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Google wins interim victory in final phase of ‘right to be forgotten’ case
Google has won an interim victory in the final phase of the long-running ‘right to be forgotten‘ case, indicating that it may not need to censor search results outside EU countries.
The European Union Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled back in 2014 that individuals have a right to require Google to remove sensitive information from search results. It provided a so-called ‘right to be forgotten’ in the case of information relating to private individuals where there is no legitimate public interest in the facts being known …
Google has removed 43% of over 2 million ‘right to be forgotten’ URL takedown requests
If you’ll recall, back in 2014 Google was handed a ruling by the Court of Justice of the European Union that required the company to listen to takedown requests of URLs to abide by the “right to be forgotten.” After three years, the company has just revealed some numbers on the topic.
Top European court to hear Google’s appeal for more limited scope of ‘right to be forgotten’
Several years ago, the European Union passed a “right to be forgotten” law that instructs tech companies like Google to delist certain content when requested by an individual. Search abides by this, but Google only removes information on a regional, not global, basis.
France’s data protection agency CNIL fined the company on this distinction, with Google appealing last year. Given the significant impact of such a ruling, the appeals court today decided to refer this case to the top European court.
Google deal with LyricFind makes finding song lyrics a pleasant experience again
If you’ve ever Googled for song lyrics, you know what a messy experience it can be – half the sites proving to be just links to other sites, others looking really sketchy. For those in the US, though, things should be much simpler. Google has licensed lyrics from LyricFind, which in turn licenses them from labels, so that a search for a song title with ‘lyrics’ on the end should generate an immediate link.
Of course, Google is arriving rather late to the party …
Google is currently working on bringing ‘Gboard’ search features to Android
After announcing Gboard for iOS, the team behind it had a chat on the curation site Product Hunt to discuss the new keyboard. When asked about Android support, product manager Bri Connelly said Google is currently working on porting over the features.
Google testing black links instead of blue in search results
For many, many years, whenever you search for anything on Google, chances are that you see a sea of blue unread links fill your web browser. Unless you’re in China, that is, in which case you see red ones.
Still, blue web links have been a feature within Google Search for a long time. So it comes as something of a minor shock to see that the company is now testing a new color: black.
Google focusing on search, AI, and more in Founders’ Letter from Sundar Pichai
Every year, Larry Page and Sergey Brin write a Founders’ Letter to inform stockholders of recent developments and their vision for the future. For 2016, Page had recently-anointed Google CEO Sundar Pichai write the letter as a majority of ‘bets’ are under his purview. The letter focuses on six main areas.
Google Photos for Android drops FAB for a search bar in latest update
Update: According to a post on Google+, this update adds the ability to customize automatically created movies with your own music, photos, and videos. It’s also now possible to rename or delete device folders and manage photos on SD cards.
Rolling out to users now, version 1.19 of Google Photos brings quite a few design tweaks to the Android app. The biggest change replaces the floating action button (FAB) with a search bar that is reminiscent of a recent A/B test to Play Music.
Canada ends investigation into anti-competitive search and ad practices by Google
With imminent troubles looming in Europe, Canada just closed its three year investigation into anti-competitive practices involving Google’s search and advertising business (via The Verge). The country’s Competition Bureau ultimately “did not find sufficient evidence” that Google’s practices harmed local rivals.
Google can now play animal sounds directly from search
Very often, Google realizes that there’s a common search query that it can make more convenient for users by adding its own content directly to the search engine. The perfect example was last year, when Google effectively sherlocked dozens of lyrics-dedicated websites by adding its own lyrics directly to the top of search results for many songs. I don’t think as many websites are going to feel the brunt of this change, but Google has now added animal sounds to Search…
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Google somehow got through China’s firewall for nearly two hours last night
For a brief spell last night, uncensored Google search was alive and kicking within China’s borders. For roughly 105 mins, according to the South China Morning Post, residents inside the People’s Republic had free, unrestricted use of Google’s popular search domain.
