Google argues that it faces fierce competition from Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, and others. It further contends that customers benefited from each of the acquisitions, contracts, and features that the government is challenging. “Google has designed a set of products that work efficiently with each other and attract a valuable customer base,” the company’s attorneys wrote … Read more
Kronenfeld says the impact of Israel’s campaign is difficult to measure. Her nonprofit has spent tens of thousands of dollars, in addition to staff time, attempting to outbid Israel for the Google search ad slots. However, UNRWA USA raised as much money in the first half of this year as it did in all of … Read more
Larry Page and Sergey Brin never liked hanging with reporters. “Larry can be a very sensitive and good person, but he has major trust issues and few social graces,” a former Google PR person once told me. “Sergey has social graces but doesn’t trust people who he thinks don’t approach his level of intelligence.” Still, … Read more
But if Mehta pursues the approach, he should make some improvements on the EU’s rules, says Kamyl Bazbaz, senior vice president of public affairs at DuckDuckGo. Users should be prompted with the choice screen periodically, not just once, Bazbaz says. They shouldn’t have to deal with popups from Google urging them to switch the default … Read more
Google is now 0 for 2 in antitrust trials. US District judge Amit Mehta ruled on Monday that Google has unlawfully maintained its dominance in search by using anticompetitive deals to keep rivals from gaining traction. The ruling follows a weekslong trial in Mehta’s Washington, DC, courtroom last year in which the US Department of … Read more
A few weeks ago, a Google search for “deepfake nudes jennifer aniston” brought up at least seven high-up results that purported to have explicit, AI-generated images of the actress. Now they have vanished. Google product manager Emma Higham says that new adjustments to how the company ranks results, which have been rolled out this year, … Read more
After months of speculation about its search ambitions, OpenAI has revealed SearchGPT, a “prototype” search engine that could eventually help the company tear off a slice of Google’s lucrative business. OpenAI said that the new tool would help users find what they are looking for more quickly and easily by using generative AI to gather … Read more
The Eiffel Tower is 330 meters tall, and the nearest pizza parlor is 1.3 miles from my house. These facts were astoundingly easy to ascertain. All I had to do was type some words into Google, and I didn’t even have to spell them right. For the vast majority of human history, this is not … Read more
Disclosure of ads has been an issue on Copilot as well. Though Microsoft says it labels all ads, Marcus Pratt, senior vice president for insights and technology at the ad-buying agency Mediasmith, says he’s encountered at least two searches in which links with indications that they are sponsored arguably haven’t been adequately disclosed. Last week, … Read more
Last week, an AI Overview search result from Google used one of my WIRED articles in an unexpected way that makes me fearful for the future of journalism. I was experimenting with AI Overviews, the company’s new generative AI feature designed to answer online queries. I asked it multiple questions about topics I’ve recently covered, … Read more
