Android

Epic Games, the company behind the popular video game Fortnite, has defeated Google in its antitrust case accusing the Masters of the Universe of maintaining an app store monopoly, marking a pivotal moment in the ongoing scrutiny of Big Tech’s monopolistic practices.

The second antitrust trial against Google, this one focused on its app store policies, has released an exclusive sweetheart deal the internet giant proposed to Netflix in 2017. The company offered Netflix a drastically reduced fee of only 10 percent for using the Google Play app store for subscriptions, a significant departure from the 30 percent tax typically charged.

Google has tentatively settled a contentious antitrust lawsuit concerning its Google Play Store, potentially resolving complaints from consumers and multiple state attorneys general that the internet giant used its massive power to dominate the market for Android apps.

A number of “pig-butchering” scam apps have reportedly made their way onto Apple’s App Store and the Google Play Store, leaving users vulnerable to scammers.

Truth Social, the social media platform created by former President Donald Trump, has soared to the top of the Android app download charts after finally being allowed in the Google Play Store this week.

Thieves in London are targeting gym goers as they exercise, copying credit cards and racking up charges in excess of $11,000. Although recent reports are in the UK, similar scams could pop up anywhere — here’s how to protect yourself.

Republican FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr has called on Apple and Google to ban the popular Chinese-owned video sharing app TikTok from their app marketplaces, arguing that it is sending sensitive user data on American citizens to Beijing.

Match Group, the company behind popular dating apps like Tinder and OkCupid, is suing Google, accusing the company of holding it hostage with its monopolistic stranglehold on the Android app store. The company’s lawsuit states: “Ten years ago, Match Group was Google’s partner. We are now its hostage. Blinded by the possibility of getting an ever-greater cut of the billions of dollars users spend each year on Android apps, Google set out to monopolize the market for how users pay for their Android apps.”

Despite Google’s constant harvesting of user data, the Masters of the Universe have reportedly banned apps with hidden data-harvesting features from the Google Play Store.

A recent research paper reveals that Google’s Messages and Dialer apps on Android smartphones have been sending user data back to the Masters of the Universe without notice or user consent.

Recent studies have revealed that the Chinese-owned social media TikTok can bypass security protections on Apple and Google app stores to gain full access to user data.

Google has accused fellow tech giant Apple of benefiting from “bullying” by using a deliberate strategy to make Android smartphones users appear like second second-class citizens on the iMessage service.

Google has reportedly fixed a bug in its Android phones that prevented users from calling 911. In one documented incident, a person couldn’t call 911 as their grandmother was suffering from a suspected stroke. The bug appears to have been caused by the interaction of certain apps.

Google announced on Thursday it is suing the Competition Commission of India (CCI) for allegedly leaking a confidential report detailing the CCI’s ongoing antitrust investigation into the U.S. tech company.

Tech giant Google has been fined $177 million by South Korea for abusing its dominance in the smartphone market. The government criticized the Masters of the Universe for “anti-fragmentation” agreements 

A new feature released alongside the latest Android 12 mobile operating system beta tracks facial expressions, which the Masters of the Universe claim can be used to control smartphones.

An antitrust lawsuit filed by 36 states and Washington DC alleges that Google used anticompetitive practices in an attempt to “preemptively quash” Samsung’s Galaxy Store as it worried it could become a viable competitor in the app marketplace to Google’s own Play Store.

Advertisers have reportedly begun shifting their spending patterns following Apple’s iOS update that requires apps to gain iPhone and iPad users’ permission to track them. Industry data shows that mobile advertising aimed at iPhone users has dropped significantly while advertising aimed at users of Google’s Android OS are climbing.

Recently unredacted documents in a lawsuit against Google reveal that the company’s own executives and employees knew how difficult the tech giant makes it for smartphone users to keep their location data private.

Roughly 60 percent of school apps have been sending student data to a variety of potentially high-risk third parties, without the knowledge or consent of students or parents, according to research by the nonprofit organization Me2B Alliance.

The Dutch govt has temporarily disabled its corona warning app amid data privacy concerns for phones using the Android operating system.

Apple’s control over access to the iPhone application marketplace is so total that even leftist organizations are saying the tech giant has too much power to censor.

Facebook has reportedly used legal pressure and other means to force two popular third-party Android apps off the Google Play store. In at least one case, the Masters of the Universe blacklisted the personal accounts of a developer in an apparent act of intimidation.

Signal has seen “unprecedented” and “vertical” growth in recent days, according to Brian Acton, the Signal Foundation’s executive chairman.

Following the removal of alternative social media sites such as Parler and Gab from the Apple App Store and Google Play Store, many have been left thinking they unable to access these platforms on their mobile devices. Here is how to easily access them whether you use an iPhone and Android device.

Google has removed social media platform Parler from its Play Store for Android devices, stating the app will remain suspended until it implements “robust” moderation policies that crack down on free speech.

A recent study has found that users initiate 89 percent of all smartphone interactions on their own, with only 11 percent being initiated by a notification. These results go against the conventional wisdom that the mountain of notifications generated on the average person’s phone every day distracts us from other tasks.

Tech giant Google has reportedly rolled out an update to its Android mobile platform that will enable devices to listen to every sound in users’ homes and alert them to certain household sounds.

Epic Games, the company behind the massively popular game Fortnite, filed a lawsuit against Apple on Thursday after the Silicon Valley giant removed the game from its App Store, preventing players from accessing the games on iPhone and iPad devices. Epic released an ad after the banning which claims: “Epic Games has defied the App Store Monopoly. In retaliation, Apple is blocking Fortnite from a billion devices. Join the fight to stop 2020 from becoming ‘1984’”

Millions of Android phones are at risk due to an “Achilles” flaw in Qualcomm chips, which involves vulnerable code on almost half of all Android smartphones.

Google’s new real-time captions feature, Live Caption, will soon be able to eavesdrop on voice and video calls to transcribe them as you speak. The feature is troubling in light of Google’s shaky history on privacy. In 2019, user audio recorded by Google Assistant was leaked to the media, who revealed that contractors around the world regularly listened to recordings of Google users without their knowledge.

Last week, Breitbart News revealed that Google Search is interfering in the election, purging links to conservative websites from its search results, including a complete purge of Breitbart News links from searches related to Joe Biden. The blacklisting of conservatives sources becomes even more serious in light of Google’s status as the default search engine on every smartphone in America — a monopoly on searches that Google pays Apple $1.5 billion to maintain.

Blix, the developers of the “BlueMail” app, alleges that Google removed their email app from its mobile Play Store just days after the developer revealed that they were cooperating with a House antitrust investigation of the tech giant.

Google has claimed that its Chinese virus contact tracing technology would not track users’ locations, but in order for the tech to work on Google’s Android smartphones, users must turn on the devices’ location tracking enabling Google to track them.

TikTok should be banned from the U.S. given its role in surveilling Americans, said Gordon Chang, Daily Beast columnist and author of The Great U.S.-China Tech War, offering his comments on the Wednesday edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Tonight.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stated during a Fox News interview with Laura Ingraham that the United States is “looking at” banning TikTok and other Chinese-owned social media apps. After raising how the government has dealt with the threat of Chinese telecom companies like Huawei, Pompeo said, “With respect to Chinese apps on peoples’ cellphones, the United States will get this one right too.”