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☆ Google Employees Tune Out Antitrust Threat as Trial Comes to a Head
▼ + stars: | 2024-05-03 | by ( Nico Grant | More About Nico Grant | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

On Tuesday, Google’s employees gathered for an all-hands meeting named T.G.I.F. These companywide meetings are rarely held on Fridays these days, but the name has stuck. Executives shared highlights from a recent earnings report and cloud-computing conference, and warned workers against taking disruptive actions in the wake of internal protests against a cloud-computing contract with Israel. But no one in the meeting, two employees said, broached a topic that could have a dramatic impact on Google: its landmark antitrust trial with the Justice Department, where arguments are finally coming to an end this week. For eight months, while tech policy experts have tried to divine what a Google victory or loss would mean for the power of tech giants in the United States, Google’s employees have mostly ignored the antitrust fight, according to interviews with a dozen current and recent workers, who asked not to be identified because they were not authorized to discuss the legal matter.

Organizations: Google, Justice Department Locations: Israel, United States

☆ Google Fires 28 Employees Involved in Protest of Israeli Cloud Contract
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-18 | by ( Nico Grant | More About Nico Grant | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Google on Wednesday fired 28 workers after dozens of employees participated in sit-ins at the company’s New York and Sunnyvale, Calif., offices to protest the company’s cloud computing contract with the Israeli government. A day earlier, nine employees were arrested on charges of trespassing at the two offices. “Physically impeding other employees’ work and preventing them from accessing our facilities is a clear violation of our policies, and completely unacceptable behavior,” a Google spokeswoman said in a statement. Google recently fired an employee who disrupted an Israeli technology conference in New York. And the company is even planning to make changes to a corporate forum because employees were bickering about the conflict.

Organizations: Google Locations: York, Sunnyvale, Calif, Gaza, New York

☆ Google to Delete Billions of Chrome Browser Records in Latest Settlement
▼ + stars: | 2024-04-01 | by ( Nico Grant | More About Nico Grant | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In recent months, Google has raced to settle a backlog of lawsuits ahead of major antitrust showdowns with the Justice Department later this year. On Tuesday, the company resolved its fourth case in four months, agreeing to delete billions of data records it compiled about millions of Chrome browser users, according to a legal filing. v. Google, said the company had misled users by tracking their online activity in Chrome’s Incognito mode, which they believed would be private. In December, Google resolved a suit with dozens of attorneys general claiming it strong-armed app makers into paying high fees. And in March, Google agreed to pay a Massachusetts company, Singular Computing, an undisclosed sum after being accused of stealing patent designs — a claim that Google denies.

Persons: Chasom Brown, et Organizations: Google, Justice Department Locations: Massachusetts

Page, hampered for more than a decade by an unusual ailment in his vocal cords, described his vision of a digital utopia in a whisper. If that happens, Mr. Musk said, we’re doomed. Finally he called Mr. Musk a “specieist,” a person who favors humans over the digital life-forms of the future. That debate has pitted some of the world’s richest men against one another: Mr. Musk, Mr. Page, Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, the tech investor Peter Thiel, Satya Nadella of Microsoft and Sam Altman of OpenAI.

Persons: Page, Musk, we’re, ”, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, Satya Nadella, Sam Altman, OpenAI Organizations: Valley, Meta, Microsoft Locations: Silicon

But on the witness stand, Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief executive, said there was “value” in being the default search engine on a device and framed the agreements with other companies as sound business decisions. Google paid $26.3 billion for its search engine to be the default selection on mobile and desktop browsers in 2021, according to the company’s internal data presented during the trial. Kevin Murphy, a Google economic expert, testified on Monday that Google shared 36 percent of search revenue from the default deal with Apple. Mr. Pichai testified that he repeatedly renewed the search engine deal with Apple because it worked well, leading to an increase in search usage and revenue and benefiting Apple, Google and its shareholders. They cited an instance in 2014 when Mozilla, which makes the Firefox browser, exited a default-search partnership with Google and selected Yahoo.

