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Criticism of Google

October 23, 2023

Criticism of Google includes concern for tax avoidance, misuse and manipulation of search results, its use of others' intellectual property, concerns that its compilation of data may violate people's privacy and collaboration with the US military on Google Earth to spy on users,[1] censorship of search results and content, and the energy consumption of its servers as well as concerns over traditional business issues such as monopoly, restraint of trade, antitrust, patent infringement, indexing and presenting false information and propaganda in search results, and being an "Ideological Echo Chamber".

Google's parent company, Alphabet Inc., is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products,[2] and generates profit primarily from advertising through its Google Ads (formerly AdWords) program.[3][4]

Google's stated mission is "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful";[5] this mission, and the means used to accomplish it, have raised concerns among the company's critics. Much of the criticism pertains to issues that have not yet been addressed by cyber law.

Shona Ghosh, a journalist for Business Insider, noted that an increasing digital resistance movement against Google has grown.[6]

Tax evasion Edit

Google cut its taxes by $3.1 billion in the period of 2007 to 2009 using a technique that moves most of its foreign profits through Ireland and The Netherlands to Bermuda. Afterwards, the company started to send £8 billion in profits a year to Bermuda.[7] Google's income shifting—involving strategies known to lawyers as the "Double Irish" and the "Dutch Sandwich"—helped reduce its overseas tax rate to 2.4 percent, the lowest of the top five U.S. technology companies by market capitalization, according to regulatory filings in six countries.[8][9]

According to economist and member of the PvdA delegation inside the Progressive Alliance of Socialists & Democrats in the European Parliament (S&D) Paul Tang, the EU lost, from 2013 to 2015, a loss estimated to be 3.955 billion Euros from Google.[10] When comparing to other countries outside the EU, the EU is only taxing Google with a rate of 0,36 – 0,82% of their revenue (approx. 25-35% of their EBT) whereas this rate is near 8% in countries outside the EU. Even if a rate of 2 to 5% – as suggested by ECOFIN council – would have been applied during this period (2013-2015), a fraud of this rate from Facebook would have meant a loss from 1.262 to 3.155 billion euros in the EU.[10]

Google has been accused by a number of countries of avoiding paying tens of billions of dollars of tax through a convoluted scheme of inter-company licensing agreements and transfers to tax havens.[11][12] For example, Google has used highly contrived and artificial distinctions to avoid paying billions of pounds in corporate tax owed by its UK operations.[13]

On May 15, 2013, Margaret Hodge, the chair of the United Kingdom Public Accounts Committee, accused Google of being "calculated and [...] unethical" over its use of the scheme.[13] Google Chairman Eric Schmidt has claimed that this scheme of Google is "capitalism",[14] and that he was "very proud" of it.[15]

In November 2012, the UK government announced plans to investigate Google, along with Starbucks and Amazon.com, for possible tax avoidance.[16] In 2015, the UK Government introduced a new law intended to penalize Google's and other large multinational corporations' artificial tax avoidance.[17]

On 20 January 2016, Google announced that it would pay £130m in back taxes to settle the investigation.[18] However, only 8 days later, it was announced that Google could end up paying more, and UK tax officials were under investigation for what has been termed a "sweetheart deal" for Google.[19]

Revenues, profits, tax and effective tax rates, Alphabet Inc. (Google) 2013–2015.[10]
Revenue (m EUR) EBT (m EUR) Tax (m EUR) Tax / EBT Tax / Revenue
Total EU Rest of the world Total EU Rest of the world Total EU Rest of the world Total EU Rest of the world Total EU Rest of the world
Alphabet Inc.

(Google)

2013 40 257 18 614 21 643 11 529 343 11 186 1 986 84 1 902 17% 25% 17% 4,93% 0,45% 8,79%
2014 54 362 19 159 35 203 14 215 285 13 930 2 997 69 2 928 21% 24% 21% 5,51% 0,36% 8,32%
2015 68 879 25 320 43 559 18 050 586 17 464 3 034 207 2 827 17% 35% 16% 4,40% 0,82% 6,49%

Antitrust Edit

From the 2000s onward, Google and parent company Alphabet Inc. have faced antitrust scrutiny over alleged anti-competitive conduct in violation of competition law in a particular jurisdiction.[20] Antitrust scrutiny of Google has primarily centered on the company's dominance in the search engine and digital advertising markets.[21][22] The company has also been accused of leveraging control of the Android operating system to illegally curb competition.[23]

Google has also received antitrust scrutiny over its control of the Google Play store and alleged "self-preferencing" at the expense of third party developers.[24][25] Additionally, Google's alleged discrimination against rivals' advertisements on YouTube has been subject to antitrust litigation.[26][27] More recently, Google Maps and the Google Automotive Services (GAS) package have become the target of antitrust scrutiny.[28]

European Union Edit

The European Commission has pursued several competition law cases against Google, namely:[29]

  • Complaint that Google abused its position as a dominant search engine to favor its own services over those of competitors. In particular, Google operated a free comparison shopping website Froogle, which it abandoned in favor of a paid-placement-only site called Google Shopping. Other comparison sites complained of a precipitous drop in web traffic due to changes in the Google search algorithm, and some were driven out of business.[30] The investigation began in 2010 and concluded in July 2017 with a €2.42 billion fine against the parent company Alphabet, and an order to change its practices within 90 days.[29]
  • Complaint opened in 2015 that the dominance of the Android operating system was abused to make it difficult for competing third-party apps and search engines to be pre-installed on mobile phones. (See European Union vs. Google.)[31]
  • Complaint opened in 2016 that Google abused its market dominance to prevent competing advertising companies to sell ads to websites already using Google AdSense[32]
  • In June 2023, the EU accused Google of abusing its control of the EU market for buying and selling online advertising to undercut rivals.[33]

U.S. antitrust issues Edit

In testimony before a U.S. Senate antitrust panel in September 2011, Eric Schmidt, Google's chairman, said that "the Internet is the ultimate level playing field" where users were "one click away" from competitors.[34] Nonetheless, Senator Kohl asked Schmidt if Google's market share constituted a monopoly – a special power dominant – for his company. Schmidt acknowledged that Google's market share was akin to a monopoly, but noted the complexity of the law.[35][36]

During the hearing, Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, accused Google of cooking its search results to favor its own services. Schmidt replied, "Senator, I can assure we haven't cooked anything."[34] In testimony before the same Senate panel, Jeffrey Katz and Jeremy Stoppelman, the chief executives from Google's competitors Nextag and Yelp, said that Google tilts search results in its own favor, limiting choice and stifling competition.[34]

In October 2012, it was reported that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission staff were preparing a recommendation that the government sue Google on antitrust grounds. The areas of concern include accusations of manipulating the search results to favor Google services such as Google Shopping for buying goods and Google Places for advertising local restaurants and businesses; whether Google's automated advertising marketplace, AdWords, discriminates against advertisers from competing online commerce services like comparison shopping sites and consumer review Web sites; whether Google's contracts with smartphone makers and carriers prevent them from removing or modifying Google products, such as its Android operating system or Google Search; and Google's use of its smartphone patents. A likely outcome of the antitrust investigations is a negotiated settlement where Google would agree not to discriminate in favor of its products over smaller competitors.[37] Federal Trade Commission ended its investigation during a period which the co-founder of Google, Larry Page, had met with individuals at the White House and the Federal Trade Commission, leading to voluntary changes by Google; since January 2009 to March 2015 employees of Google have met with officials in the White House about 230 times according to The Wall Street Journal.[38]

In June 2015, Google reached an advertising agreement with Yahoo!, which would have allowed Yahoo! to feature Google advertisements on its web pages. The alliance between the two companies was never completely realized because of antitrust concerns by the U.S. Department of Justice. As a result, Google pulled out of the deal in November 2018.[39][40][41]

In September 2023 Google´s antitrust trial United States v. Google LLC (2020) began at federal court in Washington, D.C.[42] in which the DOJ accuses Google of illegally abusing its monopoly power as the largest online search tool.

In January 2023, Google was sued by the federal government and several states for its alleged monopoly over digital advertising technology. The complaint alleged that the company had engaged in "anticompetitive and exclusionary conduct" over the previous 15 years.[43]

Android Edit

On April 20, 2016, the European Union filed a formal antitrust complaint against Google's leverage over Android vendors, alleging that the mandatory bundling of the entire suite of proprietary Google software, hindered the ability for competing search providers to be integrated into Android and that barring vendors from producing devices running forks of Android both constituted anti-competitive practices.[44] In June 2018, the European Commission determined a $5 billion fine for Google regarding the April 2016 complaints.[45]

In August 2016, Google was fined US$6.75 million by the Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS) under similar allegations by Yandex.[46]

On April 16, 2018, Umar Javeed, Sukarma Thapar, Aaqib Javeed vs. Google LLC & Ors. resulted in the Competition Commission of India ordering a wider probe investigation order against Google Android illegal business practices. The investigations arm of the CCI should complete the wider probe in the case within 150 days, the order said, though such cases at the watchdog typically drag on for years. The CCI also said the role of any Google executive in the alleged abuse of the Android platform should also be examined.[47]

"Jedi Blue" advertising market monopolization in collusion with Facebook Edit

According to the group of 15 state attorneys general suing Google for antitrust issues,[48] Google and Facebook entered into a price-fixing agreement termed Jedi Blue to monopolize the online advertising market and prevent the entry of the fairer header bidding method of advertisement sales on any major advertising platform. The agreement consisted of Facebook using the Google-managed system for bidding on and managing online ads in exchange for preferential rates and priority on prime ad placement. This allowed Google to retain its profitable monopoly over online ad exchanges, while saving Facebook billions of dollars on attempts to build competing systems.[49][50] Over 200 newspapers have sued Google and Facebook to recover losses incurred by the collusion.[51]

