Russian Court Fines Google More Than World’s GDP

THE TELEGRAPH: Moscow seeks compensation after tech giant blocked pro-Kremlin content

Russia has demanded Google pay a fine worth more than the world’s GDP for blocking pro-Kremlin media outlets.

Judges in Moscow are seeking around $20 decillion from the technology giant, many times the estimated $100-trillion size of the global economy. If written out in full, the fine would be 20 followed by 33 zeros.

The penalty, which far eclipses Google’s own $2-trillion market value, comes after the US technology business barred pro-Moscow propaganda channel Tsargrad TV, which is owned by oligarch Konstantin Malofeev, from YouTube four years ago. » | Matthew Field, Senior Technology Reporter | Wednesday, October 30, 2024

For numbers bigger than a trillion, click here.

U.S. v. Google: Inside the Biggest Tech Antitrust Trial in Decades | Amanpour & Company

Aug 13, 2024 | In a landmark case, a federal judge has found Google guilty of U.S. antitrust violations. For the tech company, it's a staggering defeat that could upend decades of dominance and potentially reshape how millions of Americans get their information online. Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter joins Walter Isaacson to discuss the verdict. Originally aired on August 13, 2024

Google Violated Antitrust Laws in Online Search, Judge Rules

THE NEW YORK TIMES: The landmark ruling by Judge Amit P. Mehta was the first antitrust decision of the modern internet era in a case against a technology giant.

Google acted illegally to maintain a monopoly in online search, a federal judge ruled on Monday, a landmark decision that strikes at the power of tech giants in the modern internet era and that may fundamentally alter the way they do business.

Judge Amit P. Mehta of U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said in a 277-page ruling that Google had abused a monopoly over the search business. The Justice Department and states had sued Google, accusing it of illegally cementing its dominance, in part, by paying other companies, like Apple and Samsung, billions of dollars a year to have Google automatically handle search queries on their smartphones and web browsers.

“Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” Judge Mehta said in his ruling.

The ruling is a verdict on the rise of giant technology companies that have used their roots in the internet to influence the way we shop, consume information and search online — and indicates a potential limit of Big Tech’s power. The ruling is likely to influence other government antitrust lawsuits against Google, Apple, Amazon and Meta, the owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. The last significant antitrust ruling against a tech company targeted Microsoft more than two decades ago. » | David McCabe, Reporting from Washington | Monday, August 5, 2024

Publicité en ligne : Bruxelles menace Google de démantèlement

LE FIGARO : La vice-présidente de la Commission européenne Margrethe Vestager s'attaque à l'empire du géant américain dans les technologiques publicitaires.

Bruxelles attaque Google en plein cœur de son modèle économique. Ce mercredi 14 juin en milieu de journée, Margrethe Vestager, la vice-commissaire de la Commission européenne, chargée des questions de concurrence, a annoncé le dépôt d'une plainte contre le géant américain pour abus de position dominante dans le domaine de la publicité en ligne. «Nous craignons que Google n'ait illégalement distordu la concurrence dans l'industrie de l'adtech», a-t-elle martelé lors d'une conférence de presse. » | Par Claudia Cohen | mercredi 14 juin 2023

Google’s Online Advertising Practices Violate Antitrust Laws, E.U. Says: European Union regulators filed new antitrust charges against Google, which could lead to fines and orders for the company to change its business practices. »

Inside Story: Can Online Content Be Policed?

YouTube is the world's most popular video-sharing site. Billions of users watch and upload videos on the website, which makes it a natural fit for advertisers. But the company has come under fire after a UK-based newspaper found adverts running along side inappropriate videos of children and comments.

The Times investigation found there were many videos of pre-teen girls, which were then liked and commented on by hundreds of paedophiles. One such clip of a young girl drew 6.5 million views. Several companies including chocolate-maker MARS and Deutsche bank have pulled their ads from YouTube.

The newspaper said the site had allowed sexualised imagery of children to be easily searchable. It also criticised the company for not monitoring its content. So, will YouTube do more to monitor and remove certain content?

Presenter: Laura Kyle | Guests: Nishanth Sastry - Senior Lecturer in Informatics at King's College London; Susan Rose - Marketing and Reputation Expert at Henley Business School; Aral Balkan - Who describes himself as a "cyborg" Rights Activist

Youtube Is Censoring Free Speech? | Dave Rubin On Tucker Carlson

F24Debate - The Future of Shopping: Google and Walmart Take On Amazon

Google Memo: Fired Employee Speaks Out! | James Damore and Stefan Molyneux

'I'm Not a Sexist': How an Ex-Google Employee Became a Right-wing Star

James Damore, an ex-Google employee who wrote a controversial memo arguing the merits of gender and diversity programs, has interviewed with two right-wing YouTubers.

