#Alphabet Inc. (Google)

[destielmemenews]

former youtube ceo susan wojcicki just died of lung cancer

"Her loss is devastating for all of us who know and love her, for the thousands of Googlers she led over the years, and for millions of people all over the world who looked up to her, benefited from her advocacy and leadership, and felt the impact of the incredible things she created at Google, YouTube, and beyond," Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said in a note to employees.

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[ivie-online]

not a surprise but google is continuously getting worse. searches related to items that can be bought will return endless shopping options, then a few vaguely sourced blogs (made by or for businesses that link to even more shopping options). google scholar is fine for subjects that are broadly represented in western academia, but good luck getting past the abstract without an institution to sign in with, hundreds of loose dollars, or a 3rd party site that works roughly 20% of the time. an entire civilization that has compiled near endless amounts of information, but no unified way to quickly and accurately access it. shouldn’t be of any concern though. i’m sure

[commiepinkofag]

corporations cannot act with impunity;

workers are the true shareholders & must hold themselves accountable, for genocide, ecocide & systemic abuses;

eject the CEOs, managers, HR that uphold the fascist hierarchy;

individuals should not be held hostage by the reliance of income for basic necessities;

people-over-profit can avert the destruction of our modern civilization & a habitable planet;

unionize, whistle-blow, create mutual aid networks; protest, fight;

make it untenable; make it impossible for business as usual

[jolikmc-thoughts]

Few things make me come unglued. This? Yeah, this made me come un-fucking-glued.

I don't give a shit if the SESAC and Alphabet, Inc. are having a lover's tat. Don't block my videos that use shitty covers of your unstable record labels' songs. It's especially fucked up that a fucking AdLib Visual Composer cover of one of Rush's shitty songs somehow got entangled in this mess. It's literally just a beeps-and-boops version of the song, you fuck-nuts!!

Fuck you, Alphabet, Inc. And Google. And YouTube. And especially you, Society of European Stage Authors and Composers.

[netscapenavigator-official]

I wanna know why today, of all days, was the day that YouTube decided to randomly suggest to me an mpreg SCP Foundation story out of the blue.

I don't watch SCP content. I don't watch horror content. I don't watch mpreg content. So please Alphabet Inc. please explain to me what possessed you right here on this day to give me this video. I eagerly await your response.

[wack-ashimself]

Elon Musk is a distraction from those who own Google and everything connected to it. Let alone Blackrock. There's a reason you don't fucking know their names off hand. And they're richer than him by far. God damn do we not even ask simple questions...

[youthchronical]

Google curbs politics discussion among employees on U.S. Election Day

Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google. Anindito Mukherjee | Bloomberg | Getty Images Google has been moderating and removing employees’ internal election-related conversations, CNBC has learned.  Ahead of Tuesday’s U.S. elections, Google executives warned employees to keep political opinions and statements away from a popular internal discussion forum called Memegen, according to correspondence viewed by…

[melancholia-ennui]

That's not... my god you guys are all so desperate to hate on younger people aren't you. That's not what the information we have about this data - which isn't even publicly available(!) - says, nor is it the most plausible explanation.

From the original TechCrunch article that discussed this new announcement:

“In our studies, something like almost 40% of young people, when they’re looking for a place for lunch, they don’t go to Google Maps or Search,” [Senior Vice President Prabhakar Raghavan] continued. “They go to TikTok or Instagram.”

In other words: younger Gen Zers are going to friends (Insta) or parasocial "community" (TikTok) to look for restaurant recommendations, rather than to Google's increasingly unworkable, ad-ridden and bloated search engine. Setting aside the question of parasociality (which is hardly just a problem with "kids these days"!), this is just the internet native equivalent of asking your friend or family member "know any good Thai places in this area?" rather than going to Google first. And that is a good thing to be doing!

Honestly y'all talk about the boomerification of "Gen Z" but it's the boomerification of this website that astounds and horrifies me - y'all will jump on any piece of sloppy corporate propaganda if it gives you a chance to grumble and grump about the "kids these days".

[ID: A tweet by Popbase that reads, "Nearly half of Gen Z is using TikTok and Instagram as a search engine instead of Google, new data shows.". Below the tweet is a pic of a poorly drawn Goomba from Super Mario Bros with text below him that reads "are you out of your fucking mind".]

[widows-and-orphans-united]

One Chance to Create an Impact: The Power of Compassion

In a world rife with challenges and adversities, it is easy to feel overwhelmed and helpless. However, amidst these challenges lies a powerful truth – every individual holds the potential to bring about significant change within them.

One Chance to Create an Impact: The Power of Compassion In a world rife with challenges and adversities, it is easy to feel overwhelmed and helpless. However, amidst these challenges lies a powerful truth – every individual holds the potential to bring about significant change within them. It begins with recognizing that we are not just passive observers but active participants who can make a…

[reasonsforhope]

Article | Paywall Free

"A bid to break up Alphabet Inc.’s Google is one of the options being considered by the Justice Department after a landmark court ruling found that the company monopolized the online search market, according to people with knowledge of the deliberations.

