The Justice Department is expected to bring an antitrust action against Google in the coming weeks, focusing on its dominance in online search and whether it was used to stifle competition and hurt consumers, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press Thursday.

The department also is examining Google’s online advertising practices, said the person, who could not discuss an ongoing investigation publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity. Antitrust officials at the department briefed state attorneys general Thursday on the planned action against Google, seeking support from states across the country that share concerns about Google’s conduct.

The anticipated lawsuit against Google could be the government’s biggest legal offensive to protect competition since the groundbreaking case against Microsoft almost 20 years ago.

Lawmakers and consumer advocates accuse Google of abusing its dominance in online search and advertising to stifle competition and boost its profits.

Spokespeople for Google, whose parent company is Alphabet Inc., and headquarters is in Mountain View, California, declined comment Thursday.

Google has maintained that although its businesses are large, they are useful and beneficial to consumers. The company says its services face ample competition and have unleashed innovations that help people manage their lives. Most of its services are offered for free in exchange for personal information that helps Google sell its ads.

For over a year, the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission have pursued sweeping antitrust investigations of big tech companies, looking at whether Google, Facebook, Amazon and Apple have hurt competition, stifled innovation or otherwise harmed consumers. And a bipartisan coalition of 50 U.S. states and territories, led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, announced a year ago on the steps of the Supreme Court that they were investigating Google’s business practices. They cited “potential monopolistic behavior.”

Now with 40 days to the presidential election, the Justice Department is approaching legal action against Google and soliciting the support of state attorneys general on an issue of rare bipartisan agreement. Support from the states would bolster the Justice Department’s case against Google.

The Trump administration has long had Google in its sights. A top economic adviser to President Donald Trump said two years ago that the White House was considering whether Google searches should be subject to government regulation. Trump himself has often criticized Google, recycling unfounded claims by conservatives that the search giant is biased against conservatives and suppresses their viewpoints, interferes with U.S. elections and prefers working with the Chinese military over the Pentagon.

The company has denied the claims and insists that it never ranks search results to manipulate political views.

Antitrust regulators in Europe have cracked down on Google in recent years by imposing multibillion-dollar fines and ordering changes to its practices. Among other things, the regulators found that Google forced smartphone makers to install Google apps, thereby expanding its reach. Google has since allowed more options for alternative browsers and search apps to European Android phones.

Google controls about 90% of global web searches. Its dominance in online search and advertising enables it to target millions of consumers for their personal data. Google dwarfs other search competitors such as Microsoft’s Bing and Yelp and has faced harsh criticism in the past for favoring its own products over competitors at the top of search results.

Google also owns the leading web browser in Chrome, the world’s largest mobile operating system in Android, the top video site in YouTube and the most popular digital mapping system.

source: AP

Also Read:

THAILAND TAKES FIRST LEGAL ACTION AGAINST FACEBOOK, TWITTER OVER CONTENT    

TIKTOK ASKS JUDGE TO BLOCK SEPTEMBER 27TH TRUMP BAN    

CAUGHT IN CHINA-U.S. TRADE WAR, TAIWAN OFFERS SUPPORT TO CHIPMAKERS    

SAMSUNG’S GALAXY WATCH 3 AND ACTIVE 2 CAN NOW TAKE EKG READINGS IN THE US    

REALME 7- PRICE, SPECS AND AVAILABILITY | REVIEWS NEPAL    

THINGS TO CONSIDER WHILE BUYING A WASHING MACHINE | REVIEWS NEPAL    

8,000+ SMES MOVE ONLINE VIA DARAZ SAHAYATRI PROGRAM    

Alphabet Inc’s Google and Apple Inc on Tuesday announced a new system that will enable public health authorities to use smartphones to assist in contact tracing without having to build an app.

The new system - called Exposure Notifications Express - will allow public health officials to submit a small configuration file to Apple and Google. The two tech companies will then use the file to set up systems that phone owners can opt in to in order to determine whether they have been near someone who has tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

In the case of iPhones, a new version of the iOS operating system being released on Tuesday will alert users whether an exposure notification system is available from local health authorities and allow users to set it up without downloading any new apps. On Android devices, users will also get a prompt from the phone’s operating system, but will still have to download an automatically generated app.

The two companies said Maryland, Nevada, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., will be the first U.S. places to use the new system. The new system also works alongside tools that the two companies released in May that enable public health officials to build apps that allow iPhones and Android devices to use Bluetooth signals to detect proximity to a person who has tested positive.

Six U.S. states and about two dozen countries have launched exposure notification apps based on the Apple-Google technology in recent weeks without major hitches.

The apps are increasingly compatible with each other, allowing for cross-border tracking. A few jurisdictions, such as Hawaii, are moving forward with separate tracking technology.

However, the effectiveness of exposure notification apps in helping slow coronavirus spread remains a major question. Most governments are not tracking detailed data on app usage in the interest of user privacy.