Life Imitates "1984": Canada's Liberals Get Google to Erase Stephen Harper from the Web

Now Google BANS Express Story about George Osborne’s ‘Muslim’ Brother

The article detailed how Dr Osborne had converted
to Islam to marry his then wife

DAILY EXPRESS: A STORY published by the Daily Express five years ago detailing the marriage of Chancellor George Osborne’s brother to a Muslim bride was today censored by Google.

Express.co.uk was today informed that an article published about Dr Adam Osborne on December 7, 2009, has been removed from Google’s search listings.

The 300-word piece detailed how the Chancellor’s younger brother, now 38, had converted to Islam in preparation for his marriage to Bangladeshi-born Rahala Noor, his plastic surgeon girlfriend of 14 years.

The article explained he had been studying the Koran and was praying five times a day and had been given the name Mohammed for the ceremony.

The piece, which did not allow reader comments, still exists on Express.co.uk.

However, it does not appear on Google when a user searches for ‘George Osborne, brother, Islam, Express’ or any variation of those terms.

Bizarrely, the original story, which had been broken by the Mail on Sunday in much greater depth the day before, still appears on Google’s results for MailOnline.

Versions of the article by the Daily Mirror, the Independent and other newspapers also still appear. » | Ted Jeory & Dion Dassanayake | Thursday, July 03, 2014

Selon Google, la Turquie a pénétré son système d'adresses

TRIBUNE DE GENÈVE: Google affirme que la Turquie a pénétré son système d'adresses internet afin de pouvoir rediriger les utilisateurs vers d'autres sites.

Ankara a pénétré le système d'adresses de Google, affirme le géant de l'internet.

Google a reçu «plusieurs informations crédibles et a confirmé par (ses) proches recherches que le service DNS (Domain Name System) a été intercepté par la plupart des fournisseurs turcs d'accès à internet», a écrit ce week-end sur le blog de sécurité de Google l'un de ses ingénieurs, Steven Carstensen. » | afp/Newsnet | lundi 31 mars 2014

Google s'immisce dans le débat sur la législation anti-gay en Russie

LE FIGARO: Le moteur de recherche célèbre l'ouverture des Jeux olympiques en affichant sur sa page d'accueil un logo aux couleurs du drapeau arc-en-ciel de la communauté gay. Un pied de nez à la législation russe réprimant la «propagande» de l'homosexualité.

C'est un doodle politiquement engagé. Le moteur de recherche Google célèbre vendredi l'ouverture des Jeux olympiques d'hiver de Sotchi en affichant sur sa page d'accueil un logo aux couleurs du drapeau arc-en-ciel de la communauté gay. Chaque case comprend une lettre, une couleur et une discipline sportive représentée à ces JO d'hiver. En dessous, Google a repris un extrait de la Charte olympique: «La pratique du sport est un droit de l'homme. Chaque individu doit avoir la possibilité de faire du sport sans discrimination d'aucune sorte et dans l'esprit olympique, qui exige la compréhension mutuelle, l'esprit d'amitié, de solidarité et de fair-play». » | Par lefigaro.fr | vendredi 07 février 2014

Pakistan Internet Users Top Google Searches for Gay Sex Despite Being One of the World's Most Homophobic Countries
MAIL ONLINE: Survey shows only 2 per cent think society should accept homosexuality / Google gives Pakistan a 100 rating in trends analysis of internet searches

Pakistan has the highest volume of internet searches for gay pornography despite being one of the least tolerant countries when it comes to homosexuality.

The most searches for terms related to same-sex acts came from a conservative stronghold, the city of Peshawar, rather than major cosmopolitan cities such as Lahore and Karachi, according to analysis of Google trends by Mother Jones.

Pakistan was given a rating of 100 by the search engine for having the highest search traffic for the pornography terms.

Gay sex is illegal in the Islamic country and carries a sentence of two to ten years in prison if caught.

This week, the Pew Research Center revealed figures for the places that are most intolerant of homosexuality from a survey of 39 countries.

