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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 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 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 PlacementFacebook was thrust back into the spotlight last week after BuzzFeed News published a leaked memo from a whistleblower who accused the social media network of extensive failures to combat political and electoral misinformation around the world. Amid a steady drumbeat of reports from media and researchers over the past several months, Facebook has repeatedly come under fire for mishandling crises, like...

Summary List Placement Waze, the Google-owned navigation app and carpool service, is laying off 30 employees — more than 5% of its total 555 person workforce — and shutting some offices as it reels from the coronavirus, The Verge reported Wednesday. In a memo to employees, CEO Noam Bardin said that travel restrictions in place around the world had led to a "significant drop"...

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,...

Summary List Placement In June, Google CEO Sundar Pichai made a set of commitments to improve diversity and equity across the company, which included promises to boost underrepresented groups in leadership roles and address problems in hiring and retention. Nothing was said on how much would apply to other "bet" companies, many of which operate largely independent of the Google mothership, but LinkedIn data...

Google's product inclusion team works on making the company's products better for more users, but it was born from one of Google's 20% projects. Annie Jean-Baptiste, Google's head of product inclusion, explains how the group came about in a new book. The group has worked on Google products including Pixel smartphones and virtual reality headsets. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. Earlier this...

Epic Games sued Apple and Google on Thursday for booting its popular video game "Fortnite" from their app stores, accusing the companies of engaging in monopolistic behavior. It's the latest escalation in a long-running fight between the tech giants and app developers, who claim Apple and Google unfairly wield their control over mobile app marketplaces and operating systems to stifle competition. The lawsuits also...

Companies such as Amazon and Shopify have seen huge tailwinds to their e-commerce businesses during COVID-19. Not so much for Google. One top Wall Street analyst says it's something Google "needs to address" in the coming months. "I don't know if they have to acquire or develop their way back," he said. A recent internal reshuffle along with some changes to the selling process...

The EU Commission has announced it is launching an in-depth probe into Google's proposal to acquire wearables maker Fitbit. "The Commission is concerned that the proposed transaction would further entrench Google's market position in the online advertising markets," it said in a statement. Google says the deal is about the devices, not the data. But after Google broke a major promise after acquiring DoubleClick...

In March, Google announced it would move its summer internship online in response to the pandemic. It's since confirmed it's doing the same for its fall program. That's meant a lot of logistical headaches for the company. Kyle Ewing, Google's head of talent, told Business Insider how Google adapted to the new virtual format. From algorithm-based coffee chats to open-source programs, here are some...

This week, Google announced several changes to improve racial equity and inclusion within the company. The list of commitments published by CEO Sundar Pichai included several promising concrete improvements. One of those promises was to increase underrepresented groups at a leadership level by 30% by 2025. But while it sounds like a big jump, the number of underrepresented groups in Google leadership is very...

Google has created a new group called the Equity Project Management Office, which will review employee suggestions on how the company can improve on racial equity. In a memo seen by Business Insider, CEO Sundar Pichai said employees had sent management more than 500 suggestions on how it could improve. The new office will work with Google's Black employee networks to "sustain" the ideas...

The stock market's recovery following its coronavirus plunge has been led by the so-called FAANG stocks — Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google parent Alphabet — along with Microsoft. After outperforming the S&P 500 for the year, those companies now comprise more than 20% of the total market capitalization of that index. There's a good case for the run-up in the shares of Netflix,...

Prabhakar Raghavan has been elevated to lead Google's search business as part of a major company shakeup announced this week. He will also oversee Google ads, Assistant, commerce and payments, as well as Google's Geo business. It makes Raghavan an incredibly important figure in Google's new org chart, which is being streamlined under Sundar Pichai. In the same week as these changes were announced,...

Evidence is mounting that Google might soon be hit with at least one major antitrust case in the US. But it will be a long and complex battle to prove that Google has acted anticompetitively and hurt consumers as a result. A previous FTC staff attorney who worked on the famous Microsoft antitrust case in the '90s explained how a case could play out,...