google

A software engineer has sparked a controversial debate with the claim that "Google Search is dying." Dmitri Brereton says he is talking about the quality and relevance of results rather than the number of people using the tool or the revenue it ... generates for Google. Brereton's claims were sparked by a post showing the number of Google searches for the discussion site Reddit are steadily increasing. He believes this isn't because the site itself is becoming more popular but rather because people are using Google but restricting the results to posts from Reddit to get more useful ... (view more)

Google is facing a lawsuit for alleged "deceptive and unfair conduct" in its restaurant listings. The lawsuit claims it tricked users into using third-party delivery services from which it received a cut. Google has rejected the claims and said it ... offers restaurants the chance to get orders direct, with no fee for the search giant. The case centers on a special button reading "Order Online" that appears besides search results for restaurants. It takes users to a custom page which includes details of the restaurant, its address and its menu. The lawsuit says this is an "unauthorized online ... (view more)

Major browser developers are preparing to mitigate a quirky bug that could make some websites unavailable. It's a low key version of the Y2K/Millennium Bug problems of 1999. By something of a coincidence, Google's Chrome, Mozilla's Firefox and ... Microsoft's Edge browsers will all be hitting version 100 in the coming months. While it's good to know they've continued to improve the browsers and fix bugs, that milestone brings its own problems. Many websites include code to check the version number of the visitor's browser. They will then block the site from opening on older browsers which won't ... (view more)

Google says defamation laws could mean it has to "censor" search results. It's appealing a case in Australia where it was told to pay damages for a link to a newspaper article. The case involves a man arrested in 2004 on charges of conspiracy to ... murder. The charges were later dropped. Google's search results database included a link to an Australian newspaper article from the time of the arrest. In 2016 the man asked Google to remove the link but it refused to do so. The man then sued Google for defamation, arguing that linking to the article had the same effect as the article itself. He ... (view more)

Google's plans to block third-party cookies in Chrome have prompted "hundreds" of complaints in from businesses in Germany. They say the move is anti-competitive because Google will still be able to track users for its own advertising business. ... Apple's Safari browser already blocks third-party cookies. That means websites can issue and use their own cookies (for example, remembering somebody's location or interests to customize a web page) but cookies originally issued by another site won't work. That makes it considerably more difficult to track a user's activity across multiple websites. ... (view more)

Facebook and Google have been fined a total of $237 million for the way they ask users for permission to issue cookies. French regulators said the companies breached rules that say refusing cookies must be as simple as accepting them. The fines came ... from the CNIL, France's primary data privacy regulator. It found the companies had breached France's Data Protection Act. In both cases, the companies breached rules on cookies that took effect last year with a deadline of March 31st for compliance. (Source: cnil.fr ) Unfair Choice Facebook was fined approximately $68 million USD while Google was ... (view more)

Google has cracked down on a key method that scammers used to distribute Android malware through the Play app store. But like a game of whack-a-mole, the scammers are adjusting their tactics for greater success. The Google change is to the way it ... handles accessibility tools on Android devices. These include screen-readers, voice input systems and other modifications for users to interact with the device. Such tools often need access to key components such as the camera, microphone or speakers, access that can be abused by malware. Google relaxes the security and permissions system on such ... (view more)

Google is set to pay a fine of more than $2.5 billion for unfairly favoring its own shopping comparison service in search results. But critics say the fine is too small to have a serious effect on the company. A European Union court has rejected an ... appeal by Google against a 2017 fine imposed by the European Commission for breaking antitrust rules. The case involved the way the main Google Search service handled queries about products. As well as relevant product pages on retailer and manufacturer sites, the results list would often include relevant pages on price comparison services. Google ... (view more)

Google says Chrome will be faster and use less memory with the latest updates. That may not be enough to bring back users who've switched away though. The browser has received three key updates, the first being to the "omnibox." That's the single ... box at the top of the browser used both for typing website URLs and inserting search terms. When users start typing a term, they will now see suggestions, which update as users type more characters. The theory is that they will be able to click on a term and start the search more quickly than typing the term in full. (Source: t3.com ) The ... (view more)

A browser that promotes privacy as its key feature is ditching Google as its default search engine. Brave will instead use its own search service, though users are free to change back. Although Brave is based on the same Chromium code as Google ... Chrome, it's marketed towards users worried about privacy. By default it blocks all third-party ads and tracking tools. Until now, the browser has used well-known search engines as the default search tool. These include Google in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom and DuckDuckGo in Germany. However, Brave has been developing its own ... (view more)