Independent trucker Michael Whitaker is getting ready for his next haul of equipment from South Carolina to Arizona. Whitaker has been an owner-operator trucker since 1998. His specialty is hauling industrial machinery like construction and farming equipment. “The diesel prices. That’s every truck driver’s main expense, it’s diesel,” says Whitaker of the recent rise in diesel prices. Whitaker says at the beginning of the year it cost $600 or $700 to fill up his truck tank. Now, he’s paying… Source link

U.S. consumers have begun to feel reverberations from the Federal Reserve’s interest rate hike earlier this month in some areas of their lives, but not in others. Unfortunately for those consumers, it’s all the wrong places — their savings accounts haven’t budged. Mortgage rates jumped immediately from 4.16% to around 4.5%, and are now ticking up close to 5%. This sent the number of applications down 8.1% the following week, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association. The average… Source link

A Russian tech giant mostly owned by western investors is helping websites pushing false claims about the war in Ukraine to make thousands of dollars every day through digital advertising. Yandex is considered Russia’s equivalent to Google, running both a search engine and an extensive digital advertising business. Its deputy CEO, Tigran Khudaverdyan, resigned this month after the European Union imposed sanctions on him. The Bureau for Investigative Journalism has discovered… Source link

A reminder to all Google Ads advertisers — there’s three months left to utilize expanded text ads before they go away. Google announced last August that standard expanded text ads would be sunset for Search campaigns. Starting July 1, 2022, responsive search ads will be the only ad type for Search campaigns moving forward. What Does This Mean For Advertisers? After the June 30th deadline, you will not be able to create or edit any expanded text ads. If you already have expanded text ads… Source link

Droplets Inc. is owed $15 million because Yahoo! Inc.’s Search Suggest feature infringes one of the company’s patents, a California federal jury found. Search Suggest offers suggestions when people type words into the Yahoo search bar. The jury decided Tuesday other Yahoo products, including Yahoo’s Search History feature, Yahoo Mail, and Yahoo Maps didn’t infringe Droplet’s U.S. Patent No. 6,687,745, covering a system for delivering interactive links. Texas-based Droplets filed the… Source link

Google employees upset over the company’s decision to remove heated bidets from its offices may get some relief, after all. Tushy, a New York-based bidet maker, has offered to step in after Bay-area Google employees, who are scheduled to return to the office beginning on April 4 — reportedly raised a stink over the company’s plans to remove heated bidet toilets from the office premises. The tech giant started removing the Toto-branded toilet seats because… Source link

Exclusive: U.S. probe of Google Maps picks up speed – sources WASHINGTON, March 30 (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department has breathed new life into an investigation of Google Maps to determine if bundling the service together with other Google software illegally stifles competition, according to two sources familiar with the matter. The probe of the Alphabet Inc (GOOGL.O) unit first came to light in late 2020 and had been quiet until recent months when investigators again began making… Source link

U.S. private sector employers brought back slightly more jobs than expected in March as the economy faced ongoing labor shortages and widespread vacancies. Private sector payrolls rose by 455,000 in this past month, ADP said in its latest report Wednesday. Consensus economists were looking for 450,000 jobs to return, according to Bloomberg data. In February, employers brought back 486,000 payrolls, based on ADP’s upwardly revised monthly print. The private services sector saw jobs return… Source link

Bruising levels of inflation from rent to gas to food continues to hit many American households hard, so hard it may be pushing a new group of the population into food stamps, hints new data. Google search volumes for “food stamps” are still running 100% higher than pre-pandemic levels (see chart below), according to DataTrek. Search volumes have trended higher since the start of 2022 as inflation has accelerated, notably at the gas pump. Volumes peaked in April 2020 as millions of people lost… Source link

Sutt said Tuesday that: “Companies related to the Russian regime do not have a place in the Estonian marketplace.” A key factor in the sanction decision is that Yandex is required to share personal data with Russian data authorities, at the latter’s behest, Sutt added. He said: “In order to use Yandex NV’s services, it is a requirement access to a large amount of personal data processed on the company’s servers in Russia is granted. In essence, Russia’s special services and political… Source link