Google admitted that the deal contained, "a provision governing cooperation between Google and Facebook in the event of certain government investigations."[52] Google has an internal team called gTrade dedicated to maximizing Google's advertising profits, reportedly using insider information, price fixing, and leveraging Google's relative monopoly positions.[53]

Criticism of search engine Edit

Possible misuse of search results Edit

In 2006/2007, a group of Austrian researchers observed a tendency to misuse the Google engine as a "reality interface". Ordinary users as well as journalists tend to rely on the first pages of Google Search, assuming that everything not listed there is either not important or simply does not exist. The researchers say that "Google has become the main interface for our whole reality. To be precise: with the Google interface, the user gets the impression that the search results imply a kind of totality. In fact, one only sees a small part of what one could see if one also integrates other research tools".[54]

 
Eric Schmidt, former executive chairman of Google

Eric Schmidt, Google's chief executive, said in a 2007 interview with the Financial Times: "The goal is to enable Google users to be able to ask the question such as 'What shall I do tomorrow?' and 'What job shall I take?'".[55] Schmidt reaffirmed this during a 2010 interview with The Wall Street Journal: "I actually think most people don't want Google to answer their questions; they want Google to tell them what they should be doing next."[56]

Numerous companies and individuals, for example, MyTriggers.com[57] and transport tycoon Sir Brian Souter,[58] have voiced concerns regarding the fairness of Google's PageRank and search results after their web sites disappeared from Google's first-page results. In the case of MyTriggers.com, the Ohio-based shopping comparison search site accused Google of favoring its own services in search results (although the judge eventually ruled that the site failed to show harm to other similar businesses).

Danger of ranking manipulation Edit

See also: Search engine manipulation effect and Search neutrality

PageRank, Google's page ranking algorithm, can and has been manipulated for political and humorous reasons. To illustrate the view that Google's search engine could be subjected to manipulation, Google Watch implemented a Google bomb by linking the phrase "out-of-touch executives" to Google's own page on its corporate management. The attempt was mistakenly attributed to disgruntled Google employees by The New York Times, which later printed a correction.[59][60]

Daniel Brandt started the Google Watch website and has criticized Google's PageRank algorithms, saying that they discriminate against new websites and favor established sites.[61] Chris Beasley, who started Google Watch-Watch, disagrees, saying that Mr. Brandt overstates the amount of discrimination that new websites face and that new websites will naturally rank lower when the ranking is based on a site's "reputation". In Google's world, a site's reputation is in part determined by how many and which other sites link to it (links from sites with a "better" reputation of their own carry more weight). Since new sites will seldom be as heavily linked as older more established sites, they aren't as well known, won't have as much of a reputation, and will receive a lower page ranking.[62]

In testimony before a U.S. Senate antitrust panel in September 2011, Jeffrey Katz, the chief executive of NexTag, said that Google's business interests conflict with its engineering commitment to an open-for-all Internet and that: "Google doesn't play fair. Google rigs its results, biasing in favor of Google Shopping and against competitors like us." Jeremy Stoppelman, the chief of Yelp, said sites like his have to cooperate with Google because it is the gateway to so many users and "Google then gives its own product preferential treatment." In earlier testimony at the same hearing, Eric Schmidt, Google's chairman, said that Google does not "cook the books" to favor its own products and services.[34]

Portrayals of race and gender Edit

In 2013, Emily McManus, managing editor for TED.com, searched for "english major who taught herself calculus" which prompted Google to ask,  "Did you mean: english major who taught himself calculus?"[63] Her tweet of the incident gained traction online. One response included a screengrab of a search for "how much is a wnba ticket?" to which the auto-correct feature suggested, "how much is an nba ticket?" Google responded directly to McManus and explained that the phrase "taught himself calculus" appeared about 282,000 times, whereas the phrase "taught herself calculus" appeared about 4,000 times. The company also made note of its efforts to bring more women into STEM fields.[64]

In 2015, a man tweeted a screengrab showing that Google Photos had tagged two African American people as gorillas.[65] Google apologized, saying they were "appalled and genuinely sorry" and was "working on longer-term fixes."[66] An investigation by WIRED two years later showed that the company's solution has been to censor searches for "gorilla," "chimp," "chimpanzee," and "monkey."[67]

Google Shopping rankings Edit

Main article: Google Shopping

In late May 2012, Google announced that they will no longer be maintaining a strict separation between search results and advertising. Google Shopping (formerly known as Froogle) would be replaced with a nearly identical interface, according to the announcement, but only paid advertisers would be listed instead of the neutral aggregate listings shown previously. Furthermore, rankings would be determined primarily by which advertisers place the highest "bid", though the announcement does not elaborate on this process. The transition was completed in the fall of 2012.[68]

As a result of this change to Google Shopping, Microsoft, who operates the competing search engine Bing, launched a public information campaign titled Scroogled.[69] The ad campaign was developed by leading political campaign strategist Mark Penn.[70]

It is unclear how consumers have reacted to this move. Critics charge that Google has effectively abandoned its "Don't be evil" motto and that small businesses will be unable to compete against their larger counterparts. There is also concern that consumers who did not see this announcement will be unaware that they are now looking at paid advertisements and that the top results are no longer determined solely based on relevance but instead will be manipulated according to which company paid the most.[71][72]

Copyright issues Edit

Google Print, Books, and Library Edit

Main articles: Google Books and Authors Guild, Inc. v. Google, Inc.

Google's ambitious plans to scan millions of books and make them readable through its search engine have been criticized for copyright infringement.[73] The Association for Learned and Professional Society Publishers and the Association of American University Presses both issued statements strongly opposing Google Print, stating that "Google, an enormously successful company, claims a sweeping right to appropriate the property of others for its own commercial use unless it is told, case by case and instance by instance, not to."[74]

China Written Works Copyright Society (CWWCS) Edit

In a separate dispute in November 2009, the China Written Works Copyright Society (CWWCS), which protects Chinese writers' copyrights, accused Google of scanning 18,000 books by 570 Chinese writers without authorization, for its Google Books library.[75] Toward the end of 2009 representatives of the CWWCS said talks with Google about copyright issues are progressing well, that first they "want Google to admit their mistake and apologize", then talk about compensation, while at the same time they "don't want Google to give up China in its digital library project". On November 20, 2009, Google agreed to provide a list of Chinese books it had scanned, but did not admit having "infringed" copyright laws. In a January 9, 2010 statement the head of Google Books in the Asia-Pacific said "communications with Chinese writers have not been good enough" and apologized to the writers.[76]

Links and cached data Edit

Kazaa and the Church of Scientology have used the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to demand that Google remove references to allegedly copyrighted material on their sites.[77][78]

Search engines such as Google's that link to sites in "good faith" fall under the safe harbor provisions of the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act which is part of DMCA. If they remove links to infringing content after receiving a take down notice, they are not liable. Google removes links to infringing content when requested, provided that supporting evidence is supplied. However, it is sometimes difficult to judge whether or not certain sites are infringing and Google (and other search engines) will sometimes refuse to remove web pages from its index. To complicate matters there have been conflicting rulings from U.S. courts on whether simply linking to infringing content constitutes "contributory infringement" or not.[79][80]

The New York Times has complained that the caching of their content during a web crawl, a feature utilized by search engines including Google Web Search, violates copyright.[81] Google observes Internet standard mechanisms for requesting that caching be disabled via the robots.txt file, which is another mechanism that allows operators of a website to request that part or all of their site not be included in search engine results, or via META tags, which allow a content editor to specify whether a document can be crawled or archived, or whether the links on the document can be followed. The U.S. District Court of Nevada ruled that Google's caches do not constitute copyright infringement under American law in Field v. Google and Parker v. Google.[82][83]

On February 20, 2017, Google agreed to a voluntary United Kingdom code of practice obligating it to demote links to copyright-infringing content in its search results.[84][85]

Google Map Maker Edit

Google Map Maker allows user-contributed data to be put into the Google Maps service,[86] similar to OpenStreetMap it includes concepts such as organising mapping parties and mapping for humanitarian efforts.[87] It has been criticized for taking work done for free by the general public and claiming commercial ownership of it without returning any contributions back to the commons[88] as their restrictive license makes it incompatible with most open projects by preventing commercial use or use by competitive services.[89]

Google Pinyin Edit

Google allegedly used code from Chinese company Sohu's Sogou Pinyin for its own input method editor, Google Pinyin.[90]

Where's the Fair Use? Edit

On February 16, 2016, internet reviewer Doug Walker (The Nostalgia Critic) posted a video about his concerns related to YouTube's current copyright-claiming system, which was apparently being tipped in favor of claimants rather than creators despite many of those videos being reported as covered under Fair Use laws. The video featured stories of other YouTubers' experiences with the copyright system, including fellow Channel Awesome producer Brad Jones, who received a strike on his channel for uploading a film review that took place in a parked car and contained no footage from the film itself. In the video, Walker encouraged others to spread the message using the hashtag #WTFU (Where's the Fair Use?) on social media.[91] The hashtag spread among multiple YouTubers, who gave their support to Walker and Channel Awesome and relaying their own stories of issues with YouTube's copyright system, including Dan Murrell of Screen Junkies,[92] GradeAUnderA, and Let's Play producers Mark Fishbach (Markiplier) and Seán William McLoughlin (Jacksepticeye).[91]

Ten days later, on February 26, 2016, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki tweeted a link to a post from the YouTube Help Forum and thanked the community for bringing the issue to their attention. The post, written by a member of the YouTube Policy Team named Spencer (no last name was given), stated that they will be working to strengthen communication between creators and YouTube Support and "improvements to increase transparency into the status of monetization claims."[93]

Privacy Edit

Main article: Privacy concerns regarding Google
 
PRISM: a clandestine surveillance program under which the NSA collects user data from companies like Google.[94] (Slide sourced from The Washington Post that briefed intelligence analysts at the National Security Agency about the PRISM program touting its capabilities and featuring the logos of the companies involved)

