Google

Google is to stop scanning Gmail messages for advertising purposes. The move was driven largely by a need to satisfy business customers. The company announced that "Consumer Gmail content will not be used or scanned for any ads personalization after ... this change." A company spokesman said this would bring the consumer service into line with the G Suite service for businesses. Business Users 'Put Off' By Scanning Diane Greene said that although business customers "have never had their messages scanned for use in advertising, many potential customers were nonetheless put ... (view more)

Google says it will use a combination of artificial intelligence and human expertise to combat online videos promoting hatred and terrorism. It's also going to tackle videos that follow the letter but not the spirit of its rules and will ... intentionally promote videos that can counter terrorist recruitment. The four steps are part of what Google and YouTube calls an ongoing program to enforce the principle that "there should be no place for terrorist content on our services." Step one is to improve the way Google's systems automatically spot videos that promote terrorism and ... (view more)

Google has apologized to businesses whose ads appeared next to extremist videos on YouTube. It follows several major brands and the British government dropping Google advertising over the affair. The Times newspaper reported that videos from ... extremist groups had appeared beside advertising from many a host of big businesses and government agencies. That not only meant embarrassment but could mean that the advertisers were unwittingly -- if indirectly -- contributing to extremist groups. Content Classification Confusing Google's Matt Brittin told a conference that he wanted to " ... (view more)

An independent study found 91 percent of Google searches for physical products brought up a Google product as the top ad result. Google says it plays fair and the practice doesn't mean other companies have to spend more on advertising. The Wall ... Street Journal study wasn't about the search results themselves, but rather the ads that appear on the results page. It took 25 tech hardware products from carbon monoxide detectors to WiFi routers and carried out 1,000 searches for each on a computer, having first blocked its past search history to avoid distortion. On all but two of the ... (view more)

A Google employee is suing the company, claiming it imposed unlawful confidentiality agreements. The plaintiff says staff are banned from speaking out even about illegal activities. The lawsuit has been filed anonymously and is thus in the name of ... John Doe. It alleges violations of the Private Attorney Generals Act, which is a technical measure that lets private citizens bring claims against a company for breaching labor laws. "Doe" claims that although he remains at the company, Google falsely told other Google workers that he had been fired for leaking information to the press. ... (view more)

Google has tweaked its search algorithm after discovering holocaust denial sites were topping the results for some queries. The incident may have highlighted a difference in the way Google and other search engines rank pages. The issue came to light ... when a newspaper reporter experimented with searches for the phrase "did the Holocaust happen" and discovered that the top result returned by Google was a site specifically dedicated to denying the Holocaust. Other journalists checked up potentially controversial queries and found unsettling top results, such as a search for "are ... (view more)

Google is to take harsher actions against sites that it determines house malware or attempt to steal user data. Repeat offenders will effectively be hidden from view from many users for 30 days. The changes are to Google's Safe Browsing feature, ... which vets sites for malicious content. The feature is built into the Chrome browser and made available for other online tools. It's also built-in to all the links from Google search results, regardless of the user's browser. When Google detects a site is potentially harmful, it won't take users directly to the page when they click on ... (view more)

Google is to start warning users when flight ticket prices are likely to rise. It adds forecasts to a current system that works with actual price changes. The feature is coming to Google Flights, a dedicated search tool which lets users look for ... flight prices. While several travel sites offer similar tools, Google argues that its is easier to use. It's no secret that ticket prices change over time. While there's an element of last-minute drops as airlines try to avoid empty seats, there's also a broader trend of prices increasing as the weeks count down to a flight, the theory ... (view more)

With smartphones and tablets gaining extreme popularity thanks to low-cost production and ever-increasing CPU speeds, many users are looking at alternatives to Windows when it comes to being able to compute on the go. One system in particular is the ... ChromeBook (laptop) which is based on Google's Chrome operating system. Many major manufacturers produce Chromebooks, including Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo and Samsung. As of September 2016 there were at least three dozen Chromebook models on the market. What is Chrome OS? Chrome OS is a somewhat similar, but separate operating system to Android ... (view more)

Google's self-driving cars now have the ability to recognize hand signals from cyclists. They have also been programmed to err on the side of caution when considering passing a rider. The cars, which are now being tested on public roads in four ... states, use a wide range of technologies to safely maneuver the roads. These include cameras, proximity sensors, radar and lasers to detect and recognize objects around the car. The vehicles also use Google's own map database to get information on upcoming intersections and the likely traffic they'll encounter. One of the big challenges is ... (view more)