Google

Google has announced its first agreements with Italian publishers for Google News Showcase.. Google will pay Italian publishers for content and will give them access to Google News Showcase, a new product launched in late 2020 that will allow them to enhance their online content and strengthen their relationship with their readers. Publishers that signed are RCS Media Group, il Sole 24Ore, Gruppo Monrif, Caltagirone Editore, il Fatto Quotidiano, Libero, Il Foglio, Il Giornale, Il Tempo, Ciaopeople, Edinet, Gruppo Corriere, Citynews and Varese web.

Following Apple's lead, Google is now also lowering the levy for app developers who earn less than a million dollars a year through the internet company's software marketplace. Instead of the usual 30 per cent, they are to cede 15 per cent from 1 July, as the company announced on Tuesday. After reaching the million mark, 30 per cent of sales via the Play Store will be due again.

According to the company, this step will halve the charges. However, one should also bear in mind that the majority of sales in the app stores for Android and iOS are made by the most popular programmes. Nothing will change for their developers. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of apps whose creators will benefit from the regulation are likely to generate little or no significant revenue anyway due to a lack of visibility and demand.

As Bloomberg reports, Judge Lucy Koh has denied Google's request to dismiss the class action case. Koh determined that Google "did not notify" users it was still collecting data while Incognito's privacy mode was active, giving the plaintiffs enough ground to move forward with their case. Incognito mode's limitations are well-known among enthusiasts - it's really there to keep sites out of your local search history and cookies, not to block all potentially identifying traffic.

NBC News reports that Google advised employees in the US who complained about racism and sexism to take medical leave and undergo mental health counselling.

One former staff member, Benjamin Cruz, has said that they had complained to the company HR in 2019 after being told by a colleague that their skin was much darker than the co-worker expected. Google HR urged Cruz to take medical leave and tend to their mental health before moving to a new company role. Cruz went on medical leave and hoped to take the company up on its offer for a new position but was turned down from every role they applied for, so they were forced to quit.

Google denies wrongdoing and said it "rigorously" investigates complaints.

Australia's government has passed a new law that will require tech giants such as Facebook and Google to pay publishers for using their news content. Market regulator Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) publishers have had little negotiating power until now because they are so reliant on tech monopolies like Google and Facebook.

Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and communications minister Paul Fletcher announced on Tuesday a compromise had been reached as the legislation that would force Facebook and Google to pay news publishers for content was being debated in the Senate. Frydenberg said Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg had told him the ban would end "in the coming days" after the pair talked.

Australian authorities will introduce four further amendments, including one that means the government may not apply the code to Facebook if it can demonstrate a "significant contribution" to local journalism.

The proposed law was also seen by some as heavily influenced by the lobbying operations of media mogul Rupert Murdoch's News Corp - which owns many of Australia's major newspapers.

Mark Zuckerberg, Sundar Pichai, and Jack Dorsey will testify in a hearing on misinformation and disinformation on online platforms before US House lawmakers on March 25.

"Whether it be falsehoods about the Covid-19 vaccine or debunked claims of election fraud, these online platforms have allowed misinformation to spread, intensifying national crises with real-life, grim consequences for public health and safety," so the Committee's chairs. "For far too long, big tech has failed to acknowledge the role they’ve played in fomenting and elevating blatantly false information to its online audiences. Industry self-regulation has failed. We must begin the work of changing incentives driving social media companies to allow and even promote misinformation and disinformation."

The alternative social network Parler has reopened after a month offline. In a press release, the company announced that the site is now accessible for users with existing accounts and will accept new signups starting next week.

Parler also said it had appointed Mark Meckler as its interim Chief Executive, replacing John Matze who was fired by the board this month.

The social network had gone dark after being cut off by Amazon, Google, and Apple, with the companies accusing the app of failing to police violent content related to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. Parler said its new technology cut its reliance on "so-called Big Tech" for its operations.

Google has launched Google News Showcase in the UK and Argentina, offering selected paywall content to users for free. News Showcase is already available in Germany, Brazil and, as of last week, Australia. Sundar Pichai, Google CEO, said the program would help the company pay $1 billion to publishers over the next three years.