Google's March 1, 2012 privacy change enables the company to share data across a wide variety of services.[95] This includes embedded services in millions of third-party websites using AdSense and Analytics. The policy was widely criticized as creating an environment that discourages Internet innovation by making Internet users more fearful online.[96]

In December 2009, after privacy concerns were raised, Google's CEO, Eric Schmidt, declared: "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place. If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines—including Google—do retain this information for some time and it's important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act and it is possible that all that information could be made available to the authorities."[97]

Privacy International has raised concerns regarding the dangers and privacy implications of having a centrally located, widely popular data warehouse of millions of Internet users' searches, and how under controversial existing U.S. law, Google can be forced to hand over all such information to the U.S. government.[98] In its 2007 Consultation Report, Privacy International ranked Google as "Hostile to Privacy", its lowest rating on their report, making Google the only company in the list to receive that ranking.[98][99][100]

At the Techonomy conference in 2010, Eric Schmidt predicted that "true transparency and no anonymity" is the way forward for the internet: "In a world of asynchronous threats it is too dangerous for there not to be some way to identify you. We need a [verified] name service for people. Governments will demand it." He also said that "If I look at enough of your messaging and your location, and use artificial intelligence, we can predict where you are going to go. Show us 14 photos of yourself and we can identify who you are. You think you don't have 14 photos of yourself on the internet? You've got Facebook photos!"[101]

In the summer of 2016, Google quietly dropped its ban on personally identifiable info in its DoubleClick ad service. Google's privacy policy was changed to state it "may" combine web-browsing records obtained through DoubleClick with what the company learns from the use of other Google services. While new users were automatically opted-in, existing users were asked if they wanted to opt-in, and it remains possible to opt-out by going to the Activity controls in the My Account page of a Google account. ProPublica states that "The practical result of the change is that the DoubleClick ads that follow people around on the web may now be customized to them based on your name and other information Google knows about you. It also means that Google could now, if it wished to, build a complete portrait of a user by name, based on everything they write in email, every website they visit and the searches they conduct." Google contacted ProPublica to correct the fact that it doesn't "currently" use Gmail keywords to target web ads.[102]

Google has a US$1.2 billion artificial intelligence and surveillance contract with the Israeli military known as Project Nimbus. According to Google employees, the Israeli military could use this technology to expand its surveillance of Palestinians living in occupied territories.[103] In what has been described as "retaliation for publicly criticizing the contract,"[104] Google relocated an outspoken employee overseas. Other Palestinian employees have described an "institutionalised bias" within the company.[105]

Disha Ravi's arrest Edit

Google shared environment activist Disha Ravi's document on Google Docs with the Delhi police which led to her arrest.[106]

Censorship Edit

Main article: Censorship by Google

Google has been criticized for various instances of censoring its search results, many times in compliance with the laws of various countries, most notably while it operated in China from January 2006 to March 2010.

Web search Edit

See also: Censorship by Google § Google Search

As of December 12, 2012, Google's SafeSearch feature applies to image searches in the United States. Prior to the change, three SafeSearch settings—"on", "moderate", and "off"—were available to users. Following the change, two "Filter explicit results" settings—"on" and "off"—were newly established. The former and new "on" settings are similar and exclude explicit images from search results. The new "off" setting still permits explicit images to appear in search results, but users need to enter more specific search requests, and no direct equivalent of the old "off" setting exists following the change. The change brings image search results into line with Google's existing settings for web and video search.

Some users have stated that the lack of a completely unfiltered option amounts to "censorship" by Google. A Google spokesperson disagreed, saying that Google is "not censoring any adult content", and "[wants] to show users exactly what they are looking for—but we aim not to show sexually explicit results unless a user is specifically searching for them."[107]

The search term "bisexual" was blacklisted for Instant Search until 2012, when it was removed at the request of the BiNet USA advocacy organization.[108]

China Edit

See also: Google China

Google has been involved in the censorship of certain sites in specific countries and regions. Until March 2010, Google adhered to the Internet censorship policies of China,[109] enforced by filters colloquially known as "The Great Firewall of China". Google.cn search results were filtered to remove some information perceived to be harmful to the People's Republic of China (PRC). Google claimed that some censorship is necessary in order to keep the Chinese government from blocking Google entirely, as occurred in 2002.[110] The company claims it did not plan to give the government information about users who search for blocked content, and will inform users that content has been restricted if they attempt to search for it.[111] As of 2009, Google was the only major China-based search engine to explicitly inform the user when search results are blocked or hidden. As of December 2012, Google no longer informs the user of possible censorship for certain queries during search.[112]

Some Chinese Internet users were critical of Google for assisting the Chinese government in repressing its own citizens, particularly those dissenting against the government and advocating for human rights.[113] Furthermore, Google had been denounced and called hypocritical by Free Media Movement for agreeing to China's demands while simultaneously fighting the United States government's requests for similar information.[114] Google China had also been condemned by Reporters Without Borders,[114] Human Rights Watch[115] and Amnesty International.[116]

In 2009, China Central Television, Xinhua News Agency, and People's Daily all reported on Google's "dissemination of obscene information", and People's Daily claimed that "Google's 'don't be evil' motto becomes a fig leaf".[117][118] The Chinese government imposed administrative penalties to Google China, and demanded a reinforcement of censorship.[119]

In 2010, according to a leaked diplomatic cable from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing, there were reports that the Chinese Politburo directed the intrusion of Google's computer systems in a worldwide coordinated campaign of computer sabotage and the attempt to access information about Chinese dissidents, carried out by "government operatives, public security experts and Internet outlaws recruited by the Chinese government."[120] The report suggested that it was part of an ongoing campaign in which attackers have "broken into American government computers and those of Western allies, the Dalai Lama and American businesses since 2002."

In response to the attack, Google announced that they were "no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all."[121][122] On March 22, 2010, after talks with Chinese authorities failed to reach an agreement, the company redirected its censor-complying Google China service to its Google Hong Kong service, which is outside the jurisdiction of Chinese censorship laws. From the business perspective, many recognize that the move was likely to affect Google's profits: "Google is going to pay a heavy price for its move, which is why it deserves praise for refusing to censor its service in China."[123] However, at least as of March 23, 2010, "The Great Firewall" continues to censor search results from the Hong Kong portal, www.google.com.hk (as it does with the US portal, www.google.com) for controversial terms such as "Falun gong" and "the June 4 incident" (1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre).[124][125][126]

In 2018, Lhadon Tethong, director of the Tibet Action Institute, said there was a, "crisis of repression unfolding across China and territories it controls." and that, "it is shocking to know that Google is planning to return to China and has been building a tool that will help the Chinese authorities engage in censorship and surveillance." She further noted that "Google should be using its incredible wealth, talent, and resources to work with us to find solutions to lift people up and help ease their suffering — not assisting the Chinese government to keep people in chains."[127]

Turkey Edit

Google has been involved in censorship of Google Maps satellite imagery countrywide affecting Android and iOS apps using .com, .tr, and .tld automatically. Desktop users can easily evade this censorship by just removing .tr, and .tld from the URL but the same technique is impossible with smartphone apps.

Russia Edit

Google removed the Smart Voting app from the Play Store before the 2021 Russian legislative election. The application, which had been created by the associates of the imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny, offered voting advice for all voting districts in Russia. It was removed after a meeting with Russian Federation Council officials on 16 September 2021. The Wired reported that several Google employees were threatened with criminal prosecution. Google's actions were condemned as political censorship by Russian opposition figures.[128]

In March 2022, Google removed an app, designed to help Russians register protest votes against Putin, from its Play Store.[129]

AdSense/AdWords Edit

Main articles: Google AdSense and Google AdWords

In February 2003, Google stopped showing the advertisements of Oceana, a non-profit organization protesting a major cruise ship operation's sewage treatment practices. Google cited its editorial policy at the time, stating "Google does not accept advertising if the ad or site advocates against other individuals, groups, or organizations."[130] The policy was later changed.[131]

In April 2008, Google refused to run ads for a UK Christian group opposed to abortion, explaining that "At this time, Google policy does not permit the advertisement of websites that contain 'abortion and religion-related content.'" The UK Christian group sued Google for discrimination, and as a result, in September 2008 Google changed its policy and anti-abortion ads were allowed.[132]

In August 2008, Google closed the AdSense account of a site that carried a negative view of Scientology, the second closing of such a site within 3 months.[133] It is not certain if the account revocations actually were on the grounds of anti-religious content, however, the cases have raised questions about Google's terms in regards to AdSense/AdWords. The AdSense policy states that "Sites displaying Google ads may not include […] advocacy against any individual, group, or organization",[134] which allows Google to revoke the above-mentioned AdSense accounts.

In May 2011, Google cancelled the AdWord advertisement purchased by a Dublin sex worker rights group named "Turn Off the Blue Light" (TOBL),[135] claiming that it represented an "egregious violation" of company ad policy by "selling adult sexual services". However, TOBL is a nonprofit campaign for sex worker rights and is not advertising or selling adult sexual services.[136] In July, after TOBL members held a protest outside Google's European headquarters in Dublin and wrote to complain, Google relented, reviewed the group's website, found its content to be advocating a political position, and restored the AdWord advertisement.[137]

In June 2012, Google rejected the Australian Sex Party's ads for AdWords and sponsored search results for the July 12 by-election for the state seat of Melbourne, saying the Party breached its rules which prevent solicitation of donations by a website that did not display tax-exempt status. Although the Sex Party amended its website to display tax deductibility information, Google continued to ban the ads. The ads were reinstated on election eve after it was reported in the media that the Sex Party was considering suing Google. On September 13, 2012, the Party lodged formal complaints against Google with the US Department of Justice and the Australian competition watchdog, accusing Google of "unlawful interference in the conduct of a state election in Victoria with corrupt intent" in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.[138]

YouTube Edit

Main article: Censorship by Google § YouTube
See also: YouTube § Moderation and offensive content, and YouTube copyright issues

YouTube is a video sharing website acquired by Google in 2006. YouTube's Terms of Service prohibits the posting of videos which violate copyrights or depict pornography, illegal acts, gratuitous violence, or hate speech.[139] User-posted videos that violate such terms may be removed and replaced with a message stating: "This video is no longer available because its content violated YouTube's Terms of Service".