In Alabama, for example, more than 1,000 students caught the virus in an outbreak in August. But a university representative said it was too early to tell whether a two-week-old state app had made any difference.

source:reuters

Also Read:

JAPAN’S ‘FLYING CAR’ GETS OFF GROUND, WITH A PERSON ABOARD

WORLD’S FIRST VIRTUAL ART MUSEUM VOMA SET TO OPEN IN SEPTEMBER

APPLE AND GOOGLE ADDING NEW FEATURES FOR PUBLIC HEALTH DEVELOPERS TO BUILD CONTACT-TRACING APPS

APPLE TO LAUNCH ITS OWN WEB-BASED SEARCH ENGINE

WALMART AD REVENUE COULD QUICKLY JUMP IF TIKTOK BID SUCCEEDS  

 ELON MUSK'S NEURALINK PUTS COMPUTER CHIPS IN ANIMAL BRAINS  

FACEBOOK TO SOON LINK YOUR ACCOUNT WITH NEWS SUBSCRIPTION 

Google's John Mueller said on Friday's webmaster hangout that while the current URL parameter tool has been missing data for a while, it is not a sign that Google will deprecate it. In fact, he said when the tool does migrate to the new Search Console, it "will have some really cool stuff coming out."

John would not say more outside of "it'll be pretty cool" and he does not want to pre-announce anything.

He said this at the 11:04 mark when Mihai asked him about what is going on with the missing data in the URL parameter tool. John said the data should be fixed "fairly soon."

Here is the transcript on the data issue part:

The data there has been missing for a really long time but that's not because we want to deprecate it it's just because things are weirdly stuck on our side with kind of the various teams that are involved with creating that data. Internally we use the kind of similar data already, it's not that we don't follow that input at all. It's just the data that we display in Search Console is kind of stuck just before it reaches Search Console.
And my understanding is that that should get resolved fairly soon but I've been hoping that that's fairly soon for a while now. So I've been nudging a little bit more. Hopefully, that'll get better.

Then he hinted at what is to come, without saying more than it would be very cool and useful for very large sites:

With regards to moving to the new Search Console, My understanding is that they do want to kind of keep that functionality and move that to the new tool as well. I expect especially for larger websites we will have some really cool stuff coming out as well over time that. Yeah, it'll be pretty cool. I don't want to pre-announce anything so I'm not going to go into more any details there. But it definitely is something that makes sense to focus on as you mentioned for e-commerce sites with a lot of parameters. You can clean up some things there and make it a little bit easier to crawl and index your site.

We know Google still uses the data from this tool, a lot. And Google did say the URL parameter may change, which is why we have not seen it migrate yet from the old Search Console to the new Search Console.

Source: seroundtable

Also Read:

PUBG CORPORATION TO TAKE OVER PUBG MOBILE FROM TENCENT GAMES IN INDIA    

PUBG MOBILE 1.0 UPDATE RELEASED  

HARLEY DAVIDSON LOOKING FOR PARTNERSHIP WITH INDIAN TWO-WHEELER COMPANIES    

INTERVIEW WITH UMMEED SHRESTHA, DIRECTOR OF KUZU NEPAL PVT. LTD.    

FORD ENDEAVOUR SPORT SUV TO BE LAUNCHED SOON    

EPIC GAMES ASKS COURT TO PREVENT WHAT IT DESCRIBES AS APPLE'S "RETALIATION"

TOP 4 CANON CAMERA IN NEPAL | WITH SPECS AND PRICE  

NISSAN UNVEILS ITS FIRST ELECTRIC SUV, THE ARIYA WITH DETAILED SPECS    

Two years after agreeing to a self-regulatory code of practice to tackle disinformation, Facebook (FB.O), Alphabet’s Google (GOOGL.O), Twitter (TWTR.N) and other tech rivals must try harder to be more effective, the European Commission said on Thursday.

Fake news related to COVID-19 has accelerated calls for social media to be more proactive in combating the issue.

The companies, including Mozilla and trade bodies for the advertising industry, signed up to the code in 2018 in a bid to stave off more heavy-handed regulation. Microsoft (MSFT.O) and TikTok subsequently joined the group.

There are, however, several shortcomings in the code following an assessment of its first year in operation, the commission said, according to a report seen by Reuters.

“These can be grouped in four broad categories: inconsistent and incomplete application of the code across platforms and member states, lack of uniform definitions, the existence of several gaps in the coverage of the code commitments, and limitations intrinsic to the self-regulatory nature of the code,” the report said.

The commission vice president for values and transparency, Vera Jourova, called for more action to counter new risks.

“As we also witness new threats and actors the time is ripe to go further and propose new measures. The platforms need to become more accountable and transparent. They need to open up and provide better access to data, among others,” Jourova said.

Jourova is currently working on a European Democracy Action Plan to make democracy more resilient to digital threats.

The commission is also set to propose new rules called the Digital Services Act by the end of the year which will increase social media’s responsibilities and liability for content on their platforms.

Source: Reuters

Also Read:

APPLE PLANS SPECIAL EVENT FOR SEPTEMBER 15, NEW PRODUCTS ANTICIPATED    

CHINA LAUNCHES INITIATIVE FOR GLOBAL DATA SECURITY ISSUES    

GOOGLE URL PARAMETER TOOL UPGRADE WILL BE 'REALLY COOL' WHEN MIGRATED TO NEW SEARCH CONSOLE  

NIKOLA AND GM TEAM UP TO MAKE THIS 900-HORSEPOWER SUPER ELECTRIC TRUCK    

UBER OFFER RIDES ONLY IN ELECTRIC VEHICLES IN US    

THEE GO LAUNCHES THREE ELECTRIC COMMERCIAL VEHICLES IN NEPAL    

DFSK GLORY 560 LAUNCHED IN NEPAL: PREMIUM MID SIZE SUV IN TOWN