search

Google faces a legal claim demanding more than $9 billion for allegedly contributing to inflation. It's fair to say the claim is somewhat ambitious. The claim has been filed in the United Kingdom by Hereford Litigation, which describes itself as a ... "third-party litigation funder." It's filed a claim with the Competition Appeal Tribunal, which hears cases that specifically relate to alleged breaches of competition law. Technically the claim is on behalf of every person aged over 16 in the UK, meaning the demand is for around $140 per person. If the claim was successful, it's not obvious how the ... (view more)

Google says it is set to integrate new conversational AI features into its search engine. The move comes as advances in artificial intelligence (AI) technology could enhance the capabilities of Google's search engine significantly. Google CEO Sundar ... Pichai has confirmed that users would be able to ask questions to Google and engage with large language models (LLMs) in the context of search. (Source: cnet.com ) Bringing AI chat to Google Search would make the technology accessible to a wider audience, taking it from the realm of experimental project to everyday tool used to find information. ... (view more)

Chrome users on Android devices may soon have an "emergency" button to delete the last 15 minutes of browsing history. It's a simplified version of existing settings and follows a similar tool for search history. The search delete tool has been ... available for nearly a year now, but doesn't appear to be widely known about. It's not on the Chrome browser app but rather the dedicated search tool that's accessible on many devices by swiping right from the home screen. Users simply need to click on their profile picture and then select the "Delete last 15 minutes" option. Now it appears a ... (view more)

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 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 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)

Google is testing two key changes to it search tools. The idea is to make both searching and Search History tools more useful. The first change is to searches themselves. At the moment, users see a search results page and choose one to click on and ... visit the page in question. If they don't find the page useful, they'll click the back button and look for another possibility in the results list. That can be a little fiddly, particularly on some mobile devices where the back option isn't always easy to use. It also makes it even more annoying when a website (against all good design practices) ... (view more)

Microsoft is again bugging users to switch their default search engine to Bing. There's a way to get rid of the messages, but strangely it's hidden away in the Edge browser. The pop-up message seen by some users says that "Microsoft recommends ... different browser settings. Want to change them?" and then gives the not-entirely-comprehensive choice of "Yes, change settings" and "Maybe later". It's a sneaky message in a couple of ways. The first is that while it promises "Search that gives back time and money" and "Fast and secure search results with Bing", the message doesn't actually explain ... (view more)

Apple is reportedly working on its own search engine and may ditch its reliance on Google. The Apple tool could be pitched on the idea of increased user privacy. At the moment, Apple devices such as iPhones and software such as the Safari browser ... usually runs searches through Google by default. That's not just because Apple think it's the best search engine, but because Google pays Apple an annual fee reported to be in the region of $10 billion to be the default. (Source: ft.com ) That payment may be under threat with regulators looking into claims that such deals perpetuate an unfair ... (view more)