France fines Google €100k after rejecting company’s ‘right to be forgotten’ compromise
The French data protection regulator CNIL has fined Google €100,000 ($112,000) after rejecting the company’s proposed compromise over the controversial ‘right to be forgotten‘ legislation.
The legislation gives individuals the right to have ‘outdated or irrelevant’ information about them removed from Google’s search results. Google at first offered to remove the results from Google’s local domains on a country-by-country basis, in this case google.fr, before saying that it would also remove them from google.com when a search was carried out from within France …
You can now add a shortcut to your homescreen to quickly access weather info in the Google app
Google is rolling out a new feature that allows users to more easily access one of the most commonly searched terms. With this rollout, if a user searches for the weather in their location or another location, Google will ask if that user would like to add a shortcut to their homescreen to “access weather instantly from your homescreen.”
Google is giving another ranking boost to mobile-friendly pages
Google announced in April of last year that it tweaked search results to give a ranking boost to sites that offer mobile-friendly versions, and now the Mountain View company is prepping to give even more ranking weight to these sites. The company is planning a change that “increases the effect of the ranking signal” for mobile searches to put even more mobile pages on the top…
Latest Google app beta adds OCR image recognition to Now on Tap
For all the features the Google app has added, it still does not have any image recognition capabilities. Google Goggles from 2010 could recognize book covers, landmarks, and even solve Sudoku, but was ultimately discontinued due to a lack of use. However, Now on Tap has gained some of those features in a recent update.
Google clarifies how it’s complying with European ‘right to be forgotten’ policies
Following reports that Google will be more strict with how it complies with the European ‘right to be forgotten‘ act, the search giant today clarified how it would do so.
Google searches for ‘How to move to Canada’ spike in response to Super Tuesday results
It goes without saying that the American people aren’t exactly ecstatic about the prospective options for the US presidency, but just how unexcited are they? In response to the Super Tuesday results, which showed both Republican frontrunner Donald J. Trump and Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton both winning 7 of 11 states, it looks like many Americans are looking for a way to jump ship. And by jump ship, I mean head north to Canada…
Play Music for Android will now show related YouTube videos in search results
A Google Play Music update is rolling out that allows users to search for music-related YouTube videos from within the app. The video search feature is available to all Play Music users, including those who don’t subscribe to the streaming service.
Google wins UK court case against antitrust accusers, Streetmap
Google has won a UK court case filed against it by a European mapping company named Streetmap.EU, which claimed the search giant had been skewing results in its own favor. Streetmap will appeal the decision, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Google to comply more strictly with EU’s ‘right to be forgotten’ act
Following a series of pressures by European regulation and privacy authorities, Google will soon start removing unwanted results from all of its domains. Despite having complied with the EU’s rules regarding the so-called ‘right to be forgotten‘ act, the search giant has so far only removed the results within the specific country’s domain.
Google to start showing anti-ISIS ads in search results relating to extremism and radicalization
According to a report from The Guardian, Google will soon start showing anti-ISIS ads in search results. The report claims that when a user searches for a topic relating to Islamic extremism or radicalization, they will see ads that encourage them to view the “counter narrative” to their search query.
Longtime Search SVP Amit Singhal leaving Google after 15 years, head of AI taking over
Google’s longtime Senior Vice President of Search Amit Singhal is leaving the company after 15 years. In a Google+ post, he said that February 26th would be the last day and that he would be looking into philanthropy in the future. Re/Code is reporting that the Search will be merged with the company’s other artificial intelligence and machine learning efforts.
Google reveals how much it paid to get Google.com back last year
You may remember last year a story broke stating that someone had managed to buy the Google.com domain name. Sanmay Ved had only owned it for about one minute, but he owned it nonetheless. As a result, he was rewarded generously by Google …
Google’s new Australian voice can better pronounce names and understand phrases
Google is now further localizing the voice in their apps for Australian users. The new accent will sound more familiar to those down under and be better able to pronounce place names and understand local colloquialisms for tasks and actions.