. The ICAC holds regular briefings for Congressional offices on topical Internet policy questions including broadband, net neutrality, copyright and intellectual property, cyber security, Internet governance and everything in between.

The State of the Net Conference Series brings together thought leaders, public Internet groups, industry and government to discuss the most relevant policy issues facing lawmakers. The annual State of the Net Conference in Washington is DC's largest technology policy conference.

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Media Access Project

Media Access Project is a 35 year-old non-profit telecommunications law firm and advocacy group located in Washington, DC. It represents civil rights, civil liberties, environmental and other citizens groups in policy debates before the Federal Communications Commission and the courts. Its mission is to promote the public's First Amendment rights to speak and to be heard in the electronic mass media.

MAP's work is divided between the "old media" ("equal time" for candidates, media ownership limits, creating low power FM radio stations, etc.) and broadband related issues such as net neutrality, expanding opportunities for unlicensed uses of the spectrum, municipal and community owned networks, and promoting minority ownership and participation.

MAP's small staff of attorneys is complemented by several law student interns each semester. Thus, mentorship and teaching is integral to its operation plan. Over recent years, MAP has made increasing use of economists and engineers in its activities.

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New America Foundation

Wireless Future Program - New America's Wireless Future Program develops and advocates policy proposals aimed at achieving universal and affordable wireless broadband access, expanding public access to the airwaves and updating our nation's communications infrastructure in the digital era. For more information, visit www.spectrumpolicy.org.

Open Technology Initiative - The Open Technology Initiative (OTI) formulates policy and regulatory reforms to support open architectures and open source innovations and facilitates the development and implementation of open technologies and communications networks. OTI promotes affordable, universal, and ubiquitous communications networks through partnerships with communities, researchers, industry, and public interest groups. OTI is committed to maximizing the potentials of innovative open technologies by studying their social and economic impacts – particularly for poor, rural, and other underserved constituencies. As an independent non-profit initiative, OTI provides in-depth, objective research, analysis, and findings for policy decision-makers and the general public.

The New America Foundation is a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy institute that invests in new thinkers and new ideas to address the next generation of challenges facing the United States. New America emphasizes work that is responsive to the changing conditions and problems of our 21st Century information-age economy -- an era shaped by transforming innovation and wealth creation, but also by shortened job tenures, longer life spans, mobile capital, financial imbalances and rising inequality. Headquartered in our nation's capital, New America also has offices in California and New York.

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The Progress & Freedom Foundation

The Progress & Freedom Foundation (PFF) is a market-oriented think tank that studies the digital revolution and its implications for public policy. Its mission is to educate policymakers, opinion leaders, and the public about issues associated with technological change, based on a philosophy of limited government, free markets, and individual sovereignty. PFF is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that was founded in 1993. We believe that the technological change embodied in the digital revolution has created tremendous opportunities for enhanced individual liberty, as well as wealth creation and higher living standards.

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Our Fellow will have the opportunity to work alongside PFF's analysts on all aspects of their work, which integrates legal, technical, and policy analysis. A background in law is preferred, but not required. Responsibilities will include research, writing, attending hearings and meetings, and organizing events. The Fellow will be engaged in rigorous research endeavors and will be given the opportunity to potentially author or co-author white papers, editorials, blog entries, and other articles and essays. Research areas include:

Public Knowledge

Public Knowledge is a public-interest advocacy organization dedicated to fortifying and defending a vibrant information commons. This Washington, D.C. based group works with a wide spectrum of stakeholders--libraries, educators, scientists, artists, musicians, journalists, consumers, software programmers, civic groups and enlightened businesses--to promote the core principles of openness, access, and the capacity to create and compete.

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A Public Knowledge fellow will work with members of PK staff and focus on copyright related issues. The fellow will promote policy that ensures that U.S. copyright law and regulation reflect the "cultural bargain" intended by the framers of the Constitution: providing an incentive to creators and innovators while benefiting the public through the free flow of information and ideas. Fellows often have the opportunity to address technology mandates that extend copyright policy and are designed to erode competition, choice, and fairness. Work may include writing and developing policy papers, briefing memos for policy makers, multimedia presentations, blog post, regulatory comments, and hearing testimony. Fellows are expected to attend and brief PK staff on pertinent Congressional hearings, meetings with policy makers, public interest advocates, and industry coalitions. Public Knowledge also encourages fellows to create an independent research project based on their interests and academic and career goals.

 As a Google Policy Fellow, I had access to speakers and symposia that I would never have known about otherwise. I was able to learn about the basics of lobbying, FCC regulatory structure and procedure, and First Amendment and freedom of expression implications in the online world." -- Jon Law (PK)

Technology Policy Institute

The Technology Policy Institute is a think tank that focuses on the economics of innovation, technological change, and related regulation in the United States and around the world. Our mission is to advance knowledge and inform policymakers by producing independent, rigorous research and by sponsoring educational programs and conferences on major issues affecting information technology and communications policy. The Technology Policy Institute is a 501(c)(3) research and educational foundation.

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