Social Media and Online Video Firms Are Conducting ‘Vast Surveillance’ on Users, FTC Finds
Agency accuses Meta, Google, TikTok and other companies of sharing troves of user information with third-parties.
Military Contractors Are Targeting Commuters
Weapons and tech interests are skirting advertising rules and using Washington, D.C.’s subway system to influence policymakers.
Google Made Billions With Secret Change to Ad-Auction Algorithm, Witness Testifies
Alphabet Inc.’s Google changed its advertising auction formula in 2017, raising prices by 15% and likely making the company billions of dollars in additional revenue, according to an economist testifying for the US Justice Department in the antitrust case against the search giant.
Google Removes ‘Pirate’ URLs From Users’ Privately Saved Links
To date, Google has processed more than seven billion copyright takedown requests for its search engine. The majority of the reported links are purged from Google’s search index, as required by the DMCA. Recently, however, Google appears to gone a step further, using search takedowns to “moderate” users’ privately saved links collections.
Google Defends Auto-Deletion of Chats After US Alleged It Destroyed Evidence
Despite deleted chats, Google says US wasn’t denied access to “material” info.
Project Nimbus: How Amazon And Google Made Billions From Israel’s Occupation of Palestine
Google employees, who have been kept in the dark about the “Nimbus” AI project, have concerns about Israeli human rights abuses.
Project Nimbus: How Amazon and Google and Amazon Made Billions From Israel’s Occupation
Last October, 500 Google employees signed a letter in which they decried their company’s direct support for the Israeli government and military.
New Lawsuit: Why Do Android Phones Mysteriously Exchange 260mb A Month With Google Via Cellular Data When They’re Not Even In Use?
Ad giant sued after mobile allowances eaten by hidden transfers.
‘Stalkerware’ Phone Spying Apps Have Escaped Google’s Ad Ban
Several companies offering phone-spying apps — known as “stalkerware” — are still advertising in Google search results, despite the search giant’s ban that took effect today, TechCrunch has found.
‘Long Overdue’ Antitrust Cases Brewing Against Google at State and Federal Levels
Anti-monopoly groups are celebrating news that the Justice Department and state attorneys general are investigating online behemoth Google for possible antitrust cases.
How Google Plans to Push Its Coronavirus Tracing Feature to Android Phones
Android has a notoriously patchy update cycle, so Google is using another method to push a new coronavirus tracing feature to phones without user interaction.
The Challenge of Proximity Apps For COVID-19 Contact Tracing
As part of the nearly unprecedented societal response to COVID-19, such contact tracing apps raise difficult questions about privacy, efficacy, and responsible engineering of technology to advance public health. Above all, we should not trust any application—no matter how well-designed—to solve this crisis or answer all of these questions.
Google-Fitbit Merger Would Cement Google’s Data Empire
Google buying another tech company isn’t new. But Google’s proposed acquisition of Fitbit poses an extraordinary threat to competition and user privacy.
Keeping with its Crackdown on Alternative Voices, Google Deletes Press TV from YouTube
Press TV says the move is “part of an anti-Iran purge as the West sets its sights on regime change in Iran.”
Social Media and Social Control: How Silicon Valley Serves the US State Department
Facebook isn’t the only Silicon Valley firm with partisan oversight of what we see: the bipartisan billionaire class and their security state have partnered with tech firms since the dawn of the internet to control the parameters of users’ thinking.