Google Zeitgeists Of 2012

The Four 2012: Google Employees For Marriage Equality

Google: Legalize Love - Giant Tech Launches Global Marriage Campaign For Marriage Equality 

429 Magazine reports:

Google is launching a new campaign called “Legalize Love” with the intention of inspiring countries to legalize marriage for lesbian, gay, and bisexual people around the world. 

The “Legalize Love” campaign officially launches in Poland and Singapore on Saturday, July 7th. Google intends to eventually expand the initiative to every country where the company has an office, and will focus on places with homophobic cultures, where anti-gay laws exist. 
Google’s Mark Palmer-Edgecumbe outlined the initiative at a Global LGBT Workplace Summit in London earlier today. “We want our employees who are gay or lesbian or transgender to have the same experience outside the office as they do in the office. It is obviously a very ambitious piece of work.
Their strategy involves developing partnerships between companies and organizations to support grass-roots campaigns. 
On the decision to launch the initial phase in a country like Singapore, Palmer-Edgecumbe says, “Singapore wants to be a global financial center and world leader and we can push them on the fact that being a global center and a world leader means you have to treat all people the same, irrespective of their sexual orientation.”
At the end of the day, the “Legalize Love” campaign is also good for Google’s business. “We operate in many countries and have a very globally mobile workforce. We have had a number of instances where we have been trying to hire people into countries where there are these issues and have been unable to put the best person into a job in that country,” said Palmer-Edgecumbe.
Harry Gaskell, of professional services firm Ernst & Young who also spoke at the conference in London, backed the argument for combining initiatives between governments, organizations, and companies. “If you are trying to change something - governments can exert diplomatic power, NGOs can martial facts and arguments - but corporations martial economic power. That is something even the most passive of countries will listen to.”
Bob Amnnibale, an openly gay executive at Citi, also praised the initiative. “The fact that Google is so virtual and its appeal is very wide and young demographically means it can help spread messaging very, very quickly.”

Google Celebrates Alan Turing

Alan Turning is considered to be the father of computer science. Turing’s decoding of the Nazi’s “enigmamachine” is credited as one of single-most crucial factors in ending the war. 

He, thou, killed himself after being convicted of the “crime” of homosexuality back in 1954.

Former British PM Gordon Brown issued a posthumous apology to Mr. Turning back in 2009.

Canada: Pride Toronto & Google+

Google: Project Glass 

Rachel Maddow: Santorum’s Google Problem Can Indeed Get Worse

Valentine’s Day Google Doodle

Check out the artist’s profile by The Washington Post.

Google & Santorum At CPAC

What a combo!

(Taken by arishapiro via Instagram)

Google+ Hangouts: President Barack Obama

Via breakingnews:

Did you catch President Obama’s Google+ hangout earlier today?

In case you missed it, here it is, via YouTube.

Wikipedia Blackout: 11 Huge Sites Protest SOPA, PIPA On January 18

The Huffington Post reports:

On January 18, over 7,000 websites — including Wikipedia and Google — will protest anti-piracy legislation currently making its way through Congress. Sites in opposition to the measures will either “going dark” or post information to educate visitors about bills H.R. 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), and S. 968, the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA), two pieces of legislation meant to curb copyright infringement.
While many may support the bills’ intentions,opponents and civil libertarians are worried that their passage would give the government powerful censorship tools that could threaten free speech.
When a site “goes dark,” or participates in a “blackout,” the site will in some way restrict its usual content. For example, the English-language version of Wikipedia, which will be dark from midnight January 18 until midnight January 19, will feature information about SOPA and PIPA and encourage visitors to contact their representatives, in place of its usual encyclopedia entries. Similarly, visitors to Imagur’s photo gallery will find information about the legislation and “a message about how the PIPA/SOPA legislation threatens sites like Imgur” as well as “methods to take action,” according to the company’s blog.
At a speech in Boston last autumn, Eric Schmidt, Google’s former CEO and now executive chairman, called SOPA “draconian,” CNN reports. Google announced on Tuesday that it would be posting on its homepage a link to information about the proposed legislation, according to The New York Times.
In November, a bevy of large Internet companies, including Facebook, Google, Zynga, Twitter and LinkedIn, published an open letter in the New York Times that said, in part, the companies were “concerned that these measures pose a serious risk to our industry’s continued track record of innovation and job-creation, as well as to our Nation’s cybersecurity.” AOL, which owns the Huffington Post, also signed the letter.
There are several ways you can get involved in the SOPA/PIPA protests. SopaStrike.com offers instructions on how to black out your own site. You can also let your voice be heard by clicking one of the links below.

Countdown With Keith Olbermann: Dan Savage On Santorum’s Rise

Dan Savage received a very angry letter from Peter “Porno” LaBarbera, President of Americans For Truth About Homosexuality (I know, right?), asking him to take Santorum’s website down. Dan has no intentions to do so.

Google: Zeitgeist 2011 - Year In Review -

At Google, A Transgender “Gold Standard”

The Advocate reports:

In a move predicted by one advocate to become the gold standard for LGBT health, Google has significantly increased coverage of transgender health care benefits for its U.S. employees, and other companies are soon expected to follow suit. 

The updated benefits, announced internally by company officials on Friday and effective immediately, cover transitioning procedures and treatment in accordance with theWorld Professional Association for Transgender Health’s (WPATH) Standards of Care, and include gender reassignment surgical procedures determined to be medically necessary by a doctor. 