YouTube has been criticized by national governments for failing to police content. For example, videos[140] have been critically accused for being "left up", among other videos featuring unwarranted violence or strong ill-intention against people who probably didn't want this to be published. In 2006, Thailand blocked access to YouTube for users with Thai IP addresses. Thai authorities identified 20 offensive videos and demanded that YouTube remove them before it would unblock any YouTube content.[141] In 2007 a Turkish judge ordered access to YouTube blocked because of content that insulted Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, which is a crime under Turkish law.[141] On February 22, 2008, Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) attempted to block regional access to YouTube following a government order. The attempt inadvertently caused a worldwide YouTube blackout that took 2 hours to correct.[142] Four days later, PTA lifted the ban after YouTube removed controversial religious comments made by a Dutch Member of Parliament[143] concerning Islam.[144]

YouTube has also been criticized by its users for attempting to censor content. In November 2007, the account of Wael Abbas, a well known Egyptian activist who posted videos of police brutality, voting irregularities and anti-government demonstrations, was blocked for three days.[145][146][147]

In February 2008, a video produced by the American Life League that accused a Planned Parenthood television commercial of promoting recreational sex was removed, then reinstated two days later.[148] In October, a video by political speaker Pat Condell criticizing the British government for officially sanctioning sharia law courts in Britain was removed, then reinstated two days later.[149] YouTube also pulled a video of columnist Michelle Malkin showing violence by Muslim extremists.[150] Siva Vaidhyanathan, a professor of Media Studies at the University of Virginia, commented that while, in his opinion, Michelle Malkin disseminates bigotry in her blog, "that does not mean that this particular video is bigoted; it's not. But because it's by Malkin, it's a target."[151]

In 2019, YouTube settled for $170 million the FTC and the New York Attorney General for alleged violations of the US Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which prohibits internet companies from collecting data from kids under 13. YouTube's enactment of the settlement started in January 2020; this required creators to indicate whether their videos were intended for children, with fines of up to $42,530 per violation of COPPA.[152] Some features that depend on user data are disabled on videos designated for children, including comments and channel branding watermarks; the 'donate' button; cards and end screens; live chat and live chat donations; notifications; and 'save to playlist' or 'watch later' features. Such channels will also become "ungooglable".[152]

In October 2021, YouTube, together with Snapchat and TikTok, participated in a Senate hearing on protecting children online.[153] The session was prompted by Facebook whistle blower Frances Haugen's hearing prior. In the hearing, the social media companies tried to distance themselves from Facebook, to which Senate Commerce consumer protection Chair Richard Blumenthal responded saying “Being different from Facebook is not a defense", "That bar is in the gutter."[154]

Ungoogleable Edit

Main article: Ungoogleable

In 2013, Google successfully prevented the Swedish Language Council from including the Swedish version of the word "ungoogleable" ("ogooglebar [sv]") in its list of new words.[155] Google objected to its definition (which referred to web searches in general without mentioning Google specifically) and the council was forced to remove it to avoid legal confrontation with Google.[156] They also accused Google of "trying to control the Swedish language".[157]

Other types of censorship Edit

In August 2022, Google closed a person's account on sharing pictures of his son's sensitive areas with the doctor, as it was flagged as child abuse by Google's automated systems.[158]

Labor practices Edit

Several former Google employees have spoken out about working conditions, practices, and ethics at the company. As the company became more concerned about leaks to the press in 2019, it scaled employee all-hands meetings from weekly to monthly, limiting question topics to business and product strategy.[159] Google CEO Sundar Pichai told employees in late 2019 that the company is "genuinely struggling with some issues" including transparency and employee trust.[160]

On 2 December 2020, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) filed a complaint against Google for 'terminations and intimidation in order to quell workplace activism'. The complaint was filed after a year-long investigation by a terminated employee. He filed a petition in 2019, after that many Google employees carried out internal protests against Google's work with US Customs and Border Protection.[161]

Diversity politics Edit

Main article: Google memo

A widely circulated internal memo, written by senior engineer James Damore, Google's Ideological Echo Chamber, sharply criticized Google's political biases and employee policies.[162] Google said the memo was "advancing harmful gender stereotypes" and fired Damore.[163] David Brooks demanded the resignation of its CEO Sundar Pichai for mishandling the case.[164][165]

Ads criticizing Pichai and Google for the firing were put up shortly after at various Google locations.[166] Some have called to boycott Google and its services, with a hashtag #boycottGoogle coming up on Twitter.[167] A rally against Google alleged partisanship was planned as "March on Google", but later cancelled due to threats and the Charlottesville mayhem.[168][169]

Arne Wilberg, an ex-YouTube recruiter, claimed that he was fired in November 2017 when he complained about Google's new practices in not hiring white and Asian men to YouTube in favor of women and minority applicants. According to the lawsuit, an internal policy document stated that for three months in 2017, YouTube recruiters should only hire diverse candidates.[170]

In June 2021, Google removed its global lead for diversity strategy and research after being made aware of an antisemitic comment he made in 2007.[171]

Harassment and discrimination Edit

'Google Silicon Valley Employees Join a Worldwide Protest' – video news report from Voice of America[172]
Further information: 2018 Google walkouts

In February 2016, Amit Singhal, vice president of Google Search for 15 years, left the company following sexual harassment allegations. Google has awarded Singhal $15 million in severance.[173][174]

On November 1, 2018, approximately 20,000 employees of Google engaged in a worldwide[175] walkout to protest the way in which the company has handled sexual harassment, and other grievances.[176][177][178][179][180]

In July 2019, Google settled a long-running age discrimination lawsuit brought by 227 over-40 employees and job seekers. Although Google denied it had age discrimination, it agreed to a settlement of $11 million for the plaintiffs, to train its employees not to have age-based bias, and to have its recruiting department focus on age diversity among its engineering employees.[181][182]

In January 2020, the San Francisco Pride organization voted to ban Google and YouTube from their annual Pride parade due to hate speech on their platforms and retaliation against LBGTQ activists.[183]

In 2020, HR executive Eileen Naughton joined long-time Chief Legal Counsel David Drummond in stepping down from their positions over a lawsuit naming them and the company founders in accusations of mishandling years of sexual harassment complaints.[184]

In February 2020, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) opened an investigation into former Google employee Chelsey Glasson's allegations of pregnancy discrimination.[185] Glasson filed a state civil lawsuit while the EEOC investigated, with a trial date set for January 2022.[186][187][188] She settled with the company in February 2022.[189] She revealed that Google's legal team obtained therapy notes from her sessions through the company's Employee assistance program counseling provider, and that the provider dropped her as a client when she filed the lawsuit, which sparked Senator Karen Keiser to introduce a bill in Washington in January 2022 to prohibit private sector providers from disclosing private information typically covered under Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act laws.[190][191][192] Also in January 2022, she criticized the company's use of non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) in testimony to the Washington House of Representatives for whistleblower protection legislature, which she said intimidated her from speaking out about the discrimination she allegedly witnessed and experienced. In response, Google told Protocol that their confidentiality agreements do not prevent current and former workers from disclosing facts pertaining to harassment or discrimination.[193] Both laws were passed into legislature in March 2022.[194][195]

Allegations of union busting Edit

The official settlement agreement that Google signed with the NLRB in 2019 includes this notice to be sent to employees:[196]

"YOU HAVE THE RIGHT to discuss wages, hours, and working conditions with other employees, the press/media, and other third parties, and WE WILL NOT do anything to interfere with your exercise of those rights."

Google has been criticized for hiring IRI Consultants, a firm that advertises its accomplishments in helping organizations prevent successful union organizing.[197] Google Zurich attempted to cancel employee-organized meetings about labor rights in June and October 2019.[198] Some Google employees and contractors are already unionized, including security guards, some service workers, and analysts and trainers for Google Shopping in Pittsburgh employed by contractor HCL.[199] In 2021 court documents revealed that between 2018 and 2020 Google ran an anti-union campaign called Project Vivian to "convince [employees] that unions suck”.[200]

As of December 2019, the National Labor Relations Board is investigating whether several firings were in retaliation for labor organizing-related activities.[201][202] One of the fired employees was tasked with informing her colleagues about Google policy changes, and created a message informing them that they, "have the right to participate in protected concerted activities," when they visited the IRI Consultants site.[203][204]

Xinjiang region Edit

In 2020, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute accused at least 82 major brands, including Google, of being connected to forced Uyghur labor in Xinjiang.[205]

Other Edit

Non-alignment with US defense Edit

See also: Artificial intelligence arms race § Disassociation

Former Deputy Defense Secretary Robert O. Work in 2018 criticized Google and its employees have stepped into a Moral Hazard for themselves as not continuing Pentagon's artificial intelligence project, Project Maven,[206] while helping China's AI technology that "could be used against the United States in a conflict." He described Google as hypocritical, given it has opened an AI center in China and "Anything that's going on in the AI center in China is going to the Chinese government and then will ultimately end up in the hands of the Chinese military." Work said "I didn't see any Google employee saying, 'Hmm, maybe we shouldn't do that.'" Google's dealings with China is decrying as unpatriotic.[207][208][209]

