The FBI made requests for data on as many as 2,000 Google accounts last year, the Internet giant said Tuesday.
The requests were made using a controversial technique known as a ‘national security letter’ that allows the government to seek financial, phone and Internet data without a warrant.
Google is the first Internet company to reveal the federal government’s use of national security letters to secretly retrieve data on people.
Google said it [...]
Morning — Bloomberg News reporting this AM on how the multinational tech giants like Yahoo, Dell and Google are taking advantage of the Netherlands’ “lenient policies and extensive network of tax treaties” to move large profits through the country.
Dell uses the Netherlands to avoid paying taxes in both Holland AND the U.S.; its subsidiary, Dell Global BV, paid income taxes at a rate of 1/10 of 1 percent on profits [...]
AFP - France’s Budget Minister Jerome Cahuzac said on Tuesday Google would never win a court case contesting a huge tax bill claimed by French authorities.
Cahuzac said he had “the most genuine conviction” that the courts would back France’s claim against Google over unpaid taxes.
Speaking to reporters in Nanterre near Paris, he said French authorities were in talks with Google and had provided the Internet giant with an estimate of the [...]
AFP - Google’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt will meet with French President Francois Hollande on Monday as the Internet giant wrangles with Paris over a bill that would force search engines to pay for content, a government source said.
Schmidt’s meeting with the president will be preceded by one with Communication and Culture Minister Aurelie Filippetti, the source said on condition of anonymity.
Google has warned that it would exclude French media sites [...]
Yahoo has hired a six-months pregnant woman who was one of Google’s first employees to be its fifth CEO in five years.
Marissa Mayer will attempt to engineer a turnaround at the web giant as it struggles to rebound from financial malaise and internal turmoil – but her appointment will be seen as a huge snub to interim CEO Ross Levinsohn, who was regarded as frontrunner for the permanent job.
The new [...]
Msnbc.com renamed itself NBCNews.com after Comcast bought out Microsoft’s share of it for a reported $300 million.
The sale, which had been expected for weeks, ends the partnership of the internet giant and NBC, which stretches back to the mid 1990s. The sale price was not disclosed, but The New York Times reported it was $300 million.
“When msnbc.com launched 16 years ago, it set the standard for how people consume news online — creating trends and leading the [...]
Probe into search engine deemed ‘low priority’ because firm was co-operative
Google was handed eight-point ‘improvement plan’ to ensure privacy was no longer breached
The privacy watchdog was last night accused of being ‘caught napping’ over claims that Google deliberately harvested information from home computers.
It emerged last night that the Information Commissioner had designated its audits into Google’s privacy policy as ‘low priority’ simply because the firm’s attitude was co-operative.
This is despite [...]
From LewRockwell.com:
Google knew software for its Street View fleet could secretly collect personal data, including e-mails, pictures, and text messages from unprotected wi-fi networks, it has been claimed.
Documents seen by America’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) apparently show an engineer created the snooping technology called gstumbler which could capture data from inside residents’ homes as teams toured the country.
One particular document shows that the engineer flagged up privacy implications and said [...]
Work of Street View cars to be examined over allegations Google used them to download personal details
Emails, texts, photos and documents taken from wi-fi networks as cars photographed British roads
Engineer who designed software said a privacy lawyer should be consulted
Calls for police and Information Commissioner to investigate new evidence
Google is facing an inquiry into claims that it deliberately harvested information from millions of UK home computers.
The Information Commissioner data protection [...]
Work of Street View cars to be examined over allegations Google used them to download personal details
Emails, texts, photos and documents taken from wi-fi networks as cars photographed British roads
Engineer who designed software said a privacy lawyer should be consulted
Calls for police and Information Commissioner to investigate new evidence
Google is facing an inquiry into claims that it deliberately harvested information from millions of UK home computers.
The Information Commissioner data protection [...]
Yahoo is finally ready to sell part of its stake in Chinese Internet giant Alibaba, Kara Swisher at All Things D reports.
The long-rumored deal could be announced as soon as Monday, says Swisher.
When it is finally announced, Swisher reports Yahoo will sell half of its 40% stake in Alibaba for $7 billion.
After it pays taxes, it will spend almost all of the money on stock buybacks.
As part of the transaction, Alibaba has agreed to move towards an [...]
Yahoo Inc Chief Executive Scott Thompson is stepping down from his role at the Silicon Valley internet giant.
It is thought to be the final stage in a controversy over a fake computer science college degree on his biography, although the company if expected to claim he is leaving for ‘personal reasons’.
Thompson will reportedly cite a recently discovered illness as the main cause for his departure, less than six months after [...]
The top-secret US National Security Agency is not required to reveal any deal it may have with Google to help protect against cyber attacks, an appeals court ruled Friday.
The US Court of Appeals in Washington upheld a lower court decision that said the NSA need not confirm or deny any relationship with Google, because its governing statutes allow it keep such information secret.
The ruling came in response to a Freedom [...]
AFP
Iran on Saturday criticised Google for leaving the body of water separating it from the Arabian peninsula nameless on its online map service, saying it would hurt the Internet giant’s credibility.