Persons: Sundar Pichai, Kevin Murphy, Pichai, ” Organizations: Google, Apple, New York Times, Mozilla, Yahoo

☆ Google’s C.E.O. to Take Another Turn on the Antitrust Witness Stand
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-14 | by ( Nico Grant | More About Nico Grant | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Testifying under oath is a task that many tech chief executives might be asked to do in the coming years, with Amazon, Meta and others facing their own antitrust court fights. Though he was never called to the witness stand to testify, Bill Gates, who was chief executive of Microsoft in the last big technology antitrust case brought by the Justice Department more than two decades ago, came across as combative and evasive in depositions. Mr. Zuckerberg has at times exasperated lawmakers with vague responses, while Mr. Altman appeared to charm senators in a hearing this year. The main duty on the witness stand for Mr. Pichai — a low-key and detail-focused executive — has been to keep the temperature low under questioning and keep to the central point of Google’s antitrust defense: that it is an innovative company that has maintained its leadership through innovation and hard work instead of illegal monopolistic behavior. The Justice Department filed its landmark antitrust suit against Google in October 2020, arguing that the company’s default-search deals with phone makers and browser companies helped it illegally maintain a monopoly.

Persons: Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Zuckerberg, Altman, Pichai, — Organizations: Amazon, Microsoft, Justice Department, Google

On Monday, Epic Games, the company behind the hit game Fortnite, will appear in federal court in San Francisco to kick off a monthlong trial in its own antitrust lawsuit against Google. Epic is expected to argue that Google is violating both state and federal antitrust laws — as well as its founding principle, “Don’t be evil” — by wielding monopolistic power over app developers on its Google Play Store on Android mobile phones. The video game developer had tried to bypass the Play Store’s fees by letting Fortnite players pay Epic directly for in-app items, prompting Google to bar the game from the store. (The company says 99 percent of developers qualify for a fee of 15 percent or lower on in-app purchases. Larger app makers like Epic must pay 30 percent.)

Organizations: Google, Justice Department, Games Locations: Washington, San Francisco

As Google’s chief executive, Sundar Pichai, tells it, his company has always been on the side of consumers. It has paid billions to other industry giants, like Apple and Samsung, he said, to make sure Google’s internet search engine worked as well as it should on those companies’ devices. “Given that Apple designs the experience, it wasn’t clear how they would change the experience if the financial incentive wasn’t there,” Mr. Pichai said while testifying for more than three hours. The Google chief was the highest profile witness to testify so far in the 10-week trial. The monopoly trial — the first involving a tech giant of the modern internet era — reflects increasing efforts in Washington to rein in the power of Big Tech.

Persons: Sundar Pichai, Pichai, Department’s, ” Mr Organizations: Apple, Samsung, Google, Big Tech Locations: Google’s, Washington

☆ Inside Google’s Plan to Stop Apple From Getting Serious About Search
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-26 | by ( Nico Grant | More About Nico Grant | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

For years, Google watched with increasing concern as Apple improved its search technology, not knowing whether its longtime partner and sometimes competitor would eventually build its own search engine. Those fears ratcheted up in 2021, when Google paid Apple around $18 billion to keep Google’s search engine the default selection on iPhones, according to two people with knowledge of the partnership, who were not authorized to discuss it publicly. The same year, Apple’s iPhone search tool, Spotlight, began showing users richer web results like those they could have found on Google. Google quietly planned to put a lid on Apple’s search ambitions. Google’s anti-Apple plan illustrated the importance that its executives placed on maintaining dominance in the search business.

Organizations: Google, Apple, The New York Times, Big Tech

☆ Google Search Boss Says Company Invests to Avoid Becoming ‘Roadkill’
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-26 | by ( Nico Grant | More About Nico Grant | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

The Justice Department has spent weeks arguing in a federal antitrust trial that Google has built an impenetrable barrier around its search business with strong-arm tactics and multibillion-dollar deals. But a Google executive said on Thursday that he didn’t see it that way. Google presented a starkly different picture of how it has built and maintained the internet’s most dominant business as it began its defense in the landmark trial. The key, said Prabhakar Raghavan, Google’s senior vice president overseeing search and other products, has been constant investment and innovation. Dr. Raghavan described Google’s path from its once-unimaginable rise over his former employer Yahoo to fears that its business could be disrupted by formidable competitors.

