Tag Archives: Google

Axios reports: In a reversal of its election integrity policy, YouTube will leave up content that says fraud, errors or glitches occurred in the 2020 presidential election and other U.S. elections, the company confirmed to Axios Friday. YouTube established the policy in December 2020. Now, the company said in a statement, leaving the policy in place may have the effect …

Engadget reports: Google is rolling out a Gmail feature that aims to help you figure out whether a sender is genuine or if they may be a scammer. When you receive an email from a company that has verified its identity, you’ll see a blue check next to their name in your inbox. When you hover over the blue check …

Bloomberg Law reports: The US Justice Department and eight states sued Alphabet Inc.’s Google, calling for the break up of the search giant’s ad-technology business over alleged illegal monopolization of the digital advertising market. “Google abuses its monopoly power to disadvantage website publishers and advertisers who dare to use competing ad tech products in a search for higher quality, or …

The Verge reports: The Federal Elections Commission dismissed a Republican-led complaint that Google’s filters in Gmail unfairly send GOP fundraising emails to spam folders at a higher rate than those from Democrats. The Wall Street Journal was the first to report the FEC’s dismissal on Tuesday, citing a commission letter to Google earlier this month saying that it “found no …

Axios reports: The Republican National Committee (RNC) has filed a lawsuit against Google in a U.S. district court in California for allegedly putting its campaign emails in the spam folders of its millions of users. Why it matters: Google last month launched a pilot program to keep campaign emails out of spam. But the RNC has been criticizing the program, …

Gizmodo reports: What kinds of promises does it take for Truth Social, a platform renowned for spreading misinformation and falsehoods by its most prolific and influential users, to get approved on Google Play Store? Apparently, all it takes is a vague promise to actually adhere to its existing terms of service. Late on Wednesday Trump Media & Technology Group, the …

Axios reports: Google hasn’t yet approved Truth Social’s Android app for distribution via its Play Store because of insufficient content moderation, a Google spokesperson tells Axios. What Google is saying: “On Aug. 19, we notified Truth Social of several violations of standard policies in their current app submission and reiterated that having effective systems for moderating user-generated content is a …

The Guardian reports: Elon Musk has denied a Wall Street Journal report claiming he had an affair with Nicole Shanahan, the wife of the Google co-founder Sergey Brin, accusing the outlet of running “hit pieces” on him and Tesla. The chief executive of the electric carmaker tweeted on Monday rejecting the claim that he had an affair with Shanahan as …

The Wall Street Journal reports: Elon Musk engaged in a brief affair last fall with the wife of Sergey Brin, prompting the Google co-founder to file for divorce earlier this year and ending the tech billionaires’ long friendship, according to people familiar with the matter. Their falling out is one of a string of personal issues Mr. Musk has faced …

The Verge reports: Google says it’ll start automatically deleting visits to abortion clinics, domestic violence shelters, weight loss clinics, and other potentially sensitive locations from users’ location histories in the coming weeks. In a blog post on Friday, the company says that the deletion will happen “soon after” the visit, once its systems have identified that a trip was made …

Axios reports: An escalating dispute between national Republicans and technology giant Google threatens to bring political heat on the company and could spur significant changes in political email practices. The Republican National Committee fired the latest shot on Wednesday, when chairwoman Ronna McDaniel claimed in a statement to Axios that Google has “systematically attacked” its digital program. The RNC claims …

Ars Technica reports: Four Democratic US senators today asked the Federal Trade Commission to “investigate Apple and Google for engaging in unfair and deceptive practices by enabling the collection and sale of hundreds of millions of mobile phone users’ personal data.” The letter cited the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, saying that women “seeking abortions and other reproductive …

Reuters reports: Google’s Russian subsidiary plans to file for bankruptcy after the authorities seized its bank account, making it impossible to carry on operations, a Google spokesperson said on Wednesday. Alphabet Inc’s Google has been under pressure in Russia for months for failing to delete content Moscow deems illegal and for restricting access to some Russian media on YouTube, but …

Reuters reports: YouTube has blocked Duma TV which broadcasts from Russia’s lower house of parliament, drawing an angry response from officials who said the world’s most popular streaming service could face restrictions in response. On Saturday, a message on YouTube said the Duma channel had been “terminated for a violation of YouTube’s Terms of Service”. YouTube, owned by Alphabet, has …

The Daily Beast reports: Fox News host Dan Bongino’s website has been temporarily suspended from monetizing with Google ads over “persistently” breaching the company’s guidelines on publishing COVID-19 misinformation. “We have strict publisher policies in place that explicitly prohibit misleading and harmful content around the COVID-19 pandemic and demonstrably false claims about our elections. When publishers persistently breach our policies, …

CNET reports: Betty White was a comedy icon who collected millions of fans the world over in a broadcast career that stretched well over half a century. Her legions of fans were gearing up to celebrate the beloved actress’ 100th birthday, which falls on Monday, when she died on Dec. 31. But that doesn’t mean we can’t still celebrate her …

The Washington Post reports: All Disney-owned content, including ABC and ESPN, went dark on YouTube TV late Friday after a breakdown in distribution negotiations between Disney and Google. The financial dispute between the media giants over carriage fees has led to the first major blackout for Google-owned YouTube TV, which has more than 3 million subscribers and is one of …

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 …