Google Agrees to Destroy Data in $5-$7.8 Billion Privacy Settlement

Published: 01 April 2024 at 17:19

Business

Google settled a lawsuit by agreeing to destroy billions of data records related to tracking the internet use of users who thought they were browsing privately. The settlement, valued at $5-$7.8 billion, allows users to sue individually for damages. The class action covered millions of Google users since June 1, 2016, who alleged improper tracking while using private browsing modes. Google will update disclosures on private browsing data collection, allow Incognito users to block third-party cookies for five years, and collect less data from private browsing sessions.

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Gmail Celebrates 20th Birthday with New Security Rules for Bulk Senders

On its 20th anniversary, Gmail boasts 1.2 billion users, with origins stemming from a user complaint in 2004. Google co-founder Sergey Brin emphasized Gmail's mission to address email issues. The service's success led to the introduction of stringent new security rules for bulk senders starting April 1, 2024, targeting marketing and spam emails.

Google Search (Wikipedia)

Google Search (also known simply as Google or Google.com) is a search engine operated by Google. It allows users to search for information on the Internet by entering keywords or phrases. Google Search uses algorithms to analyze and rank websites based on their relevance to the search query. It is the most popular search engine worldwide.As of 2020, Google Search has a 92% share of the global search engine market. By 2012, it handled more than 3.5 billion searches per day.Google Search is the most-visited website in the world. Approximately 26.75% of Google's monthly global traffic comes from the United States, 4.44% from India, 4.4% from Brazil, 3.92% from the United Kingdom and 3.84% from Japan according to data provided by Similarweb.The order of search results returned by Google is based, in part, on a priority rank system called "PageRank". Google Search also provides many different options for customized searches, using symbols to include, exclude, specify or require certain search behavior, and offers specialized interactive experiences, such as flight status and package tracking, weather forecasts, currency, unit, and time conversions, word definitions, and more.The main purpose of Google Search is to search for text in publicly accessible documents offered by web servers, as opposed to other data, such as images or data contained in databases. It was originally developed in 1996 by Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and Scott Hassan. In 2011, Google introduced "Google Voice Search" to search for spoken, rather than typed, words. In 2012, Google introduced a semantic search feature named Knowledge Graph.Analysis of the frequency of search terms may indicate economic, social and health trends. Data about the frequency of use of search terms on Google can be openly inquired via Google Trends and have been shown to correlate with flu outbreaks and unemployment levels, and provide the information faster than traditional reporting methods and surveys. As of mid-2016, Google's search engine has begun to rely on deep neural networks.

Google (Wikipedia)

Google LLC ( , GOO-ghəl) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial intelligence (AI). It has been referred to as "the most powerful company in the world" and as one of the world's most valuable brands due to its market dominance, data collection, and technological advantages in the field of AI. Google's parent company Alphabet Inc. is one of the five Big Tech companies, alongside Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft.Google was founded on September 4, 1998, by American computer scientists Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were PhD students at Stanford University in California. Together they own about 14% of its publicly listed shares and control 56% of its stockholder voting power through super-voting stock. The company went public via an initial public offering (IPO) in 2004. In 2015, Google was reorganized as a wholly owned subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. Google is Alphabet's largest subsidiary and is a holding company for Alphabet's internet properties and interests. Sundar Pichai was appointed CEO of Google on October 24, 2015, replacing Larry Page, who became the CEO of Alphabet. On December 3, 2019, Pichai also became the CEO of Alphabet.The company has since rapidly grown to offer a multitude of products and services beyond Google Search, many of which hold dominant market positions. These products address a wide range of use cases, including email (Gmail), navigation (Waze & Maps), cloud computing (Cloud), web browsing (Chrome), video sharing (YouTube), productivity (Workspace), operating systems (Android), cloud storage (Drive), language translation (Translate), photo storage (Photos), video calling (Meet), smart home (Nest), smartphones (Pixel), wearable technology (Pixel Watch & Fitbit), music streaming (YouTube Music), video on demand (YouTube TV), AI (Google Assistant & Gemini), machine learning APIs (TensorFlow), AI chips (TPU), and more. Discontinued Google products include gaming (Stadia), Glass, Google+, Reader, Play Music, Nexus, Hangouts, and Inbox by Gmail.Google's other ventures outside of Internet services and consumer electronics include quantum computing (Sycamore), self-driving cars (Waymo, formerly the Google Self-Driving Car Project), smart cities (Sidewalk Labs), and transformer models (Google Deepmind).Google and YouTube are the two most visited websites worldwide followed by Facebook and X (formerly known as Twitter). Google is also the largest search engine, mapping and navigation application, email provider, office suite, video sharing platform, photo and cloud storage provider, mobile operating system, web browser, ML framework, and AI virtual assistant provider in the world as measured by market share. On the list of most valuable brands, Google is ranked second by Forbes and fourth by Interbrand. It has received significant criticism involving issues such as privacy concerns, tax avoidance, censorship, search neutrality, antitrust and abuse of its monopoly position.

Google+ (Wikipedia)

Google+ (sometimes: written as Google Plus, stylized as G+ or g+/⁺) was a social network that was owned and operated by Google until it ceased operations in 2019. The network was launched on June 28, 2011, in an attempt to challenge other social networks, linking other Google products like Google Drive, Blogger and YouTube. The service, Google's fourth foray into social networking, experienced strong growth in its initial years, although usage statistics varied, depending on how the service was defined. Three Google executives oversaw the service, which underwent substantial changes that led to a redesign in November 2015.Due to low user engagement and disclosed software design flaws that potentially allowed outside developers access to personal information of its users, the Google+ developer API was discontinued on March 7, 2019, and Google+ was shut down for business and personal use on April 2, 2019.