Persons: Prabhakar Raghavan, Google’s, Raghavan Organizations: Google, Yahoo

☆ Alphabet Has Strong Ad Sales but Cloud Business Disappoints
▼ + stars: | 2023-10-24 | by ( Nico Grant | More About Nico Grant | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

A rebound in digital advertising led to an uptick in revenue and profit for Alphabet, Google’s parent company, but investors were underwhelmed by its cloud computing business, which badly trails those of rivals Microsoft and Amazon. Alphabet reported $76.7 billion in quarterly sales, up 11 percent from a year earlier, and roughly in line with analysts’ estimate of $76 billion, according to data compiled by FactSet. The internet giant said that its profit jumped 42 percent to $19.7 billion, exceeding Wall Street expectations of $18.5 billion. “Investors were disappointed by the relatively weak performance at its Google Cloud Platform, which is at risk of falling further behind” Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services, Jesse Cohen, an analyst at investing.com, wrote in a note.

Persons: FactSet, Jesse Cohen Organizations: Microsoft, Google, Web Services, investing.com

The head of Instagram’s Threads app, an X competitor, reiterated that his social network would not amplify news. The company has laid off news employees in two recent team reorganizations, and some publishers say traffic from Google has tapered off. If it wasn’t clear before, it’s clear now: The major online platforms are breaking up with news. Publishers seem resigned to the idea that traffic from the big tech companies will not return to what it once was. Even in the long-fractious relationship between publishers and tech platforms, the latest rift stands out — and the consequences for the news industry are stark.

Persons: Campbell Brown, —, Adam Mosseri, Elon Musk Organizations: Twitter, Google, Publishers Locations: Instagram

In a court filing last month, Google argued that it needed its privacy in an antitrust trial that would spotlight its dominance in online search. It was part of a pattern of Google’s pushing to limit transparency in the federal government’s first monopoly trial of the modern internet era. v. Google, enters its third week in court, it is shaping up to be perhaps the most secretive antitrust trial of the last few decades. Not only has Google argued for the landmark trial to be largely closed off to the public, but so have other companies that are involved, such as Apple and Microsoft. Apple even fought to quash subpoenas, describing them as “unduly burdensome,” to get its executives out of giving testimony.

Organizations: Google, New York Times, Apple, Microsoft

☆ Google Connects A.I. Chatbot Bard to YouTube, Gmail and More Facts
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-19 | by ( Nico Grant | More About Nico Grant | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

In March, Google released an artificial intelligence chatbot called Bard. It was Google’s answer to OpenAI’s hugely popular ChatGPT. Within weeks, Google revamped the tool with upgraded technology, but ChatGPT continued to be the chatbot that captured the public’s attention. On Tuesday, Google unveiled a plan to leapfrog ChatGPT by connecting Bard to its most popular consumer services, such as Gmail, Docs and YouTube. Though Bard has not received as much attention as ChatGPT, Google’s A.I.

Persons: Bard, ChatGPT, Google’s Organizations: Google Locations: Bard, Similarweb

What does Google say? Even though they do not operate general-purpose search engines, Google argues that they are rival destinations where consumers go to find products or content that bypasses Google entirely. Consumers have a choice to use other search engines, it argues, but choose Google because they find it most helpful. The government has to show that Google has monopoly power over the areas of the economy at issue in the case. The wider the market, the easier it is for Google to argue that it does not have monopoly power.

Organizations: Google, Consumers

☆ Google Turns to a Steady Old Hand to Fight Antitrust Charges
▼ + stars: | 2023-09-06 | by ( Nico Grant | More About Nico Grant | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

If Google loses and a judge then approves remedies, it could eventually be forced to restructure in some way, and it could be hit with enormous fines and a prohibition on search distribution deals. That would translate to fewer users, deflated profits and perhaps even limits on how Google is able to innovate with new technologies like artificial intelligence. The company is counting on Mr. Walker, 62, once again. That Mr. Walker is defending an industry giant against the monopoly claims of regulators is an odd turnabout in his long career. He grew up in Palo Alto, Calif., in the heart of Silicon Valley, and graduated from Harvard and Stanford Law School.

