In the company’s first transparency report, Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, has revealed some information regarding the site’s censorship under infamous European “right to be forgotten” laws — and it’s clear that he’s not very happy with the people who take advantage of them. This isn’t the first time Wales has spoken out against censorship, but now he’s making it very clear that he feels governments are going just a bit too far.
Things are getting interesting for Google on the legal front. Not long after the ‘right to be forgotten‘ ruling and the messy fallout from that, a Hong Kong court has ruled that the company is responsible for auto-complete suggestions where they could be said to defame.
A Hong Kong court has ruled that a local tycoon can sue Google Inc for defamation because searches for his name on Google suggest adding the word ‘triad’, Hong Kong’s notorious organized crime groups.
Searches in both English and Chinese for Albert Yeung Sau-shing, the founder and chairman of Hong Kong-based conglomerate Emperor Group, will automatically suggest phrases related to organized crime using Google’s ‘autocomplete’ function.
On Tuesday, the High Court of Hong Kong dismissed Google’s argument that it was not responsible for the autocomplete suggestions related to Yeung and that the court did not have personal jurisdiction over the U.S. search giant …
Today, in a blog post, Google announced the release of Google News Publisher Center, a new tool that helps news producers keep the search company up to date with any changes made to the structure of their website. This portal lets verified companies manage and edit the way their web content is displayed in Google News without having to jump through hoops.
If you’d like to know what makes Google’s self-driving car tick, the company is hosting an interactive Hangout as part of its Maker Camp field trip program. The festivities start on Friday, August 1st at 11AM PT/2PM ET, but you can start asking your questions right now. In addition to a Q&A session with participants, Google will be discussing how its driverless car operates, as well as the project’s latest developments.
And so the saga continues … In the short time since the EU ruled that individuals have the right to be forgotten when sensitive information found in search results is considered “outdated or irrelevant,” we’ve seen what is probably best described as the makings of a damn good sitcom. (Note to networks: if you make it, I want my ten percent.)
We first had the amusement of deleted links being reported by the media, bringing the stories back into the limelight. We then had Google describing the impossible position in which it has been placed, being asked to make “difficult and debatable judgements” based on “very vague and subjective tests.”
This was followed by the EU rapping Google’s knuckles for doing it wrong, and we now have a bipartisan British governmental committee disagreeing with the EU and agreeing with Google that it is being asked to “enforce the impossible” … Expand Expanding Close
Despite having its hand in things like wearables and robotics, web search is arguably still Google’s mainstay and it looks like the company is working on a new tool that will help people point and click their way through historical events. Discovered by code tinkerer Florian Kiersch, Mountain View appears to be working on a new Knowledge Graph tool that pulls data from Wikipedia to create interactive timelines based on the item being searched.
Google is working on a new feature for its voice search that will allow the software to understand multiple languages at a time. Currently, the company’s voice search only listens to your default language settings for your Google profile. This can be changed within your account’s settings, but Mountain View is trying to make things easier for multilingual individuals.
Many people use Google’s search engine to get answers to tough questions and in some cases the results produce excerpts from reputable websites. For example, if you search for: “what are flu symptoms?” You’ll pull results from flu.gov, along with an information card like the one pictured above.
The mess and uncertainty created by an European court ruling that individuals have a ‘right to be forgotten‘ by search-engines when sensitive information is deemed to be “outdated or irrelevant” just got worse. Regulators are meeting with Google today to express concerns about the way in which Google has chosen to implement the ruling, reports Business Insider.
Under particular scrutiny is Google’s decision to only remove results from its European search engines, such as google.co.uk, meaning anyone can easily access the hidden information by switching to the widely used google.com […]
Another issue likely to be raised by the EU watchdogs is Google’s decision to notify the owners of the websites that have been removed from search results …
Google announced today that it’s expanding its Flight Search service to users in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. While all users worldwide can access the service to search, compare and book flights at www.google.com/flights, this allows users in these countries to search for flights directly from Google, in their local languages, and with prices in local currency on both mobile and the web.
Let’s say you live in Norway and you want to plan a summer getaway. If you access Flight Search, you’ll immediately see the price, duration and type of flight for several popular destinations you might like to visit — based on your preferences and previous searches. If you set your dates and tap to expand the map, you’ll see live prices for destinations around the world. A trip to Kristiansand sounds nice.
The localized Flight Search service is available to users in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden through www.google.dk/flights/, www.google.no/flights/and www.google.se/flights/. Users searching flight related queries will also start to see Flight Search in search results as well.
Setting Google Now reminders by voice is all very well when you’re walking down the street, but you can feel just a little self-conscious doing it in an open-plan office or coffee-shop. Google now allows you to add reminders by typing them directly into the searchbar on your laptop, reveals the Google Blog.
