Category: Google

Google Lays Off Staff at Its Mapping App Waze

Alphabet-owned Google on Tuesday said it is cutting jobs at mapping app Waze as it merges the app’s advertising system with Google Ads technology, without giving details on the number of layoffs. “In order to create a better, more seamless long-term experience for Waze advertisers, we’ve begun transitioning Waze’s existing advertising system to Google Ads…


Supreme Court Rejects Music Lawsuit Accusing Google of Stealing Song Lyrics

The U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal by music website Genius Media Group after a lower court threw out its lawsuit against Alphabet, the parent company of Google, for stealing millions of song transcripts. On June 26, Supreme Court left in place a ruling that dismissed the suit by Genius, which accused Google…


EXPLAINER: Now That Bill C-18 Has Passed, Why Is Meta Blocking Canadian News?

On the same day that the Liberal government’s Bill C-18 received royal assent and passed into law, U.S. tech giant Meta announced it would be blocking content from news outlets for Canadian users in order to comply with the new legislation. The Online News Act requires that online platforms and digital news intermediaries like Google and…


Liberal Bill Requiring Google and Meta to Pay for News Content Passes in Senate

A federal bill that will require Google and Meta to pay media outlets for news content that they share or otherwise repurpose on their platforms is set to become law. The Senate has passed the bill in a final vote and it is now awaiting royal assent amid a standoff between the Liberal government and…


3 Hurt When Google Critic Crashes Car Into Building Near Company’s NYC Headquarters, Police Say

NEW YORK—A man who has claimed for years that Google was torturing users with flashing lights crashed a car into a building near the company’s New York City headquarters, injuring three pedestrians, authorities said. The man, 34, drove onto the sidewalk and crashed his Ford Fusion into a building on West 15th Street and 10th…


Google Hit With Lawsuit Over Monopoly Allegations

Google and its parent company Alphabet have been sued by the publisher of USA Today over allegations that the tech giant abused its dominant position in the advertising technology market. Gannett Co., which owns over 500 digital news and media brands, said in a complaint filed Tuesday that Google’s monopolistic control of how publishers sell…


Google Faces Forced Break-Up as EU Regulators Allege Anti-Competitive Violations

Google has been accused of breaching antitrust rules in the European Union (EU), and the bloc’s regulators have issued a preliminary assessment that the only solution to addressing their competition concerns is to force Google to break up. The European Commission (EC), which serves as the executive branch and primary antitrust regulator of the bloc,…


Google Launching ‘News Showcase’ Licensing Program in US Next Month

Google will debut its “News Showcase” product in the United States this summer, three years after it launched it in Germany and Brazil. In a June 8 blog post, Chris Jansen, head of local news and global partnerships at Google, said the product will work in partnership with more than 150 news publications based in nearly…


Hong Kong DOJ Applies for an Injunction to Ban a Pro-Democratic Song

The Department of Justice (DOJ) in Hong Kong announced on June 6 that it has applied to the court for a full injunction and a temporary injunction to prohibit anyone from spreading “Glory to Hong Kong” (a pro-democratic song). The song has been mistakenly played at several international sports events as the Hong Kong national…


Google May Delete Your Gmail Account: Here’s How to Stop It | Facts Matter

According to an announcement put out by Google, the parent company for both Gmail and Youtube, they are going to start deleting all of their accounts that are, according to them, inactive. This new Google policy will begin at the end of this year, in December 2023. Besides YouTube and Gmail, it will also apply…