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Google’s search page is displayed on a laptop in an arranged photograph taken in New York on July 24. The tech giant was hit by a lawsuit from 38 attorneys general on Thursday, the third major legal challenge against Google in two months. Bloomberg/Bloomberg via Getty Images hide… Source link

Share Tweet Share Share Share Email Even amid a crackdown on tech acquisitions, Google has managed to win European Union approval for its $2.1 billion purchase of fitness tracker Fitbit, according to Bloomberg. The move comes as regulators in the EU are looking at ways to keep U.S. Big Tech companies from over-extending their dominance of the markets. According to the EU, Google’s pledge to keep access for rival health and fitness apps and device makers for the next decade cinched the decision… Source link

This article is part of the On Tech newsletter. You can sign up here to receive it weekdays. My colleague Steve Lohr has seen almost everything in technology. And even he believes the power of Big Tech is like nothing he’s seen before. Steve’s more than 20 years of writing about tech for The New York Times includes covering the U.S. government’s antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft, which started in 1998 and ended with a settlement in 2002. Steve spoke with me about that case and the… Source link

Google plans to shut down Android Things, a stripped-down version of Android designed for smart home devices. The OS never really got off the ground, so this isn’t all that much of a loss, but it is yet another entry in Google’s expansive graveyard of shut-down projects. The smart home project got its start in 2015 under the name Brillo, which was meant to provide the “underlying operating system for the internet of things.” In 2016, Google revamped Brillo and relaunched the… Source link

Inside Google, tensions are growing weeks after the company fired a high-profile Black researcher. Questions are still simmering about whether Google can tolerate dissent and criticism. MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST: Google employees are demanding the company rehire and promote a Black research scientist who spoke out for more women and people of color. As NPR’s Bobby Allyn reports, her ouster has led many inside and outside the company to question whether… Source link

The lawsuit marks the third competition case that U.S. regulators have filed against the search-and-advertising behemoth since October, reflecting the rising unease with Google’s massive profits and expansive reach — and the growing national dissatisfaction with Silicon Valley writ large. In the latest legal salvo, Democratic and Republican attorneys general from 38 states and territories led by Colorado and Nebraska took aim at a broad swath of Google’s digital empire. They claim that… Source link

Qualcomm and Google have announced they’ll be working to expand Project Treble, Google’s ambitious multiyear project that aims to simplify OS updates so it’s easier for device manufacturers to upgrade phones and tablets to new Android versions without worrying about Qualcomm’s chipset-specific software. The goal is to make it even easier for users to get the latest version of Android on their phones (something that isn’t always guaranteed) and to ensure that new Qualcomm chips… Source link

Google was hit with another antitrust lawsuit on Thursday, as 35 states other other U.S. territories claim that the internet giant has stifled competition in its dominance of web search. “As the gateway to the internet, Google has systematically degraded the ability of other companies to access consumers,” the lawsuit states. “In doing so, just as Microsoft improperly maintained its monopoly through conduct directed at Netscape, Google has improperly maintained and extended its… Source link

The states said they worked closely with the Justice Department in their investigation. They interviewed hundreds of witnesses from Google and rival companies and collected more than 45,000 private documents as evidence. Thursday’s announcement reflects the deep interest among regulators around the world in Google’s signature search product. In Europe, regulators fined Google roughly $2.7 billion for privileging its own comparison shopping tool over those produced by independent websites…. Source link