Google

Microsoft has publicly accused its longtime rival Google of running “shadow campaigns” in Europe aimed at discrediting the software giant with regulators and misleading the public.

Shivaun and Adam Raff’s price comparison website, Foundem, was crushed by Google flexing its monopoly muscles, prompting a 15-year legal battle that resulted in a record $2.58 billion fine for the tech giant.

A federal judge has ruled that major tech companies must face lawsuits brought by school districts alleging their social media apps have contributed to a mental health crisis among students. The lawsuits target Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, Google, China’s TikTok, and Snapchat.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey (R) has announced that he is investigating Google for “censoring conservative speech,” saying the tech giant is manipulating search results leading into “the most consequential election in our nation’s history.”

Former President Donald Trump recently accused Google of being “rigged” against him, claiming that the search engine fails to display positive stories about him. However, he also indicated that he might not advocate for the break up the company if he wins the upcoming election, citing concerns over China’s technological ambitions.

Newly uncovered emails shed light on the close relationships between tech giants Google and Amazon and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) as the companies sought to undermine overseas regulations, including efforts to protect traditional media outlets.

Google wielded its massive market power to extract concessions from California lawmakers and secure a deal to support the state’s struggling journalism industry, according to people familiar with the negotiations who spoke to Bloomberg.

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt has called for a full-scale investment in AI infrastructure, even as the energy-intensive nature of AI development threatens to undermine global climate goals. Saying the quiet part out loud, Schmidt admitted Silicon Valley’s climate goals were always completely unrealistic, stating: “We’re not going to hit the climate goals anyway because we’re not organized to do it.”

Google is experimenting with a new feature that displays blue verified checkmarks next to links in search results that the search giant deems to be legitimate, aiming to help users avoid fake or fraudulent websites.

Google has issued a stern warning, threatening to remove links to New Zealand news content and terminate current agreements with local publishers if the proposed Fair Digital News Bargaining Bill becomes law.

Arkansas has filed a lawsuit against YouTube and its parent company Google, accusing the video-sharing platform of deliberately fostering addiction and contributing to a mental health crisis among the state’s youth.

The DOJ and Google have wrapped up their arguments in the high-stakes antitrust trial against the internet giant, with closing arguments scheduled for November.

Former President Donald Trump threatened on Friday that he will request the criminal prosecution of Google “at maximum levels” when he returns to office, accusing the tech giant of “illegal activity” through its bias against him in search results.

An expert witness called by Google in its ongoing antitrust trial has asserted that the tech giant does not hold monopoly power over the advertising market, contradicting claims made by the DOJ.

Google enhances search results about political candidates with reports from the establishment media, which are allied with the Harris campaign and often provide biased coverage against the Trump campaign, according to a study performed by MRC Free Speech America researchers. 

Google has filed an antitrust complaint with the European Commission, accusing Microsoft of using unfair licensing contracts to stifle competition in the cloud computing industry. Google’s charges become especially interesting in light of the fact that the internet giant has itself been the subject of two different antitrust cases this year.

In an ongoing antitrust trial, Google is pushing back against the U.S. Justice Department’s accusations that it operates its ad business as a monopoly. In the face of emails and other internal documents laying out Google’s plan to crush rivals by increasing its stranglehold on the advertising market, one executive testified Monday that “We keep looking for ways to make products better.”

Google employees and executives attempted to hide potentially damaging communications from investigators by using auto-deleting chats and marking emails “privileged and confidential” as a regular course of business —  sneaky moves that may backfire on the internet giant as the second antitrust trial against the company rages on.

As the DOJ’s antitrust case against Google continues, it is becoming increasingly clear that the judge must decide whether to believe what Google executives wrote in emails and chats or what they have said on the witness stand — like one witness who claimed his emails on crushing competition were “jet-lagged ramblings.”

As Google’s second antitrust trial this year continues, a Boston University economist testified that Google’s stranglehold over the advertising market allows it to charge between 19 and 27 percent higher rates to advertisers than a “competitive market” would allow.

Internal Google documents released during the ongoing antitrust trial against the tech giant have shed light on the company’s efforts to maintain its dominance in the digital advertising industry through exclusivity deals and tying its ad-tech businesses together.

Neal Mohan, the CEO of Google-owned YouTube, testified in federal court on Monday that Google faced ample competition in the ad tech market and laughably claimed the company acts in the best interest of consumers and the ad industry.

Google is currently on trial for allegedly abusing its dominance in the digital advertising industry, which is valued at approximately $200 billion. Here are a the key points that emerged from the first week in the courtroom.

A top attorney for Google, currently defending the tech giant in a landmark antitrust trial, has been revealed to be a key advisor to the Kamala Harris presidential campaign, raising concerns about potential conflicts of interest and political bias.

A recent academic study has uncovered evidence that AI chatbots powered by Large Language Models (LLMs) have an inherent leftist political bias, potentially influencing the information and advice they provide to users.

Google knew that publishers would be unhappy when it implemented measures in 2019 to prevent them from diverting ad sales to competitors, it recognized that its stranglehold over the digital ads market would prevent them from fleeing the internet giant’s ad marketplace, according to internal documents presented at the tech giant’s antitrust trial on Thursday.

A Google executive’s remarks from 2009 about the company’s aim to “crush” competitors in the digital advertising market have come to light during an ongoing federal antitrust trial against the tech giant that focuses on its stranglehold over the ad-tech industry.

A former advertising technology executive at News Corp testified that the company considered moving away from Google’s advertising products in 2017 but ultimately decided against it due to potential revenue losses of at least $9 million. The testimony came during the second day of the latest antitrust trial exploring Google’s absolute dominance of the internet.

James O’Keefe claims that Google Growth Strategist Dakota Leazer told an undercover journalist with O’Keefe Media Group, that there is “a coordinated effort by Big Tech and big companies” to help Vice President Kamala Harris to win the 2024 election and “be our next CEO,” adding that it is “most profitable” for Google when Americans are in “crisis” and “fearful” of “some impending sense of doom” and that “democracy is going to end.”

The U.S. Department of Justice’s antitrust trial against Google kicked off on Monday, with the opening day focusing heavily on the tech giant’s impact on publishers through its dominant position in the digital advertising market.

The European Union’s highest court ruled against Apple and Google on Tuesday in two landmark legal cases, delivering a major victory for the bloc’s efforts to regulate the technology industry, and leaving the tech giants facing billions in tax bills and penalties.

Google is set to face another significant legal challenge as the Justice Department’s antitrust case against the company’s ad-tech practices heads to trial. 

James Manyika, Google’s senior vice president for research, technology and society, believes artificial intelligence breakthroughs are coming fast, but translating the technology into real economic gains will require significant work and innovation. In fact, he thinks that the productivity gains from AI that big tech has pinned their hopes on are no “guaranteed.”

Yelp, a long-time rival of Google, has filed an antitrust lawsuit against the search giant, accusing it of engaging in anticompetitive practices in the local search market.

Sen. Eric Schmitt sent a letter to Facebook and Google, demanding to know their policies on censoring free speech before the 2024 election.

Yoshua Bengio, one of the “Godfathers of AI,” worries that regulators may be running out of time to properly govern the rapidly advancing field of artificial intelligence.