Some of the procedures covered by Google’s health care plan include genital surgery, as well as facial feminization for transgender women and pectoral implants for transgender men — surgeries that can be considered medically necessary depending on the “unique clinical situation of a given patient’s condition and life situation,” according to WPATH’s seventh version of care standards, published in September. 

“As the WPATH Standards of Care are considered the highest standards of care for transgender individuals, we agreed to cover the full range of procedures under WPATH,” Google spokesman Jordan Newman told The Advocate. 

Google also has more than doubled the maximum dollar amount for transgender health care benefits, from $35,000 to $75,000, the minimum amount required for a 100% rating on the Human Rights Campaign’s 2012 Corporate Equality Index, which is expected to be released in the coming weeks. The benefits are covered by the company’s existing insurance providers and apply to domestic employees, Newman said. Google is considering extending similar benefits to international employees, though it does not currently have a timeline for doing so.

While Google’s benefits track the updated criteria of HRC’s latest annual workplace equality survey, the Mountain View, Calif.-based company, which has active LGBT employee groups known as “Gayglers” in offices from Michigan to Singapore, also sees the move as part of a larger progressive strategy crucial to maintaining a competitive edge. 

Click here for the full article.

Google, Microsoft, Starbucks Say DOMA Hurts Business

The Advocate reports:

Top U.S. companies including Google, Microsoft, and Starbucks took the unusual step on Thursday of legally documenting their opposition to the Defense of Marriage Act.

A brief filed in court comes from 70 businesses and organizations that want their voice heard on the constitutionality of DOMA, which bans same-sex marriage from being recognized federally and stops couples married in states such as Massachusetts from having their weddings recognized in less accepting places such as Alabama. 

The companies paint the law as an overburdening government regulation that should be repealed.

Their brief points out that the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives is defending DOMA in court on the notion that it imposes “a uniform rule” on whose marriage is recognized. “The perspective of the American employer who must implement DOMA is very different,” the companies state. “Employers are obliged to treat one employee spouse differently from another, when each is married, and each marriage is equally lawful.”

The companies say DOMA “forces” them “to investigate the gender of the spouses of our lawfully married employees and then to single out those employees with a same-sex spouse.” For example, HIPPA laws usually consider marriage a “qualifying event” that automatically enrolls a spouse in an employee’s health insurance. Companies now spend time and money weeding out any gay employees who get married.

If companies don’t want to discriminate, because it hurts their recruiting efforts or they’re just opposed to it in principle, then DOMA causes a bunch of “workarounds” that come with wasteful administrative costs of their own. 

Companies complain that when a same-sex couple legally marries, it requires them “to maintain two sets of books.” That’s because the couple is considered married under state law but not married under federal law. “The double entries ripple through human resources, payroll, and benefits administration,” they write.

Some of the companies have had to pay consultants to jury-rig systems used to track benefits and taxes so they can accommodate the double records. “These dual regimes have spawned an industry of costly compliance specialists,” they complain.

“The burden on the small employer is especially onerous,” the companies point out. Small businesses can’t afford to hire consultants, and “such burdens, standing alone, might chill a smaller employer from employing an otherwise qualified employee because she happens to be married to a same-sex spouse.”

The brief was filed on behalf of the following businesses:

ABT Associates
Aetna, Inc.
Akamai Technologies, Inc.
Alere Inc.
Bank of New York Mellon Corporation
Biogen Idec, Inc.
Blue Cross Blue Shield of Mass., Inc.
Boston Community Capital, Inc.
Boston Medical Center Corp.
Bright Horizons Children’s Centers LLC
Calvert Investments, Inc.
CBS Corporation
The Chubb Corporation
Communispace Corp.
Constellation Energy Group, Inc.
Diageo North America, Inc.
Eastern Bank Corp.
Exelon Corp.
FitCorp Healthcare Centers, Inc.
Gammelgården, LLC
Google Inc.
Integrated Archive Systems, Inc.
Kimpton Hotel & Restaurant Group, LLC
Levi Strauss & Co.
Loring, Wolcott & Coolidge Trust, LLC
Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Co.
Massachusetts Envelope Company, Inc.
Massachusetts Financial Services Company
Microsoft Corp.
National Grid USA, Inc.
Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co.
New Balance Athletic Shoe, Inc.
New England Cryogenic Center, Inc.
NIKE, Inc.
The Ogilvy Group, Inc.
Onyx Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Partners HealthCare System, Inc.
Reproductive Science Center of New England
Skyworks Solutions, Inc.
Starbucks Corp.
State Street Bank and Trust Co.
Stonyfield Farm, Inc.
Sun Life Financial (U.S.) Services Co., Inc.
Time Warner Cable, Inc.
Trillium Asset Management Corp.
W/S Development Associates LLC
Xerox Corp.
Zipcar, Inc.

Law and professional firms:

Burns & Levinson LLP
Edwards Wildman Palmer LLP
Foley Hoag LLP
Goodwin Proctor LLP
Goulston & Storrs, P.C.
McCarter & English LLP
Nixon Peabody LLP
Parthenon Group LLC
Ropes & Gray LLP
Salera Consulting
Seyfarth Shaw LLP
Sullivan & Worcester LLP

Professional, trade and civic organizations:

Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce
The Boston Foundation
Massachusetts Association of Health Plans
Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, Inc.
The National Fire Protection Association
Out & Equal Workplace Advocates
Retailers Association of Massachusetts

And the following cities:

The City of Boston, MA
The City of Cambridge, MA
The City of New York, NY