Persons: Amit P, Mehta, Walker, Mr, Kevin Mitnick Organizations: Justice, Microsoft, Google, U.S, District of Columbia, Oracle, Supreme, Harvard, Stanford Law School, Justice Department Locations: Palo Alto, Calif, Silicon Valley

After a research report last week found that YouTube’s advertising practices had the potential to undercut the privacy of children watching children’s videos, the company said it limited the collection of viewer data and did not serve targeted ads on such videos. Under a federal privacy law, however, children’s online services must obtain parental consent before collecting personal information from users under 13 to target them with ads — a commitment YouTube extended to anyone watching a children’s video. Now Fairplay, a prominent children’s group, is challenging the company’s privacy statements. The group said it had used advertising placement tools from YouTube’s parent company, Google, to run a $10 ad campaign this month targeted at different groups of adults, exclusively on children’s video channels. In total, the group’s ads were placed 1,446 times on YouTube children’s video channels.

Persons: ”, Tom ”, Fairplay Organizations: Google, YouTube

As with children’s television, it is legal, and commonplace, to run ads, including for adult consumer products like cars or credit cards, on children’s videos. There is no evidence that Google and YouTube violated their 2019 agreement with the F.T.C. The Times shared some of Adalytics’ research with Google ahead of its publication. Google told The Times it was useful to run ads for adults on children’s videos because parents who were watching could become customers. When ads appear on children’s videos, the company said, they are based on webpage content, not targeted to user profiles.

Persons: Michael Aciman, Adalytics Organizations: YouTube, Times, Google, The Wall Street, COPPA

☆ Google Tests an A.I. Assistant That Offers Life Advice
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-16 | by ( Nico Grant | More About Nico Grant | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Among other things, the workers are testing the assistant’s ability to answer intimate questions about challenges in people’s lives. safety experts had said in December that users could experience “diminished health and well-being” and a “loss of agency” if they took life advice from A.I. They had added that some users who grew too dependent on the technology could think it was sentient. And in March, when Google launched Bard, it said the chatbot was barred from giving medical, financial or legal advice. Bard shares mental health resources with users who say they are experiencing mental distress.

Persons: Google’s, Bard, “ Organizations: Google

A federal judge said this week that the Justice Department and a group of states could not move forward with some claims in an antitrust lawsuit against Google, narrowing the scope of the most significant federal monopoly trial against a tech giant in decades. In the decision, which was unsealed on Friday, Judge Amit P. Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said the U.S. government and the states could not argue that Google maintained a monopoly by boosting its own products in search results over those of specialized sites. They had not “demonstrated the requisite anticompetitive effect,” he said. But Judge Mehta declined Google’s request to dismiss portions of the case. The decision sets the stage for the first major tech monopoly trial since the federal government took Microsoft to court in the 1990s, accusing it of monopolistic practices.

Persons: Judge Amit P, Mehta, ”, Judge Mehta Organizations: Justice Department, Google, U.S, District of Columbia, Microsoft, Apple, Meta Locations: U.S

☆ Alphabet Steams Past Ad Worries, Fueled by Google’s Search Engine
▼ + stars: | 2023-07-25 | by ( Nico Grant | More About Nico Grant | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

“This is our seventh year as an A.I.-first company, and we intuitively know how to incorporate A.I. “These advances provide an opportunity to reimagine many of our products, including our most important product: search.”Philipp Schindler, Google’s chief business officer, said in the earnings call that YouTube’s quarterly sales gains reflected greater stability in advertiser spending. competition from the ChatGPT chatbot and Microsoft’s Bing search engine, Google’s search engine has remained a central gateway to the web for billions of users. That has helped the company convince more advertisers that its sites are still a reliable way to reach consumers. Google also announced on Tuesday that Ruth Porat, its longest-serving chief financial officer, would assume the newly created role of president and chief investment officer on Sept. 1.

Persons: Mr, Pichai, ” Philipp Schindler, Google’s, Microsoft’s Bing, Ruth Porat Organizations: Google, Microsoft

Google is testing a product that uses artificial intelligence technology to produce news stories, pitching it to news organizations including The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal’s owner, News Corp, according to three people familiar with the matter. The tool, known internally by the working title Genesis, can take in information — details of current events, for example — and generate news copy, the people said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the product. One of the three people familiar with the product said that Google believed it could serve as a kind of personal assistant for journalists, automating some tasks to free up time for others, and that the company saw it as responsible technology that could help steer the publishing industry away from the pitfalls of generative A.I. Some executives who saw Google’s pitch described it as unsettling, asking not to be identified discussing a confidential matter. Two people said it seemed to take for granted the effort that went into producing accurate and artful news stories.

Organizations: Google, The New York Times, Washington Post, News Corp

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