Only two per cent of Pakistanis surveyed said 'yes' to the question: 'Should society accept homosexuality?' » | Daily Mail Reporter | Saturday, June 15, 2013

Google Boss Urges Internet Freedom on North Korea Visit
Google chief Eric Schmidt and the former governor of New Mexico have been lobbying North Korean officials about missile launches, internet freedom and a US detainee held in the country during their "private, humanitarian trip."

Read the article here | Wednesday, January 09, 2013

'Age of Mockery': 10,000 Protest Anti-Muslim Video at Google’s UK HQ

To the article » | Monday, October 15, 2012
Related »

New Dark Age Alert! Muslims Protest 'Age of Mockery' as Thousands Descend on Google HQ

THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: Thousands of Muslims have pledged a series of protests against Google HQ for a "hateful and offensive" anti-Islam video, saying they now live in an "age of mockery".

A protest by 10,000 Muslims outside the offices of Google in London today is just the first in an orchestrated attempt to force the company to remove an anti-Islamic film from website YouTube in Britain.

Thousands had travelled from as far afield as Glasgow to take part in the demonstration, ahead of a planned million-strong march in Hyde Park in coming weeks.

Anger over 'The Innocence of Muslims', an American-produced film which insults the Prophet Mohammad and demeans Muslims, according to protesters, remains available to watch on the website YouTube, a subsidiary of Google.

Organiser Masoud Alam said: "Our next protest will be at the offices of Google and YouTube across the world. We are looking to ban this film.

"This is not freedom of expression, there is a limit for that. This insult of the Prophet will not be allowed.

The group's next action was a march Mr Alam hoped would be "a million strong" would take place in Hyde Park "in the next few weeks", he said.

"Until it is banned we will keep protesting," he added. » | Jennifer O'Mahony | Sunday, October 14, 2012

Google Removes 640 Videos from YouTube Promoting Terrorism
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Google removed 640 videos from YouTube in the second half of last year amid fears they promoted terrorism.

The Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo) made a request for five user accounts to be closed for allegedly promoting terrorism.

Google agreed and deleted the 640 videos.

The web giant has previously been criticised by politicians in Britain and the United States for hosting extremist propaganda on YouTube, its video sharing website, including as the sermons of Anwar al-Awlaki, a senior al-Qaeda cleric, who killed by a US drone strike last year.

Awlaki’s online sermons inspired Roshonara Choudhry, 21, to become the first al-Qaeda fanatic to attempt a political assassination in the UK when she stabbed MP Stephen Timms at his constituency surgery in May. » | Monday, June 18, 2012

The World Is Not Enough for Google Bosses

THE INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY: Not content with the domination of cyberspace, Google's billionaire founders have set their sights on outer space – and the mining of natural resources from asteroids

Having created one of the titans of cyberspace, which helps to run the lives of billions, Larry Page and Eric Schmidt may well regard themselves as masters of planet Earth. Google's mega-rich founders have built a global empire worth over £120bn by channelling unimaginable volumes of information to our cherished laptops, smartphones and tablets.

But it seems that, for Page and Schmidt, the world is no longer enough. The pair are now staking a claim for galactic domination by backing a plan to mine asteroids. Google's chief executive and executive chairman are named as key players in Planetary Resources Inc, which appears set to go boldly where no magnate has gone before. » | Michael Howie | Sunday, April 22, 2012

Frenchman Takes Google to Court over Urination Image
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: A Frenchman took Google to court on Thursday over a photo published online by its Street View application showing him urinating in his front yard which he believes has made him the laughing stock of his village in rural northwest France.

The man, who is aged around 50 and lives in a village of some 3,000 people in the Maine-et-Loire region, is demanding the removal of the photo, in which locals have recognised him despite his face being blurred out.

He also wants 10,000 euros in damages. » | Friday, March 02, 2012

THE DAILY TELEGRAPH: Google 'sneaking away citizens' privacy' says EU commissioner: Google is "sneaking" citizens' privacy away with its new policies and appears to be ignoring data protection treaties, the European commissioner of justice has said. ¶ Viviane Reding delivered a stinging rebuke to Google over changes to its privacy policy, saying she had doubt over whether it was legal. ¶ Warning that "we aren't playing games here", she said that the obligation to protect personal data formed a key plank of European treaties. ¶ She said that if people gave up their privacy it should be a decision they make with all the facts made available to them and not by a company acting in a "sneaking" way. » | Christopher Williams and Andrew Hough | Friday, March 02, 2012