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Summary List PlacementPrivacy has become the central battleground in the ongoing war for market share between browser makers including Google, Apple, Mozilla, Microsoft and niche providers such as Brave. Google Chrome is the world's most popular browser on desktop and on computer, with 70% of desktop share, and 64% on mobile according to NetMarketShare. For many users, Chrome and Google are bywords for access...

Summary List PlacementEarlier this week I was plugging in my Christmas lights when I heard my phone vibrate on the counter — it was a Twitter notification from my company's intern. She said in a direct message, "Read this thread." I stopped what I was doing and began skimming April Christina Curley's Twitter thread about her removal from Google and my jaw dropped. April...

Summary List PlacementGoogle and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai sent a memo to employees on Wednesday addressing the exit of AI ethicist Timnit Gebru, which drew criticism from inside and outside the company over the past week. Timnit Gebru said on December 2 that she had been fired from Google following a dispute over a research paper, but Google insists she resigned. The events have...

Summary List PlacementJust a week ago, Jeffrey Dean might have been the most popular executive at Google. By Friday, he was at the center of a firestorm that has shaken the company. Dean, a senior vice president who oversees Google's AI business, was thrust into the firing line last Wednesday after a prominent Google AI researcher was ousted from the company. In a series...

Summary List Placement Alphabet life sciences company Verily is shutting its Shanghai office in an exit from China, according to sources familiar with the plan. A company spokeswoman confirmed the office closure to Business Insider. Employees in the Shanghai office were informed of the plans earlier today. A spokeswoman refused to say how many employees were affected, but said the number was fewer than...

Summary List Placement Airbnb revealed its initial public offering documents on Monday, and noted Google's push into the travel sector as one of many potential risks to its business. In fact, the company said its search engine rankings had already been "adversely" affected by Google launching its own price comparison tools for travelers. "We believe that our SEO results have been adversely affected by...

Summary List PlacementVice President-elect Kamala Harris is no stranger to Silicon Valley. Before she was the senator from California, she was the state's attorney general. Before that, she was district attorney in San Francisco. When she heads to the White House in January, she will do so with more experience with Big Tech than probably anyone else ever elected to national office. For many,...

Summary List Placement Google is going after the healthcare industry with renewed intensity. Starting when Dr. David Feinberg joined the company in 2019, the tech giant is consolidating many of its health efforts onto a single team. Called "Google Health," it's got more than 500 managers, scientists, clinicians, engineers, and product experts right now – and plans to only get bigger. Read more: Google's...

Summary List Placement The age of artificial intelligence is well under way.  The concept of general AI, an advancement that would enable the tech to effectively surpass human abilities in nearly every task, is still decades (or more) off. But companies across corporate America are deploying the technology in operations ranging from supply chain, legal, customer service, recruitment, and IT. And not just as...

Summary List Placement If you've bought a new iPhone in the past few years, you might not think much about the fact that when you open Safari and type in a search the results you get come from Google. Most people use Google to search on the internet anyway — what you got was what you expected. It was familiar. It was also not...

Summary List Placement Music giant iHeartMedia wants a bigger piece of the $2.7 digital audio advertising pie. IHeartMedia has entered into an agreement to acquire Voxnest, a podcast technology startup, to grow its programmatic audio advertising as a complement to the ads it sells through direct deals. IHeartMedia declined to disclose the price of the acquisition of Voxnext, in which it previously owned a...

Summary List Placement Scrolling through videos on social media may seem like carefree fun, but the logistics behind it are an increasingly serious business. ByteDance, the China-based parent company of the social media streaming service TikTok, has leased 53 megawatts of data-center space across three locations in northern Virginia, a source with knowledge of the transactions said, facilities that could consume more annual power...

Summary List Placement Before he was Google's CEO, Sundar Pichai was best known for turning Chrome into the world's most popular web browser – but the methods Google used to get ahead of its rivals are currently under scrutiny. This week, the House antitrust subcommittee released the findings of an investigation into anti-competitive practices across Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google.  The 449-page document accuses...

Summary List Placement The most important legal brawl in technology is finally going before the US Supreme Court. Oracle and Google will face off Wednesday before the Supreme Court, which will decide a landmark patent infringement case that could have far-reaching implications in the way software is developed, integrated and monetized in the tech industry. The Supreme Court marks a significant moment in what...

Summary List Placement We're approaching a year since Google declared its plan to acquire wearables company Fitbit for $2.1 billion, and the deal still hasn't closed.  The acquisition has been under intense scrutiny around the world, and right now European regulators are digging deep into the deal. Earlier this week it was reported that the merger could be close to clearing after Google offered...

Summary List Placement From knock-off Rolex watches to fake pharmaceuticals, Google indexes many websites that sell counterfeit products. In June, the company finally began allowing users to request that sites hosting these fake goods be de-indexed from Google's search results – but Incopro, a brand-reputation consultancy, says Google's system is "extremely problematic" for brands. To report fake goods that appear in Google search results,...

Summary List Placement The coronavirus pandemic has led to dramatic shifts in shopping behavior as people avoided going to physical stores and began buying more online. That's been a boon for Amazon and delivery platforms like Instacart, which launched a self-serve ad platform in May. But traditional retailers like Walmart, CVS, and Kroger have also intensified the competition for advertising with their own ad sales...

Summary List Placement Antitrust seems to be back in fashion as a topic of concern in Washington, DC, particularly after Congress harangued the heads of four leading tech companies earlier this summer about their alleged anticompetitive moves. But any real effort to promote competition and constrain monopolies is going to require a major reassessment — and quite possibly a revamping — of laws, policies,...