Google News

Internet users worldwide received a jarring reminder on Monday about just how reliant they are on Google, when the Silicon Valley giant suffered a major outage for about an hour, sending many of its most popular services offline. At a time when more people than ever are working from home because of the pandemic, Google services including Calendar, Gmail, Hangouts, Maps, Meet and YouTube all crashed, halting productivity and sending angry users to Twitter to vent about the loss of services…. Source link

by: Monica Ryan and Nexstar Media Wire Posted: Dec 10, 2020 / 08:33 PM CST / Updated: Dec 10, 2020 / 08:33 PM CST (NEXSTAR/KTVI) — People around the world searched “why” more than ever this year, according to Google’s Year In Search. “The most human trait is to want to know why,” Google said in its “Year in Search 2020” video. “And in a year that tested… Source link

If you’ve ever had a Father’s Day ad offering great deals for your dead dad sail into your inbox, you know that online advertising can be disturbing sometimes. Children’s gifts for people struggling to get pregnant, pet toys for your deceased doggo, the list goes on. Google is taking a small but helpful step to help people control which ads they run into. Starting with YouTube in the U.S., users will be able to toggle off ads for alcohol and gambling — two subjects that are… Source link

Google has announced today that it’s rolling out the ability for users to limit how many alcohol and gambling ads they’re shown (via Search Engine Land). This should be a welcome feature for users who may be sensitive to seeing alcohol use or gambling, or are looking to avoid those topics. While Google has previously allowed users to hide specific ads, this change affects ads category-wide. It’s also already had restrictions on the categories based on age and national laws — the… Source link

Google recently released its “Year in Search” list for 2020, which showcases the top search queries by category in the United States. Similar to the year 2020 itself, some of these searches came way out of left field. For example, the number one search trend affiliated with the word “why” ended up being, for whatever reason, “Why were chainsaws invented?” The other four “why” search trends in descending order were the following: “Why is there a coin shortage?”; “Why was… Source link

by: Monica Ryan and Nexstar Media Wire Posted: Dec 10, 2020 / 03:42 PM EST / Updated: Dec 10, 2020 / 03:42 PM EST (NEXSTAR/KTVI) — People around the world searched “why” more than ever this year, according to Google’s Year In Search. “The most human trait is to want to know why,” Google said in its “Year in Search 2020” video. “And in a year that tested… Source link

by: Monica Ryan and Nexstar Media Wire Posted: Dec 10, 2020 / 03:38 PM EST / Updated: Dec 10, 2020 / 03:38 PM EST (NEXSTAR/KTVI) — People around the world searched “why” more than ever this year, according to Google’s Year In Search. “The most human trait is to want to know why,” Google said in its “Year in Search 2020” video. “And in a year that tested… Source link

by: Monica Ryan and Nexstar Media Wire Posted: Dec 10, 2020 / 02:26 PM CST / Updated: Dec 10, 2020 / 02:26 PM CST (NEXSTAR/KTVI) — People around the world searched “why” more than ever this year, according to Google’s Year In Search. “The most human trait is to want to know why,” Google said in its “Year in Search 2020” video. “And in a year that tested… Source link

SMS messages have stopped working for some Android users, and it appears Google is rolling back some changes to help fix the issue. The issue seems to be due to a recent update to the Carrier Services app, which “enables the latest communication services from mobile carriers, including battery-optimizations and support for enhanced features in the Android Messages app,” according to the app’s description on the Play Store. The app has more than a billion installs. Version 50 of the… Source link

Of the Big Four tech companies, Google was the first to be targeted by the federal government this year, but that likely wasn’t the end of the legal actions against the search giant. The Justice Department lawsuit, filed in late October with 11 state attorneys general, centers on Google’s conduct in the search market. Separate probes by the DOJ and states into Google’s power in digital advertising markets continue, as does the Justice Department’s review of Google’s… Source link