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford also criticizes Google as "it's inexplicable" that it continue investing in China, "who uses censorship technology to restrain freedoms and crackdown on people there and has long history of intellectual property and patent theft which hurts U.S. companies," while simultaneously not renewing further research and development collaborations with the Pentagon. He said, "I'm not sure that people at Google will enjoy a world order that is informed by the norms and standards of Russia or China." He urges Google to work directly with the U.S. government instead of making controversial inroads into China.[210] Senator Mark Warner (D-VA) criticized Dragonfly evidences China's success at "recruit[ing] U.S. companies to their information control efforts" while China exports cyber and censorship infrastructure to countries like Venezuela, Ethiopia, and Pakistan.[211]

Energy consumption Edit

See also: Google Energy

Google has been criticized for the high amount of energy used to maintain its servers,[212] but was praised by Greenpeace for the use of renewable sources of energy to run them.[213] Google has pledged to spend millions of dollars to investigate cheap, clean, renewable energy, and has installed solar panels on the roofs at its Mountain View facilities.[214][215] In 2010, Google also invested $39 million in wind power.[216]

Google bus protests Edit

Main article: San Francisco tech bus protests

In late 2013, activists in the San Francisco Bay Area began protesting the use of shuttle buses by Google and other tech companies, viewing them as symbols of gentrification and displacement in a city where the rapid growth of the tech sector has driven up housing prices.[217][218]

Google Video Edit

Main article: Google Video

On August 15, 2007 Google discontinued its Download-to-own/Download-to-rent (DTO/DTR) program.[219] Some videos previously purchased for ownership under that program were no longer viewable when the embedded Digital Rights Management (DRM) licenses were revoked. Google gave refunds for the full amount spent on videos using "gift certificates" (or "bonuses") to their customers' "Google Checkout Account".[220][221] After a public uproar, Google issued full refunds to the credit cards of the Google Video users without revoking the gift certificates.

Search within search Edit

Main article: Google Search

For some search results, Google provides a secondary search box that can be used to search within a website identified from the first search. It sparked controversy among some online publishers and retailers. When performing a second search within a specific website, advertisements from competing and rival companies often showed up together with the results from the website being searched. This has the potential to draw users away from the website they were originally searching.[222] "While the service could help increase traffic, some users could be siphoned away as Google uses the prominence of the brands to sell ads, typically to competing companies."[223] In order to combat this controversy, Google has offered to turn off this feature for companies who request to have it removed.[223]

According to software engineer Ben Lee and Product Manager Jack Menzel, the idea for search within search originated from the way users were searching. It appeared that users were often not finding exactly what they needed while trying to explore within a company site. "Teleporting" on the web, where users need only type part of the name of a website into Google (no need to remember the entire URL) in order to find the correct site, is what helps Google users complete their search. Google took this concept a step further and instead of just "teleporting", users could type in keywords to search within the website of their choice.[224]

Naming of Go programming language Edit

Main articles: Go (programming language) and Go! (programming language)

Google is criticized for naming their programming language "Go" while there is already an existing programming language called "Go!".[225][226][227]

Potential security threats Edit

Google's Street View has been criticized for providing information that could potentially be useful to terrorists. In the United Kingdom during March 2010, Liberal Democrats MP Paul Keetch and unnamed military officers criticized Google for including pictures of the entrance to the British Army Special Air Service (SAS) base, stating that terrorists might use the information to plan attacks. Google responded that it "only takes images from public roads and this is no different to what anyone could see traveling down the road themselves, therefore there is no appreciable security risk." Military sources stated that "It is highly irresponsible for military bases, especially special forces, to be pictured on the internet. [...] The question is, why risk a very serious security breach for the sake of having a picture on a website?"[228][229] Google was subsequently forced to remove images of the SAS base and other military, security and intelligence installations, admitting that its trained drivers had failed to not take photographs in areas banned under the Official Secrets Act.[230]

In 2008, Google complied with requests from The Pentagon to remove Street View images of the entrances to military bases.[231][232]

Politics Edit

Scope of influence Edit

Despite being one of the world's largest and most influential companies, unlike many other technology companies, Google does not disclose its political spending. In August 2010, New York City Public Advocate Bill de Blasio launched a national campaign urging the corporation to disclose all of its political spending.[233] In the 2010s, Google spent about $150 million on lobbying, largely related to privacy protections and regulation of monopolies.[234][235]

Google sponsors several non-profit lobbying groups, such as the Coalition for a Digital Economy (Coadec) in the UK.[236] Google has sponsored meetings of the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute who have had speakers including libertarian Republican and Tea Party member, and Senator for Kentucky, Rand Paul.[237]

Peter Thiel stated that Google had too much influence on the Obama administration, claiming that the company "had more power under Obama than Exxon had under Bush 43".[238] There are many revolving door examples between Google and the U.S. government. This includes: 53 revolving door moves between Google and the White House; 22 former White House officials who left the administration to work for Google and 31 Google executives who joined the White House;[239] 45 Obama for America campaign staffers leaving for Google or Google controlled companies; 38 revolving door moves between Google and government positions involving national security, intelligence or the Department of Defense;[240] 23 revolving door moves between Google and the State Department; and 18 Pentagon officials moving to Google.

As of 2018, studies found that employees of Alphabet donated largely to support the election of candidates from the Democratic Party.[241]

In 2023, Alphabet lobbied on antitrust issues and three particular antitrust bills, spending $7.43 million in the first quarter of 2023, lobbying the federal government and more money in the second quarter of 2023, than in any quarter since 2018.[42]

Climate change Edit

In 2013, Google joined the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).[242][243] In September 2014, Google chairman Eric Schmidt announced the company would leave ALEC for lying about climate change and "hurting our children".[244]

In 2018, Google started an oil, gas, and energy division, hiring Darryl Willis, a 25-year BP executive who The Wall Street Journal said was intended "to court the oil and gas industry."[245] Google Cloud signed an agreement with the French oil company Total S.A., "to jointly develop artificial intelligence solutions for subsurface data analysis in oil and gas exploration and production."[246] A partnership with Houston oil investment bank Tudor, Pickering, Holt & Co. was described by the Houston Chronicle as giving Google "a more visible presence in Houston as one of its oldest industries works to cut costs in the wake of the oil bust and remain competitive as electric vehicles and renewable power sources gain market share."[247] Other agreements were made with oilfield services companies Baker Hughes and Schlumberger,[247] and Anadarko Petroleum, to use "artificial intelligence to analyse large volumes of seismic and operational data to find oil, maximise output and increase efficiency,"[248] and negotiations were started with petroleum giant Saudi Aramco.[249]

In 2019, Google was criticised for sponsoring a conference that included a session promoting climate change denial. LibertyCon speaker Caleb Rossiter belongs to the CO2 Coalition, a nonprofit that advocates for more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.[250] In November 2019, over 1,000 Google employees demanded that the company commit to zero emissions by 2030 and cancel contracts with fossil fuel companies.[251]

In February 2022, the NewClimate Institute, a German environmental policy think tank, published a survey evaluating the transparency and progress of the climate strategies and carbon neutrality pledges announced by 25 major companies in the United States that found that Alphabet's carbon neutrality pledge and climate strategy was unsubstantiated and misleading.[252][253]

In April 2022, Alphabet, Meta Platforms, Shopify, McKinsey & Company, and Stripe, Inc. announced a $925 million advance market commitment of carbon dioxide removal from companies that are developing the technology over the next 9 years.[254][255] In January 2023, the American Clean Power Association released an annual industry report that found that 326 corporations had contracted 77.4 gigawatts of wind or solar energy by the end of 2022 and that the three corporate purchasers of the largest volumes of wind and solar energy were Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta Platforms.[256]

AGreenerGoogle.com Edit

In April 2020, Extinction Rebellion launched "agreenergoogle.com", a spoof website containing a fake announcement by Google CEO Sundar Pichai claiming that "they would stop funding of organizations that deny or work to block action on climate change, effective immediately".[257][258]

YouTube user comments Edit

Main article: YouTube § Comment system

Most YouTube videos allow users to leave comments, and these have attracted attention for the negative aspects of both their form and content. In 2006, Time praised Web 2.0 for enabling "community and collaboration on a scale never seen before", and added that YouTube "harnesses the stupidity of crowds as well as its wisdom. Some of the comments on YouTube make you weep for the future of humanity just for the spelling alone, never mind the obscenity and the naked hatred".[259] The Guardian in 2009 described users' comments on YouTube as:

Juvenile, aggressive, misspelled, sexist, homophobic, swinging from raging at the contents of a video to providing a pointlessly detailed description followed by a LOL, YouTube comments are a hotbed of infantile debate and unashamed ignorance – with the occasional burst of wit shining through.[260]

In September 2008, The Daily Telegraph commented that YouTube was "notorious" for "some of the most confrontational and ill-formed comment exchanges on the internet", and reported on YouTube Comment Snob, "a new piece of software that blocks rude and illiterate posts".[261] The Huffington Post noted in April 2012 that finding comments on YouTube that appear "offensive, stupid and crass" to the "vast majority" of the people is hardly difficult.[262]

On November 6, 2013, Google implemented a new comment system that requires all YouTube users to use a Google+ account to comment on videos, thereby making the comment system Google+-orientated.[263] The corporation stated that the change is necessary to personalize comment sections for viewers, eliciting an overwhelmingly negative public response—YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim also expressed disdain by writing on his channel: "why the fuck do I need a Google+ account to comment on a video?".[264] The official YouTube announcement received over 62,000 "thumbs down" votes and only just over 4,000 "thumbs up" votes, while an online petition demanding Google+'s removal gained more than 230,000 signatures in just over two months.[265][266] Writing in the Newsday blog Silicon Island, Chase Melvin noted: "Google+ is nowhere near as popular a social media network as Facebook, but it's essentially being forced upon millions of YouTube users who don't want to lose their ability to comment on videos."[267] In the same article Melvin adds:

Perhaps user complaints are justified, but the idea of revamping the old system isn't so bad. Think of the crude, misogynistic and racially-charged mudslinging that has transpired over the last eight years on YouTube without any discernible moderation. Isn't any attempt to curb unidentified libelers worth a shot? The system is far from perfect, but Google should be lauded for trying to alleviate some of the damage caused by irate YouTubers hiding behind animosity and anonymity.[267]

On July 27, 2015, Google announced that Google+ would no longer be required for using various services, including YouTube.[268][269] Users are now able to delete their Google+ profile without losing features or content.[270]

Zero-rating Edit

Google has supported net neutrality in the US, while opposing it in India by supporting zero-rating.[271]

2016 April Fools' joke Edit

On April 1, 2016, the Mic Drop April Fools' joke in Gmail caused damage for users who accidentally clicked the button Google installed on that occasion.[272]

Think Tank meddling Edit

The New York Times reported that Google has pressured the New America think tank which is supported by it, to remove a statement supporting the EU antitrust fine against Google. After Eric Schmidt voiced his displeasure from the statement, the whole research group involved were sidelined in the New America think tank, which gets funding from Google.[273][274] Consequently, the Open Markets research group went to open their own think tank, which will not get any funding from Google.[274]

ANS patent controversy Edit

Wide attention in Polish media has resulted from Google's attempt to patent video compression application of ANS coding, which is now widely used in products of e.g. Apple, Facebook and Google. Its author has helped Google in this adaptation for three years through public forum, but was not included in the patent application. He was supported in fighting this patent by his employer: Jagiellonian University.[275][276][277][278][279]

Spatial data and the city Edit

Google's huge share of spatial information services, including Google Maps and the Google Places API, has been criticised by activists and academics in terms of the cartographic power it affords Google to map and represent the world's cities.[280] In addition, given Google and Alphabet Inc.'s increasing involvement with urban planning, particularly through subsidiaries like Sidewalk Labs,[281] this has resulted in criticism that Google is exerting an increasing power over urban areas that may not be beneficial to democracy in the long term.[282][283] This criticism is also related to wider concerns around democracy and Smart Cities that has been directed to a number of other large corporations.[284][285]

Breach of court order Edit

On 10 December 2018, a New Zealand court ordered that the name of a man accused of murdering British traveller Grace Millane be withheld from the public (a gag order). The next morning, Google named the man in an email it sent people who had subscribed to "what's trending in New Zealand".[286] Lawyers warned that this could compromise the trial, and Justice Minister Andrew Little said that Google was in contempt of court.[287][288] Google said that it had been unaware of the court order, and that the email had been created by algorithms.

Electronic pop-up books patent Edit

In 2016, Google filed a patent application for interactive pop-up books with electronics.[289] Jie Qi noticed that the patent resembled work she had shared when she visited Google ATAP in 2014 as a PhD student at the MIT Media Lab; two of the Google employees listed on the application as inventors had also interviewed her during the same visit. After Qi submitted prior art to the USPTO, the application was abandoned.[290][291]

Project Nightingale Edit

Project Nightingale is a health care data sharing project financed by Google and Ascension, a Catholic health care system, the second largest in the United States. Ascension owns comprehensive health care information on millions of former and current patients who are part of its system. Google and Ascension have been processing this data, in secret, since sometime in 2018, without the knowledge and consent of patients and doctors. The work they are doing appears to comply with federal health care law which includes "robust protections for patient data."[292][293][294] However, concerns have been voiced whether the transfer really is HIPAA compliant.[295] The project is Google's attempt to gain a large scale foot hold into the healthcare industry.[292]

YouTube: ads forced on all videos, without revenue-share Edit

In 2020, Google-owned YouTube changed its policy so that it could include ads on all videos, regardless of whether the content-creator wanted them or not. Those who were not part of Google's Partner Program would receive no revenue for this. To join the program, creators must have more than 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 hours of viewed content in the last 12 months.[296][297]

Abuse of attorney-client privilege Edit

In March 2022, the Department of Justice and 14 state attorneys general accused Google of misusing attorney–client privilege to hide emails from subpoenas using an employee policy called 'Communicate with Care,' which instructs employees to carbon copy (CC) Google's attorneys on emails and flag them as exempt from disclosure. Employees are directed to add a general request for the attorney's advice even when no legal advice is needed or sought. Often Google's lawyers will not respond to such requests, which the Justice Department claimed shows they understand and are participating in the evasion.[298]

See also Edit

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External links Edit

  • , Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, April 2, 2004
  • "Privacy Group Flunks Google", Lisa Vaas, eWeek.com, June 12, 2007
  • "Who's afraid of Google?", The Economist, August 30, 2007
  • Google Watch (Archived 2011)