The move would be Washington’s first push to dismantle a company for illegal monopolization since unsuccessful efforts to break up Microsoft Corp. two decades ago. Less severe options include forcing Google to share more data with competitors and measures to prevent it from gaining an unfair advantage in AI products, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private conversations.

Regardless, the government will likely seek a ban on the type of exclusive contracts that were at the center of its case against Google. If the Justice Department pushes ahead with a breakup plan, the most likely units for divestment are the Android operating system and Google’s web browser Chrome, said the people. Officials are also looking at trying to force a possible sale of AdWords, the platform the company uses to sell text advertising, one of the people said.

The Justice Department discussions have intensified in the wake of Judge Amit Mehta’s Aug. 5 ruling that Google illegally monopolized the markets of online search and search text ads. Google has said it will appeal that decision, but Mehta has ordered both sides to begin plans for the second phase of the case, which will involve the government’s proposals for restoring competition, including a possible breakup request.

The US plan will need to be accepted by Mehta, who would direct the company to comply. A forced breakup of Google would be the biggest of a US company since AT&T was dismantled in the 1980s."

-via Bloomberg, August 13, 2024

[jolikmc-thoughts]

Very cool, Alphabet, Inc. Thanks for that completely worthless notification.

Looking forward to Manifest v3.

███ off.

[richdadpoor]

Google Promises It Will Be More Open About Its Ads

Google is pinky-swearing it will be more transparent in the future about how and why you keep seeing the same ads that seem to know you much better than you know yourself, though only if you live in the European Union. Google’s Antitrust Case Is the Best Thing That Ever Happened to AI In a blog post, Google’s VP of Trust and Safety Laurie Richardson said the company will be expanding its Ads…

[soon-palestine]

𝗨.𝗦. 𝗖𝗢𝗨𝗥𝗧 𝗖𝗟𝗘𝗔𝗥𝗦 𝗧𝗘𝗖𝗛 𝗚𝗜𝗔𝗡𝗧𝗦 𝗢𝗙 𝗖𝗢𝗡𝗚𝗢 𝗔𝗕𝗨𝗦𝗘𝗦

Not guilty.

That's the verdict of a US federal appeals court in a case involving five tech companies accused of benefitting from child labour in Congolese mines. On 5th March, 2024, the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia made a 3-0 decision in favour of (Google’s parent company) Alphabet, Microsoft, Dell, Tesla and Apple Inc. in a case filed by 16 former Congolese child miners and their guardians.

The plaintiffs accused the companies of "deliberately obscuring" their dependence on child labour, in effect abetting the exploitation of many children to ensure steady supplies of cobalt. Some of the complainants were the guardians of children who’d been killed in cobalt-mining operations.

The court ruled that buying cobalt in the global supply chain did not amount to "participation in a venture," and there was no proof that the tech giants had anything more than a buyer-seller relationship with suppliers or had the power to stop the use of child labour.

Cobalt is in high demand as competition for market leadership in Electric Vehicle sales kicks into high gear. Nearly two-thirds of the world's cobalt is mined in DR Congo. The country has 2-million artisanal miners working under horrible conditions, according to DelveDatabase, an online database. Four critical minerals - copper, nickel, cobalt and lithium - will generate $16 trillion in the next 25 years, according to the IMF.

DR Congo's vast wealth is the key reason for the country's long history of exploitation and conflict - from Belgian King Leopold II running the country as his private estate to Western tech firms churning out high-end goods using Congolese minerals.

Help raise awareness of the exploitation of Congolese children by sharing this video widely.

[anewsbuddy]

Everyone wants a foldable phone, but most of us can't afford one yet | CNN Business

CNN  —  Chris Pantons is what you’d call a Google Pixel super fan. The Knoxville, Tennessee native loves the software, the camera, the virtual assistant, all of it. He even credits the phone’s car crash detection tool with saving his life a few years ago when he was in an accident. “I’ve owned practically every Pixel device,” said Pantons, 33, who has posted hundreds of YouTube videos about…

[nerdwelt]

Diese App könnte die Akkulaufzeit Ihres Pixel-Telefons verkürzen

Kein Smartphone ist perfekt, aber mehr als fast jedes andere Android-Handy scheinen Google Pixel-Geräte wegen Fehlern und Softwareproblemen im Rampenlicht zu stehen. Dieser Punkt wird erneut betont, da zahlreiche Pixel-Besitzer berichten, dass eine bestimmte App – insbesondere die Google-App – erhebliche Probleme mit der Akkuentladung und Überhitzung verursacht. Wenn man sich das anschaut…

[youthchronical]

Google employees pressure costumed execs at all-hands meeting for clarity on cost cuts

Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai during the Google I/O developers conference in Mountain View, California, on May 10, 2023. David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images Alphabet executives, donning Halloween costumes, faced questions from concerned employees at an all-hands meeting on Wednesday, following comments on the company’s earnings call suggesting that more cost cuts are coming. “There is a…