You don’t have to use the mobile Google Search app to add reminders. Just search Google for add reminder or create reminder, enter a name, a date or a place. You can also enter specific queries like: add reminder to buy milk tomorrow or create reminder to buy sandwich when I am in Chicago. Just click “remind me on Google Now” …
Google Alerts quietly received a redesign overnight, gaining a brand new user interface that closer aligns with the appearance of other Google web services. In addition to a streamlined user interface, the service is also more automated now and offers alert suggestions for your name and email address, popular tech companies, athletes, celebrities, countries, places, industries and more. Expand Expanding Close
Google has began rolling out an experimental feature on its search engine that makes it easier to find live events on YouTube or Hangouts on Air. A live event will begin showing up in search results up to 3 hours before it starts, providing users with a link that takes them to the event page to watch. A card-like box appears at the top of Google when searching for the name or author of live events. Expand Expanding Close
Google recently gave the world a look at its homegrown self-driving vehicle and although it looks like something out of a Saturday morning cartoon, not everyone is convinced that the company’s cutesy car will be used for the good of mankind. According to an alleged FBI report obtained by The Guardian, the bureau believes that autonomous vehicles can be “lethal weapons,” but not in ways that you may think.
If you have ever wondered how many Bitcoins you can afford with your American dollars, you can now turn to Google. Following in the footsteps of Bing and Yandex, Google has partnered with CoinBase to add a Bitcoin currency conversion tool to its search results. Expand Expanding Close
If you’ve ever been frustrated by visiting a website on your smartphone or tablet and finding it won’t work because it uses Flash, you’ll welcome the latest Google initiative: it is now flagging Flash content in its search results, warning that the site may not work on your device.
Starting today, we will indicate to searchers when our algorithms detect pages that may not work on their devices. For example, Adobe Flash is not supported on iOS devices or on Android versions 4.1 and higher, and a page whose contents are mostly Flash may be noted
As Google notes, Android abandoned Flash support as of Jelly Bean due to reliability, security and performance concerns. Adobe has been forced to issue a succession of security updates to Flash, the most recent being two emergency updates earlier this year. Google says it hopes the move, coupled to Web Fundamentals and Web Starter Kit initiatives for developers will encourage the use of HTML5 in place of Flash.
TechCrunch has obtained leaked documents from within Yelp that accuse Google of manipulating search results to promote Google+ content over Yelp content. The report alleges that Google is boosting its own products on its search engine in the United States, but not in Europe where it is being slammed with antitrust complaints from European Union regulators. Expand Expanding Close
It’s possible the removals were unintentional anyway. Regarding the criteria for removal, the company originally stated:
When evaluating your request, we will look at whether the results include outdated information about you, as well as whether there’s a public interest in the information—for example, information about financial scams, professional malpractice, criminal convictions, or public conduct of government officials.
While it’s not appearing for all users, Google appears to be testing its Translate tool directly in search results. Specific search results for translations such as “Hola in english” already presented users with the answer directly above search results, but now search queries like “translate” “translation” and “translate tool”— which most users search for when looking for translation services— present a redesigned translate tool (pictured above) where users can enter text and adjust languages right from the search results page.
It’s unclear if this is just a test or something Google plans to roll out more broadly, but it’s certainly something that other translation services might not be all too pleased with. The first search result below the new tool is most often “Google Translate”, as it was before the roll out of the new translate tool in search results.
Google told us it’s “always working on improvements to our products.”
Well-known figures taking advantage of Europe’s ‘right to be forgotten‘ ruling, in which Google and other search engines are required to remove links to sensitive information deemed ‘out-dated or irrelevant’, are not quite getting the results they hoped for. Google is choosing to notify the media when links to stories are removed, and the British media is responding by running stories on the censorship – putting the subjects of the removed links back in the news once more … Expand Expanding Close
The WSJ is reporting that Google has begun removing search results following a European court decision that individuals have a right to require Google to remove links to information which is “outdated or irrelevant.”
Following the ruling – known as the ‘right to be forgotten’ – Google created a webpage application and announced that each would be evaluated by hand on a case-by-case basis, balancing the right to privacy against legitimate public interest. The company now says that it has begun acting on these requests … Expand Expanding Close
Google, over the past year, has gradually been ramping up the features of which its Knowledge Graph is capable . For those unfamiliar, the Knowledge Graph is the box that appears in search results, either at the top or on the right, with information about your search query. Over the past few days, Google has gradually started integrating step-by-step directions into the Knowledge.
To try this feature out, simply type in a “how-to” search into Google and the steps will appear at the top of the search results page. As you can see in the images above, Google will sometime present you with the materials need to perform your task, while in other instances it will give you step-by-step directions. For shorter tasks, all of the steps will be listed in the Knowledge Graph, while tasks with longer processes require you to click through to the publisher’s website.
Google pulls in the steps from a variety sources. Publishers would obviously prefer that readers have to click through to see all of the steps, but Google doesn’t seem to care. Try it out for yourself now.
As has happened every June for the last several years, Google has dressed up searches for many LGBT-related queries with a rainbow design. We’ve tried a variety of searches, seeing the above banner when typing queries such as LGBT, LA pride, SF pride, gay pride, marriage equality, and more. June was declared LGBT Pride Month by U.S. President Barack Obama in 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2013, as well as this year. Also worth noting is that this is Google’s second move (at least) of support for the LGBT community; the company put a doodle up earlier this year showing support for LGBT olympians.
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