If you’re tired of auto-playing videos with sound, pop-up ads, and other annoying advertising tricks, well, join the club. Google knows how you feel, and is planning to start blocking those by default in both its desktop and mobile versions of Chrome sometime next year. But first, it’s giving publishers a grace period to clean up their acts. [More]
Google Warns 1,000 Annoying Advertisers That They’ll Be Blocked On Chrome If They Don’t Shape Up
By 8.9.17
Google’s Tracking Of Offline Spending Sparks Call For Federal Investigation
By 7.31.17
Google recently announced a suite of new tools for advertisers, allowing them to link a customer’s offline credit card purchases with the things they look at online. Shockingly, some privacy advocates think this sort of tracking goes too far and have called on the federal government to investigate. [More]
Google Adds Additional App Verification Steps To Protect Users From Phishing Attacks
By 7.19.17
Two months after Google added phishing protections to the Android Gmail app, the company is taking its no-phishing attack approach further by introducing new warnings and a more complex verification system for new apps. [More]
Best Buy Is Now A Showroom For Amazon, Google Home Products
By 6.28.17
How quickly tides turn. Not that long ago, Best Buy looked upon Amazon and Google with disdain, angry that “showrooming” customers were coming into Best Buy stores just to look at products that they would then — sometimes while in the store — purchase online for less. Now Amazon and Google have turned to Best Buy to showroom their growing array of devices.
[More]
Ad Watchdog: Saying Google Pixel Is Available ‘Exclusively’ From Verizon Was Misleading
By 6.27.17
If you see an ad that says a product is available “exclusively” from only one vendor, what does that mean? Would you take it to mean that the retailer is the only place where you can buy that product? That’s what ads for the Google Pixel smartphone seemed to say about the phone’s relationship to Verizon, but it wan’t so. [More]
Google Ordered To Pay Record $2.7 Billion Antitrust Fine Over Shopping Search Results
By 6.27.17
Nearly a year after rumors began swirling that Google could face a record-breaking fine in order to put a six-year long European antitrust investigation related to its search behind it. European regulators are ordering the tech giant to pay up, to the tune of $2.7 billion. [More]
Google Will Stop Scanning The Contents Of Your Gmail Messages To Sell Ads
By 6.23.17
If you use one of Google’s many services then you’ve probably come to the realization that the tech company has a lot of your personal information and data, which it uses to sell ads. Now, after years of debate on whether or not it’s okay for Google to read users’ private emails, the tech giant says it will stop scanning Gmail messages, but only for the purpose of personalizing ads. [More]
Google Wiping Private Medical Records From Search Results
By 6.23.17
If the thought of a stranger accessing your medical history online gives you the creeps, you’re not alone: In an effort to tamp down on the spread of such private information, Google has started wiping private medical records from its search results. [More]
Some Google StreetView Cars Now Tracking Pollution
By 6.5.17
While we’ve grown used to the idea of Google’s StreetView cars zooming around town snapping photos for mapping purposes, some of those vehicles have been equipped with a pollution monitoring system to help researchers get a better picture of what is in the air we breathe every day. [More]
It’s Not Just You: Google Home Users Report Widespread Problems
By 6.5.17
If you’ve been having issues getting your Google Home to respond to your commands recently, you’re not alone: Many users reported issues over the weekend, and Google says it’s looking into the problem. [More]
Google Rolling Out A Chrome Ad Blocker, Putting Web Publishers On Notice
By 6.2.17
You know that feeling of relief and serenity that comes with a web-browsing experience free of annoying popups, auto-play video ads, and screen-dominating interstitials? As predicted, Google is planning to launch a new ad blocker on Chrome next year in an effort to clean up the internet. [More]
Google Expands Waze Carpooling Service To All Of California
By 5.31.17
When ride-hailing apps like Lyft and Uber first appeared, they were called “ride-sharing” services, since people didn’t really know what else to call peer-to-peer unlicensed taxi services. By contrast, the carpooling feature that’s part of Google-owned map and traffic app Waze is more like organized hitchhiking, and now it’s going statewide in California. [More]
Google Following Your Offline Credit Card Spending To Tell Advertisers If Their Ads Work
By 5.23.17 — Updated: 5.24.17
Google’s holding its annual conference for marketers today in San Francisco, and to kick it off they’re announcing some new tools advertisers can use. One of them promises to tie your offline credit card data together with all your online viewing to tell advertisers exactly what’s working as they try to target you and your wallet. [More]
Google Assistant Now Works On iPhone
By 5.17.17
While Apple’s iPhone apps don’t cross over onto Google’s Android devices, an array of Google apps have long been available for iOS, and today Google confirmed that its virtual Assistant service will soon be sharing space on your iPhone next to Siri. [More]
Google Avoids Genericide, Will Remain A Protected Trademark
By 5.16.17
“Google” has delayed experiencing the same fate as kerosene, heroin, laundromat, and a number of other brand names that became so popular they died of genericide. [More]
Waymo And Lyft Teaming Up To Work On Self-Driving Cars
By 5.15.17
If Uber and Google haven’t already stopped wearing the Best Friends Forever necklaces they exchanged way back when, well, they’re definitely chucking those things in the garbage now: Google’s Waymo is partnering up with Uber’s sworn enemy, Lyft, to collaborate on autonomous vehicles. [More]
Bootlooping Issues With Nexus 6P Lead To Runaround From Manufacturer Huawei
By 5.8.17 — Updated: 5.9.17
Imagine you’ve spent hundreds of dollars on a new smartphone, and after only five months your device gets stuck in an endless cycle of rebooting. You’d hope the manufacturer would rush you a new phone and apologize for the inconvenience… only to end up caught in an endless loop of inept customer service. [More]
Google Adds Phishing Protection To Android Gmail App
By 5.4.17
Yesterday, millions of Gmail users became the targets of a phishing scam in which someone they knew sent a Google Doc for them to edit. Once they clicked on the email, however, they opened their computers and email accounts to ne’er-do-wells. Now, Google is launching an update that may make it easier for users to decipher when an email is suspicious — as long as they’re using the Android app. [More]