Google is shutting down its internal Stadia game development division, the company announced today, as it refocuses Stadia to be a home for streaming games from existing developers instead of developing its own games for the service.

Jade Raymond, the veteran producer who helped build Assassin's Creed for Ubisoft and moved on to EA several years ago before leaving to run game creation at Stadia, is exiting the company, according to Google.

Phil Harrison Vice President of Google Stadia wrote in a blog post today: "We see an important opportunity to work with partners seeking a gaming solution all built on Stadia's advanced technical infrastructure and platform tools."

As part of a settlement with the U.S. Department of Labor over allegations of systemic discrimination, Google has agreed to pay $2.59 million to more than 5,500 current employees and former job applicants.

The settlement comes after the DOL’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs found pay disparities affecting female software engineers at Google’s offices in Mountain View and offices in Seattle and Kirkland, Washington. The OFCCP also found differences in hiring rates that "disadvantaged female and Asian applicants" for engineers roles.

"The U.S. Department of Labor acknowledges Google's willingness to engage in settlement discussions and reach an early resolution," Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs Regional Director Jane Suhr said in a press release.

The US company Apple is the most valuable brand in the world with a valuation of $263,375 billion, according to the Brand Finance Global 500 2021 ranking. Amazon and Google, which are also based in the USA, follow in the second and third place.

Google has threatened to remove its search engine from Australia and Facebook has threatened to remove news from its feed for all Australian users if a code forcing the companies to negotiate payments to news media companies goes ahead.

The move would mean the 19 million Australians Google users would no longer be able to use Google Search.

At a Senate hearing in Canberra on Friday, Google Australia Managing Director Mel Silva said the draft legislation "remains unworkable," and would be "breaking" the way millions of users searched for content online.

The privacy-focused search engine DuckDuckGo, increased its average number of daily searches by 62% in 2020 as users seek alternatives to impede data tracking.

In an interview with USA TODAY, Kamyl Bazbaz, DuckDuckGo vice president of communications said: "People are coming to us because they want more privacy, and it's generally spreading through word of mouth."

After Amazon, Google, and Apple forced Parler offline, the social network managed to make an online comeback on Sunday, even if not fully operational.

Parler's CEO John Matze wrote a post on the platform saying: "Our return is inevitable due to hard work, and persistence against all odds."

The social networking site went dark when Amazon stopped providing it cloud hosting services after it was revealed the platform was used to help organize the Capitol Hill attack on Jan. 6, which left five people dead.

Parler, a social network used to plan the storming of the U.S. Capitol last week, has been hit by a massive data scrape. Security researchers collected user data before the network went dark Monday morning after Amazon, Google, and Apple booted the platform.

Lead by Twitter user @donk_enby, a team of security researchers began the work of archiving all of Parler’s posts, ultimately capturing around 99.9 per cent of its content.

The scraped data includes user profile data and information, raw media files -- including geolocation metadata -- and posts, including deleted ones.

Following the violent storming of the US Capitol by radical supporters of outgoing President Donald Trump, Google has removed the online service Parler from its app store.

In addition Apple threatened a removal and demanded that Parler must take measures to prevent users from planning illegal, violent activities together.

Over 200 employees of Google and its parent firm Alphabet have formed Alphabet Workers Union amid increasing disagreements with the company’s senior executives, including the handling of sexual misconduct by former executives, Google's partnership with the Pentagon and the controversial departure of AI researcher Timnnit Gebru.

"We hope to create a democratic process for workers to wield decision-making power; promote social, economic, and environmental justice; and end the unfair disparities between TVCs (temporary, vendors and contractors) and FTEs (full time employees)," the union's website said.

Users from around the world are reporting problems with multiple Google-owned services. Among others YouTube, Gmail and the Google Calendar are unreachable to users.

According to first reports YouTube remains reachable if used in incognito mode or the user hasn't been logged in before.

The French data protection authority Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL) is imposing a record fine on Google - for the second time. This time the dispute is over web cookies. Amazon is also expected to pay 35 million euros.

According to the CNIL, Google is being accused of "placing advertising cookies on the computers of users of the google.fr search engine without prior consent and without adequate information." A total of three violations of Article 82 of the so-called French Data Protection Act have been identified, the authority reports.