“Google fabricating lies… will not have any outcome but for its users to lose trust in the data the company provides,” a deputy in Culture and Islamic Guidance Ministry, Bahman Dorri, told the official IRNA news agency.
Iran insists on [...]
A Google executive says it is a ‘myth’ that laws can protect children from internet pornography.
Naomi Gummer insisted it was up to parents to keep their children safe from disturbing material.
She told a conference that legislation would be a blunt instrument because of the pace of technological advance.
Not suitable for children: This screen grab from Google shows just some of the explicit pornographic websites that can be found through the [...]
AFP - US government telecom regulators have ended an investigation into Google’s “Street View” online mapping service gathering data from private wireless hotspots.
The Federal Communication Commission (FCC) enforcement bureau on Friday called for Google to pay a $25,000 penalty for stalling the probe but said that it could not accuse the Internet giant of breaking US law.
“We worked in good faith to answer the FCC’s questions throughout the inquiry, and we’re [...]
Student life always has its challenges — how to get a lie in and still not miss the first lecture, for example, or how to fit as many pints as possible into 60 minutes at happy hour.
What bugged Kevin Systrom, a geeky management science and engineering student living on the beautifully manicured campus of Stanford University near San Francisco, wasn’t nearly so much fun but it has proved infinitely more [...]
Washington Post
February 21, 2012
Internet giant Google began offering real-time share prices from the London Stock Exchange today in a move it hopes will breed a new generation of small investors.
Google Finance has signed a deal with the LSE Group to provide free up-to-date last-trade prices, for which traders have had to pay a premium until now. They were previously only available with a 15 minute delay.
… The improvement will strengthen [...]
* Says other institutions better placed to carry on effort
* Announces six other projects it will cease supporting
By Alexei Oreskovic
SAN FRANCISCO, Nov 22 (Reuters) – Google Inc has abandoned an ambitious project to make renewable energy cheaper than coal, the latest target of Chief Executive Larry Page’s moves to focus the Internet giant on fewer efforts.
Google said on Tuesday that it was pulling the plug on seven projects, including Renewable Energy [...]
November 20, 2011
Quietly, Google Puts History Online
By ERIC PFANNER
PARIS — When the Israel Museum in Jerusalem, home to the Dead Sea Scrolls, reopened last year after an extensive renovation, it attracted a million visitors in the first 12 months. When the museum opened an enhanced Web site with newly digitized versions of the scrolls in September, it drew a million virtual visitors in three and a half days.
The scrolls, scanned [...]
Internet giant Google is teaming up with Rupert Murdoch’s Fox News to host a debate among the Republican candidates for US president and giving the public the opportunity to ask questions.
The Fox News/Google Debate will be held in Orlando, Florida, on September 22 and will be hosted by Fox News anchor Bret Baier, Google and News Corp.-owned Fox News said Thursday.
The debate will be broadcast [...]
(CNN) — Governments have come knocking on Google’s door more frequently seeking people’s private usage information.
Google fielded 8,888 requests from the United States government last year asking for information on people using its services, the company wrote in a report on Monday. The total number is likely higher because the Google statistics only cover criminal investigations.
The U.S. is by far the most active, and successful, [...]
Google Inc. previewed the first laptops running the company’s Chrome operating system, machines that will go on sale next month as part of the Internet giant’s challenge to Microsoft Corp.’s Windows franchise.
The computers, unveiled at a Google conference for software developers in San Francisco, are dubbed “Chromebooks” and use operating-system software that is based largely on Google’s Chrome Web browser.
The first models will be manufactured by Acer Inc. at a price of [...]
Three top French publishers said Wednesday they were suing US Internet giant Google for scanning thousands of their books for its online library without permission.
Publishers Gallimard, Flammarion and Albin Michel lodged a case with a Paris court demanding 9.8 billion euros in damages ($14 billion) and Google has been issued a summons, a source in Gallimard’s legal department told AFP.
The publishers are suing for forgery, demanding the money as payment for nearly [...]
WASHINGTON — An upcoming book about Google claims that Eric Schmidt, who is to step down next week as chief executive, once asked for information about a political donation he made to be removed from the Internet giant’s search engine, The New York Times reported Friday.
The Times said Schmidt’s request is recounted in “In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works and Shapes Our Lives,” a [...]
Google Inc. is penalizing Overstock.com Inc. in its search results after the retailer ran afoul of Google policies that prohibit companies from artificially boosting their ranking in the Internet giant’s search engine.
Overstock’s pages had recently ranked near the top of results for dozens of common searches, including “vacuum cleaners” and “laptop computers.” But links to Overstock on Tuesday dropped to the fifth or sixth [...]
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Google says parents are to blame if children view porn: Online giant attacks call for legal curbs
A Google executive says it is a ‘myth’ that laws can protect children from internet pornography.
Naomi Gummer insisted it was up to parents to keep their children safe from disturbing material.
She told a conference that legislation would be a blunt instrument because of the pace of technological advance.
Not suitable for children: This screen grab from Google shows just some of the explicit pornographic websites that can be found through the [...]