October 23, 2023
criticism, google, includes, concern, avoidance, misuse, manipulation, search, results, others, intellectual, property, concerns, that, compilation, data, violate, people, privacy, collaboration, with, military, google, earth, users, censorship, search, result. Criticism of Google includes concern for tax avoidance misuse and manipulation of search results its use of others intellectual property concerns that its compilation of data may violate people s privacy and collaboration with the US military on Google Earth to spy on users 1 censorship of search results and content and the energy consumption of its servers as well as concerns over traditional business issues such as monopoly restraint of trade antitrust patent infringement indexing and presenting false information and propaganda in search results and being an Ideological Echo Chamber Google s parent company Alphabet Inc is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search cloud computing and advertising technologies Google hosts and develops a number of Internet based services and products 2 and generates profit primarily from advertising through its Google Ads formerly AdWords program 3 4 Google s stated mission is to organize the world s information and make it universally accessible and useful 5 this mission and the means used to accomplish it have raised concerns among the company s critics Much of the criticism pertains to issues that have not yet been addressed by cyber law Shona Ghosh a journalist for Business Insider noted that an increasing digital resistance movement against Google has grown 6 Contents 1 Tax evasion 2 Antitrust 2 1 European Union 2 2 U S antitrust issues 2 3 Android 2 4 Jedi Blue advertising market monopolization in collusion with Facebook 3 Criticism of search engine 3 1 Possible misuse of search results 3 2 Danger of ranking manipulation 3 3 Portrayals of race and gender 4 Google Shopping rankings 5 Copyright issues 5 1 Google Print Books and Library 5 1 1 China Written Works Copyright Society CWWCS 5 2 Links and cached data 5 3 Google Map Maker 5 4 Google Pinyin 5 5 Where s the Fair Use 6 Privacy 6 1 Disha Ravi s arrest 7 Censorship 7 1 Web search 7 2 China 7 3 Turkey 7 4 Russia 7 5 AdSense AdWords 7 6 YouTube 7 7 Ungoogleable 7 8 Other types of censorship 8 Labor practices 8 1 Diversity politics 8 2 Harassment and discrimination 8 3 Allegations of union busting 8 4 Xinjiang region 9 Other 9 1 Non alignment with US defense 9 2 Energy consumption 9 3 Google bus protests 9 4 Google Video 9 5 Search within search 9 6 Naming of Go programming language 9 7 Potential security threats 9 8 Politics 9 8 1 Scope of influence 9 8 2 Climate change 9 8 2 1 AGreenerGoogle com 9 9 YouTube user comments 9 10 Zero rating 9 11 2016 April Fools joke 9 12 Think Tank meddling 9 13 ANS patent controversy 9 14 Spatial data and the city 9 15 Breach of court order 9 16 Electronic pop up books patent 9 17 Project Nightingale 9 18 YouTube ads forced on all videos without revenue share 9 19 Abuse of attorney client privilege 10 See also 11 References 12 External linksTax evasion EditGoogle cut its taxes by 3 1 billion in the period of 2007 to 2009 using a technique that moves most of its foreign profits through Ireland and The Netherlands to Bermuda Afterwards the company started to send 8 billion in profits a year to Bermuda 7 Google s income shifting involving strategies known to lawyers as the Double Irish and the Dutch Sandwich helped reduce its overseas tax rate to 2 4 percent the lowest of the top five U S technology companies by market capitalization according to regulatory filings in six countries 8 9 According to economist and member of the PvdA delegation inside the Progressive Alliance of Socialists amp Democrats in the European Parliament S amp D Paul Tang the EU lost from 2013 to 2015 a loss estimated to be 3 955 billion Euros from Google 10 When comparing to other countries outside the EU the EU is only taxing Google with a rate of 0 36 0 82 of their revenue approx 25 35 of their EBT whereas this rate is near 8 in countries outside the EU Even if a rate of 2 to 5 as suggested by ECOFIN council would have been applied during this period 2013 2015 a fraud of this rate from Facebook would have meant a loss from 1 262 to 3 155 billion euros in the EU 10 Google has been accused by a number of countries of avoiding paying tens of billions of dollars of tax through a convoluted scheme of inter company licensing agreements and transfers to tax havens 11 12 For example Google has used highly contrived and artificial distinctions to avoid paying billions of pounds in corporate tax owed by its UK operations 13 On May 15 2013 Margaret Hodge the chair of the United Kingdom Public Accounts Committee accused Google of being calculated and unethical over its use of the scheme 13 Google Chairman Eric Schmidt has claimed that this scheme of Google is capitalism 14 and that he was very proud of it 15 In November 2012 the UK government announced plans to investigate Google along with Starbucks and Amazon com for possible tax avoidance 16 In 2015 the UK Government introduced a new law intended to penalize Google s and other large multinational corporations artificial tax avoidance 17 On 20 January 2016 Google announced that it would pay 130m in back taxes to settle the investigation 18 However only 8 days later it was announced that Google could end up paying more and UK tax officials were under investigation for what has been termed a sweetheart deal for Google 19 Revenues profits tax and effective tax rates Alphabet Inc Google 2013 2015 10 Revenue m EUR EBT m EUR Tax m EUR Tax EBT Tax RevenueTotal EU Rest of the world Total EU Rest of the world Total EU Rest of the world Total EU Rest of the world Total EU Rest of the worldAlphabet Inc Google 2013 40 257 18 614 21 643 11 529 343 11 186 1 986 84 1 902 17 25 17 4 93 0 45 8 79 2014 54 362 19 159 35 203 14 215 285 13 930 2 997 69 2 928 21 24 21 5 51 0 36 8 32 2015 68 879 25 320 43 559 18 050 586 17 464 3 034 207 2 827 17 35 16 4 40 0 82 6 49 Antitrust EditThe examples and perspective in this section deal primarily with Western culture and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject You may improve this section discuss the issue on the talk page or create a new section as appropriate May 2018 Learn how and when to remove this template message From the 2000s onward Google and parent company Alphabet Inc have faced antitrust scrutiny over alleged anti competitive conduct in violation of competition law in a particular jurisdiction 20 Antitrust scrutiny of Google has primarily centered on the company s dominance in the search engine and digital advertising markets 21 22 The company has also been accused of leveraging control of the Android operating system to illegally curb competition 23 Google has also received antitrust scrutiny over its control of the Google Play store and alleged self preferencing at the expense of third party developers 24 25 Additionally Google s alleged discrimination against rivals advertisements on YouTube has been subject to antitrust litigation 26 27 More recently Google Maps and the Google Automotive Services GAS package have become the target of antitrust scrutiny 28 European Union Edit The European Commission has pursued several competition law cases against Google namely 29 Complaint that Google abused its position as a dominant search engine to favor its own services over those of competitors In particular Google operated a free comparison shopping website Froogle which it abandoned in favor of a paid placement only site called Google Shopping Other comparison sites complained of a precipitous drop in web traffic due to changes in the Google search algorithm and some were driven out of business 30 The investigation began in 2010 and concluded in July 2017 with a 2 42 billion fine against the parent company Alphabet and an order to change its practices within 90 days 29 Complaint opened in 2015 that the dominance of the Android operating system was abused to make it difficult for competing third party apps and search engines to be pre installed on mobile phones See European Union vs Google 31 Complaint opened in 2016 that Google abused its market dominance to prevent competing advertising companies to sell ads to websites already using Google AdSense 32 In June 2023 the EU accused Google of abusing its control of the EU market for buying and selling online advertising to undercut rivals 33 U S antitrust issues Edit In testimony before a U S Senate antitrust panel in September 2011 Eric Schmidt Google s chairman said that the Internet is the ultimate level playing field where users were one click away from competitors 34 Nonetheless Senator Kohl asked Schmidt if Google s market share constituted a monopoly a special power dominant for his company Schmidt acknowledged that Google s market share was akin to a monopoly but noted the complexity of the law 35 36 During the hearing Mike Lee Republican of Utah accused Google of cooking its search results to favor its own services Schmidt replied Senator I can assure we haven t cooked anything 34 In testimony before the same Senate panel Jeffrey Katz and Jeremy Stoppelman the chief executives from Google s competitors Nextag and Yelp said that Google tilts search results in its own favor limiting choice and stifling competition 34 In October 2012 it was reported that the U S Federal Trade Commission staff were preparing a recommendation that the government sue Google on antitrust grounds The areas of concern include accusations of manipulating the search results to favor Google services such as Google Shopping for buying goods and Google Places for advertising local restaurants and businesses whether Google s automated advertising marketplace AdWords discriminates against advertisers from competing online commerce services like comparison shopping sites and consumer review Web sites whether Google s contracts with smartphone makers and carriers prevent them from removing or modifying Google products such as its Android operating system or Google Search and Google s use of its smartphone patents A likely outcome of the antitrust investigations is a negotiated settlement where Google would agree not to discriminate in favor of its products over smaller competitors 37 Federal Trade Commission ended its investigation during a period which the co founder of Google Larry Page had met with individuals at the White House and the Federal Trade Commission leading to voluntary changes by Google since January 2009 to March 2015 employees of Google have met with officials in the White House about 230 times according to The Wall Street Journal 38 In June 2015 Google reached an advertising agreement with Yahoo which would have allowed Yahoo to feature Google advertisements on its web pages The alliance between the two companies was never completely realized because of antitrust concerns by the U S Department of Justice As a result Google pulled out of the deal in November 2018 39 40 41 In September 2023 Google s antitrust trial United States v Google LLC 2020 began at federal court in Washington D C 42 in which the DOJ accuses Google of illegally abusing its monopoly power as the largest online search tool In January 2023 Google was sued by the federal government and several states for its alleged monopoly over digital advertising technology The complaint alleged that the company had engaged in anticompetitive and exclusionary conduct over the previous 15 years 43 Android Edit On April 20 2016 the European Union filed a formal antitrust complaint against Google s leverage over Android vendors alleging that the mandatory bundling of the entire suite of proprietary Google software hindered the ability for competing search providers to be integrated into Android and that barring vendors from producing devices running forks of Android both constituted anti competitive practices 44 In June 2018 the European Commission determined a 5 billion fine for Google regarding the April 2016 complaints 45 In August 2016 Google was fined US 6 75 million by the Russian Federal Antimonopoly Service FAS under similar allegations by Yandex 46 On April 16 2018 Umar Javeed Sukarma Thapar Aaqib Javeed vs Google LLC amp Ors resulted in the Competition Commission of India ordering a wider probe investigation order against Google Android illegal business practices The investigations arm of the CCI should complete the wider probe in the case within 150 days the order said though such cases at the watchdog typically drag on for years The CCI also said the role of any Google executive in the alleged abuse of the Android platform should also be examined 47 Jedi Blue advertising market monopolization in collusion with Facebook Edit According to the group of 15 state attorneys general suing Google for antitrust issues 48 Google and Facebook entered into a price fixing agreement termed Jedi Blue to monopolize the online advertising market and prevent the entry of the fairer header bidding method of advertisement sales on any major advertising platform The agreement consisted of Facebook using the Google managed system for bidding on and managing online ads in exchange for preferential rates and priority on prime ad placement This allowed Google to retain its profitable monopoly over online ad exchanges while saving Facebook billions of dollars on attempts to build competing systems 49 50 Over 200 newspapers have sued Google and Facebook to recover losses incurred by the collusion 51 Google admitted that the deal contained a provision governing cooperation between Google and Facebook in the event of certain government investigations 52 Google has an internal team called gTrade dedicated to maximizing Google s advertising profits reportedly using insider information price fixing and leveraging Google s relative monopoly positions 53 Criticism of search engine EditPossible misuse of search results Edit In 2006 2007 a group of Austrian researchers observed a tendency to misuse the Google engine as a reality interface Ordinary users as well as journalists tend to rely on the first pages of Google Search assuming that everything not listed there is either not important or simply does not exist The researchers say that Google has become the main interface for our whole reality To be precise with the Google interface the user gets the impression that the search results imply a kind of totality In fact one only sees a small part of what one could see if one also integrates other research tools 54 nbsp Eric Schmidt former executive chairman of GoogleEric Schmidt Google s chief executive said in a 2007 interview with the Financial Times The goal is to enable Google users to be able to ask the question such as What shall I do tomorrow and What job shall I take 55 Schmidt reaffirmed this during a 2010 interview with The Wall Street Journal I actually think most people don t want Google to answer their questions they want Google to tell them what they should be doing next 56 Numerous companies and individuals for example MyTriggers com 57 and transport tycoon Sir Brian Souter 58 have voiced concerns regarding the fairness of Google s PageRank and search results after their web sites disappeared from Google s first page results In the case of MyTriggers com the Ohio based shopping comparison search site accused Google of favoring its own services in search results although the judge eventually ruled that the site failed to show harm to other similar businesses Danger of ranking manipulation Edit See also Search engine manipulation effect and Search neutrality PageRank Google s page ranking algorithm can and has been manipulated for political and humorous reasons To illustrate the view that Google s search engine could be subjected to manipulation Google Watch implemented a Google bomb by linking the phrase out of touch executives to Google s own page on its corporate management The attempt was mistakenly attributed to disgruntled Google employees by The New York Times