Our commitment to protecting your Google Apps information

Posted by Marc Crandall, Head of Global Compliance, Google for Work

Editors note: Our guest blogger this week is Marc Crandall, Head of Global Compliance at Google for Work. A lawyer and long time Googler, Marc focuses on regulatory matters involving privacy and security.

We regularly hear from our customers that assessing data protection compliance in various countries around the world can be challenging. Protecting the privacy and security of our customers’ information is a top priority, and we take compliance very seriously. That’s why weve been working hard to make things a bit easier for you.

We recently launched a new legal and compliance section of the Google Admin console where Google Apps administrators can find pointers to useful information, such as security and privacy certifications, third-party audits and data center and subprocessor information. This will be helpful to everyone, from those who manage their own domain to legal, security and privacy compliance specialists.

Another important resource for Google Apps for Work customers is our data processing amendment, which we’ve offered to customers since 2012. Customers that use our products for Work and for Education are often subject to data protection and compliance regulations. To help address this, in addition to our commercial agreements, we offer a data processing amendment that describes Google’s specific data protection commitments for your Google Apps information.

If you operate in a regulated industry, having Google’s data protection obligations in writing helps demonstrate to regulators that we take significant and concrete steps to protect your information. For customers subject to laws implementing the European Union’s Data Protection Directive, our data processing amendment also contractually binds us to remain enrolled in the U.S Department of Commerce Safe Harbor Program. And we indicate that Google Apps customers may opt-in to model contract clauses with Google.

While the data processing amendment does not affect the functionality of Google Apps, we believe customers with regulatory compliance considerations will find the amendment useful. You can access the data processing amendment from within the Admin console.

Millions of organizations use Google for Work today — they come from all sectors and more than half of our customers operate outside of the United States. You rely on Google to provide strong data protection capabilities, in compliance to your specific needs. With these tools in place, we hope to make it easier for you and third parties to verify that. For more information, visit our Google for Work and Google for Education trust site.

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Going Google just got easier

Posted by Rich Rao, Head of global sales, Google Apps for Work

Word processing and spreadsheet programs are the mainstay of office productivity software. Let’s face it: without a great way to write memos, crunch numbers and flesh out ideas, you can’t get any meaningful work done. For a long time, productivity software was a bit like a midsized sedan: sturdy, dependable, loaded with features and a little dull.

Nine years ago with Google Docs, we saw an opportunity to build something that would enable people to work together in new ways. Fast forward to today and Docs is a productivity powerhouse. Now’s a great time to give it a fresh look if you want to take advantage of its unmatched collaboration tools. We’ve made it easy by covering most of the features some claim to be missing and adding nifty new stuff like Voice Typing and Explore. All in all, we think youll find it’s the perfect tool for work.

In fact, were so confident that Docs has all the features you need, without the ones you dont, that were making it even easier to give it a try. If youre worried about switching to Docs because you still have an enterprise agreement (EA) with another provider, well cover the fees of Google Apps until your contract runs out. Well even chip in on some of the deployment costs and set you up for success with one of our Google for Work Partners.

Once your current EA is up, we offer a simple contract with no traps or gotchas. For a lot of businesses, it’s cheaper, too. Our estimates suggest that businesses with basic EAs and no dependencies can potentially unlock savings of up to 70% by switching to Google Apps for Work.

There’s a new way of working, and we think that once you see Docs and the rest of Google Apps for Work in action, you’ll never want to go back. We want to help you experience it now, even if you’re locked into an existing EA. If you’re in the US or Canada, click here now to learn more and see how Google can work for you. If you’re outside the US or Canada, stay tuned – we’re actively working to bring this offer to our global markets as well.

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