Tag Archives: Google

CNBC reports: Google has told its employees they will lose pay — and will eventually be fired — if they don’t comply with the company’s Covid-19 vaccination policy, according to internal documents viewed by CNBC. The document said employees who haven’t complied with the vaccination rules by the Jan. 18 deadline will be placed on “paid administrative leave” for 30 …

The Verge reports: YouTube has announced that it’ll be hiding public dislike counts on videos across its site, starting today. The company says the change is to keep smaller creators from being targeted by dislike attacks or harassment, and to promote “respectful interactions between viewers and creators.” The dislike button will still be there, but it’ll be for private feedback, …

Bloomberg News reports: Google is so successful that it’s the most searched for term on Microsoft Corp.’s Bing search engine, the company’s lawyer told a European Union court on Tuesday. “We have submitted evidence showing that the most common search query on Bing is by far Google,” Alfonso Lamadrid, a lawyer for the Alphabet Inc. unit, said at the EU’s …

Homocon Gateway Pundit founder Jim Hoft writes: Google censored President Trump for years pushing hit pieces on the 45th President to the top of their search results. Google frequently censored top conservative websites like The Gateway Pundit and just this week news broke that Google-YouTube censored and removed over a million videos on COVID. On Friday we learned that Google …

The Verge reports: “Sugar dating” apps will not be allowed on the Android Play Store from September 1st, Google has announced as part of a series of policy changes for the platform. The change, which was first reported by Android Police, specifically prohibits apps relating to “compensated sexual relationships.” Other changes coming to the platform include a new crackdown on …

The Verge reports: After years of pop-up experiments, Google is finally dipping its toes in the physical retail waters with its first store, located underneath its offices in the Chelsea neighborhood in New York City. It will primarily feature Google’s own hardware products, including Pixel phones, Nest smarthome gadgets, Fitbits, and assorted other devices. There will also be a selection …

Axios reports: YouTube will stop accepting ads for its masthead ad unit from certain verticals, including alcohol sales, gambling, prescription drugs, and election and political ads, Axios has learned. YouTube’s masthead, a highly visible rectangle across the top of the homepage, is often the platform’s most expensive and sought-after ad unit. Beginning Monday, ads that feature any gambling-related content offline …

The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports: Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost on Tuesday asked a state court to declare Google a public utility as a way to ensure that the tech giant can’t prioritize placement of its own products in search results. The lawsuit, filed in Delaware County Common Pleas Court, is the first of its kind filed in the nation, …

Reuters reports: The United States, Britain and other large, rich nations reached a landmark deal on Saturday to squeeze more money out of multinational companies such as Amazon and Google and reduce their incentive to shift profits to low-tax offshore havens. Hundreds of billions of dollars could flow into the coffers of governments left cash-strapped by the COVID-19 pandemic after …

Bloomberg News reports: Google will let Android mobile software users opt out of being tracked by advertisers on their smartphone applications, following an earlier move by rival Apple Inc. to bolster privacy on iPhones. The option will become available in late 2021, with a Google Play services update, the Alphabet Inc. unit said on a support website. Developers will no …

The Wall Street Journal reports: Alphabet Inc.’s Google and national hospital chain HCA Healthcare Inc. have struck a deal to develop healthcare algorithms using patient records, the latest foray by a tech giant into the $3 trillion healthcare sector. Nashville, Tenn.,-based HCA, which operates across about 2,000 locations in 21 states, would consolidate and store with Google data from digital …

Fox News reports: Sen. Josh Hawley on Monday will introduce a bill to “bust up” Big Tech, which will target massive companies like Google and Amazon, including by banning them from simultaneously running an online marketplace and selling goods on that marketplace. The bill, titled the Bust Up Big Tech Act, follows a bill Hawley introduced last week that would …

STAT News reports: After 13 years, Google is coming back for patient health records. The tech giant has launched an early user feedback program aimed at exploring how patients might want to see, organize, and share their own medical record data. The work could inform the creation of a consumer-facing medical records tool along the lines of Apple’s Health Records …

The Verge reports: Google says it has blocked several terms associated with hate speech from being used as ad keywords on YouTube videos. The move follows a report by The Markup, which found that advertisers could search for terms like “white lives matter” and “white power” when deciding where to place ads on YouTube. Google says it does not publicly …

From Google’s corporate blog: Last year Chrome announced its intent to remove support for third-party cookies, and why we’ve been working with the broader industry on the Privacy Sandbox to build innovations that protect anonymity while still delivering results for advertisers and publishers. Even so, we continue to get questions about whether Google will join others in the ad tech …

Politico reports: Video sharing giant YouTube extended its suspension of former President Donald Trump’s channel indefinitely on Tuesday and restricted Trump adviser Rudy Giuliani’s ability to make money off the platform. “In light of concerns about the ongoing potential for violence, the Donald J. Trump channel will remain suspended,” YouTube spokesperson Ivy Choi said in a statement. “Our teams are …

Axios reports: Google will not make contributions from its political action committee this cycle to any member of Congress who voted against certifying the results of the presidential election, following the deadly Capitol riot. Several major businesses paused or pulled political donations following the events of Jan. 6, when pro-Trump rioters, riled up by former President Trump, stormed the Capitol …

NBC News reports: Google suspended the social media platform Parler on Friday from its Google Play app store until the “Twitter for conservatives” adopts content moderation policies following the attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of President Donald Trump supporters. “In order to protect user safety on Google Play, our longstanding policies require that apps displaying user-generated content …

Newsweek reports: Several Google services appear to be suffering outages, with widespread issues hitting Gmail, YouTube, Drive and Hangouts. An error on Gmail reads: “We’re sorry, but your account is temporarily unavailable. We apologize for the inconvenience and suggest trying again in a few minutes.” YouTube is also offline, with a warning that now reads: “Something went wrong…” According to …

The Washington Post reports: The Department of Justice is expected Tuesday to charge Google with violating federal antitrust law, according to two people familiar with the matter, finding after a year-long investigation that the tech giant wrongfully wielded its digital dominance to the detriment of corporate rivals and consumers. The federal government’s imminent lawsuit will touch off a landmark and …