which later printed a correction 59 60 Daniel Brandt started the Google Watch website and has criticized Google s PageRank algorithms saying that they discriminate against new websites and favor established sites 61 Chris Beasley who started Google Watch Watch disagrees saying that Mr Brandt overstates the amount of discrimination that new websites face and that new websites will naturally rank lower when the ranking is based on a site s reputation In Google s world a site s reputation is in part determined by how many and which other sites link to it links from sites with a better reputation of their own carry more weight Since new sites will seldom be as heavily linked as older more established sites they aren t as well known won t have as much of a reputation and will receive a lower page ranking 62 In testimony before a U S Senate antitrust panel in September 2011 Jeffrey Katz the chief executive of NexTag said that Google s business interests conflict with its engineering commitment to an open for all Internet and that Google doesn t play fair Google rigs its results biasing in favor of Google Shopping and against competitors like us Jeremy Stoppelman the chief of Yelp said sites like his have to cooperate with Google because it is the gateway to so many users and Google then gives its own product preferential treatment In earlier testimony at the same hearing Eric Schmidt Google s chairman said that Google does not cook the books to favor its own products and services 34 Portrayals of race and gender Edit In 2013 Emily McManus managing editor for TED com searched for english major who taught herself calculus which prompted Google to ask Did you mean english major who taught himself calculus 63 Her tweet of the incident gained traction online One response included a screengrab of a search for how much is a wnba ticket to which the auto correct feature suggested how much is an nba ticket Google responded directly to McManus and explained that the phrase taught himself calculus appeared about 282 000 times whereas the phrase taught herself calculus appeared about 4 000 times The company also made note of its efforts to bring more women into STEM fields 64 In 2015 a man tweeted a screengrab showing that Google Photos had tagged two African American people as gorillas 65 Google apologized saying they were appalled and genuinely sorry and was working on longer term fixes 66 An investigation by WIRED two years later showed that the company s solution has been to censor searches for gorilla chimp chimpanzee and monkey 67 Google Shopping rankings EditMain article Google Shopping This section needs to be updated Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information March 2015 In late May 2012 Google announced that they will no longer be maintaining a strict separation between search results and advertising Google Shopping formerly known as Froogle would be replaced with a nearly identical interface according to the announcement but only paid advertisers would be listed instead of the neutral aggregate listings shown previously Furthermore rankings would be determined primarily by which advertisers place the highest bid though the announcement does not elaborate on this process The transition was completed in the fall of 2012 68 As a result of this change to Google Shopping Microsoft who operates the competing search engine Bing launched a public information campaign titled Scroogled 69 The ad campaign was developed by leading political campaign strategist Mark Penn 70 It is unclear how consumers have reacted to this move Critics charge that Google has effectively abandoned its Don t be evil motto and that small businesses will be unable to compete against their larger counterparts There is also concern that consumers who did not see this announcement will be unaware that they are now looking at paid advertisements and that the top results are no longer determined solely based on relevance but instead will be manipulated according to which company paid the most 71 72 Copyright issues EditGoogle Print Books and Library Edit Main articles Google Books and Authors Guild Inc v Google Inc Google s ambitious plans to scan millions of books and make them readable through its search engine have been criticized for copyright infringement 73 The Association for Learned and Professional Society Publishers and the Association of American University Presses both issued statements strongly opposing Google Print stating that Google an enormously successful company claims a sweeping right to appropriate the property of others for its own commercial use unless it is told case by case and instance by instance not to 74 China Written Works Copyright Society CWWCS Edit In a separate dispute in November 2009 the China Written Works Copyright Society CWWCS which protects Chinese writers copyrights accused Google of scanning 18 000 books by 570 Chinese writers without authorization for its Google Books library 75 Toward the end of 2009 representatives of the CWWCS said talks with Google about copyright issues are progressing well that first they want Google to admit their mistake and apologize then talk about compensation while at the same time they don t want Google to give up China in its digital library project On November 20 2009 Google agreed to provide a list of Chinese books it had scanned but did not admit having infringed copyright laws In a January 9 2010 statement the head of Google Books in the Asia Pacific said communications with Chinese writers have not been good enough and apologized to the writers 76 Links and cached data Edit Kazaa and the Church of Scientology have used the Digital Millennium Copyright Act DMCA to demand that Google remove references to allegedly copyrighted material on their sites 77 78 Search engines such as Google s that link to sites in good faith fall under the safe harbor provisions of the Online Copyright Infringement Liability Limitation Act which is part of DMCA If they remove links to infringing content after receiving a take down notice they are not liable Google removes links to infringing content when requested provided that supporting evidence is supplied However it is sometimes difficult to judge whether or not certain sites are infringing and Google and other search engines will sometimes refuse to remove web pages from its index To complicate matters there have been conflicting rulings from U S courts on whether simply linking to infringing content constitutes contributory infringement or not 79 80 The New York Times has complained that the caching of their content during a web crawl a feature utilized by search engines including Google Web Search violates copyright 81 Google observes Internet standard mechanisms for requesting that caching be disabled via the robots txt file which is another mechanism that allows operators of a website to request that part or all of their site not be included in search engine results or via META tags which allow a content editor to specify whether a document can be crawled or archived or whether the links on the document can be followed The U S District Court of Nevada ruled that Google s caches do not constitute copyright infringement under American law in Field v Google and Parker v Google 82 83 On February 20 2017 Google agreed to a voluntary United Kingdom code of practice obligating it to demote links to copyright infringing content in its search results 84 85 Google Map Maker Edit Google Map Maker allows user contributed data to be put into the Google Maps service 86 similar to OpenStreetMap it includes concepts such as organising mapping parties and mapping for humanitarian efforts 87 It has been criticized for taking work done for free by the general public and claiming commercial ownership of it without returning any contributions back to the commons 88 as their restrictive license makes it incompatible with most open projects by preventing commercial use or use by competitive services 89 Google Pinyin Edit Google allegedly used code from Chinese company Sohu s Sogou Pinyin for its own input method editor Google Pinyin 90 Where s the Fair Use Edit On February 16 2016 internet reviewer Doug Walker The Nostalgia Critic posted a video about his concerns related to YouTube s current copyright claiming system which was apparently being tipped in favor of claimants rather than creators despite many of those videos being reported as covered under Fair Use laws The video featured stories of other YouTubers experiences with the copyright system including fellow Channel Awesome producer Brad Jones who received a strike on his channel for uploading a film review that took place in a parked car and contained no footage from the film itself In the video Walker encouraged others to spread the message using the hashtag WTFU Where s the Fair Use on social media 91 The hashtag spread among multiple YouTubers who gave their support to Walker and Channel Awesome and relaying their own stories of issues with YouTube s copyright system including Dan Murrell of Screen Junkies 92 GradeAUnderA and Let s Play producers Mark Fishbach Markiplier and Sean William McLoughlin Jacksepticeye 91 Ten days later on February 26 2016 YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki tweeted a link to a post from the YouTube Help Forum and thanked the community for bringing the issue to their attention The post written by a member of the YouTube Policy Team named Spencer no last name was given stated that they will be working to strengthen communication between creators and YouTube Support and improvements to increase transparency into the status of monetization claims 93 Privacy EditMain article Privacy concerns regarding Google nbsp PRISM a clandestine surveillance program under which the NSA collects user data from companies like Google 94 Slide sourced from The Washington Post that briefed intelligence analysts at the National Security Agency about the PRISM program touting its capabilities and featuring the logos of the companies involved Google s March 1 2012 privacy change enables the company to share data across a wide variety of services 95 This includes embedded services in millions of third party websites using AdSense and Analytics The policy was widely criticized as creating an environment that discourages Internet innovation by making Internet users more fearful online 96 In December 2009 after privacy concerns were raised Google s CEO Eric Schmidt declared If you have something that you don t want anyone to know maybe you shouldn t be doing it in the first place If you really need that kind of privacy the reality is that search engines including Google do retain this information for some time and it s important for example that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act and it is possible that all that information could be made available to the authorities 97 Privacy International has raised concerns regarding the dangers and privacy implications of having a centrally located widely popular data warehouse of millions of Internet users searches and how under controversial existing U S law Google can be forced to hand over all such information to the U S government 98 In its 2007 Consultation Report Privacy International ranked Google as Hostile to Privacy its lowest rating on their report making Google the only company in the list to receive that ranking 98 99 100 At the Techonomy conference in 2010 Eric Schmidt predicted that true transparency and no anonymity is the way forward for the internet In a world of asynchronous threats it is too dangerous for there not to be some way to identify you We need a verified name service for people Governments will demand it He also said that If I look at enough of your messaging and your location and use artificial intelligence we can predict where you are going to go Show us 14 photos of yourself and we can identify who you are You think you don t have 14 photos of yourself on the internet You ve got Facebook photos 101 In the summer of 2016 Google quietly dropped its ban on personally identifiable info in its DoubleClick ad service Google s privacy policy was changed to state it may combine web browsing records obtained through DoubleClick with what the company learns from the use of other Google services While new users were automatically opted in existing users were asked if they wanted to opt in and it remains possible to opt out by going to the Activity controls in the My Account page of a Google account ProPublica states that The practical result of the change is that the DoubleClick ads that follow people around on the web may now be customized to them based on your name and other information Google knows about you It also means that Google could now if it wished to build a complete portrait of a user by name based on everything they write in email every website they visit and the searches they conduct Google contacted ProPublica to correct the fact that it doesn t currently use Gmail keywords to target web ads 102 Google has a US 1 2 billion artificial intelligence and surveillance contract with the Israeli military known as Project Nimbus According to Google employees the Israeli military could use this technology to expand its surveillance of Palestinians living in occupied territories 103 In what has been described as retaliation for publicly criticizing the contract 104 Google relocated an outspoken employee overseas Other Palestinian employees have described an institutionalised bias within the company 105 Disha Ravi s arrest Edit Google shared environment activist Disha Ravi s document on Google Docs with the Delhi police which led to her arrest 106 Censorship EditMain article Censorship by Google Google has been criticized for various instances of censoring its search results many times in compliance with the laws of various countries most notably while it operated in China from January 2006 to March 2010 Web search Edit See also Censorship by Google Google Search As of December 12 2012 Google s SafeSearch feature applies to image searches in the United States Prior to the change three SafeSearch settings on moderate and off were available to users Following the change two Filter explicit results settings on and off were newly established The former and new on settings are similar and exclude explicit images from search results The new off setting still permits explicit images to appear in search results but users need to enter more specific search requests and no direct equivalent of the old off setting exists following the change The change brings image search results into line with Google s existing settings for web and video search Some users have stated that the lack of a completely unfiltered option amounts to censorship by Google A Google spokesperson disagreed saying that Google is not censoring any adult content and wants to show users exactly what they are looking for but we aim not to show sexually explicit results unless a user is specifically searching for them 107 The search term bisexual was blacklisted for Instant Search until 2012 when it was removed at the request of the BiNet USA advocacy organization 108 China Edit See also Google China Google has been involved in the censorship of certain sites in specific countries and regions Until March 2010 Google adhered to the Internet censorship policies of China 109 enforced by filters colloquially known as The Great Firewall of China Google cn search results were filtered to remove some information perceived to be harmful to the People s Republic of China PRC Google claimed that some censorship is necessary in order to keep the Chinese government from blocking Google entirely as occurred in 2002 110 The company claims it did not plan to give the government information about users who search for blocked content and will inform users that content has been restricted if they attempt to search for it 111 As of 2009 Google was the only major China based search engine to explicitly inform the user when search results are blocked or hidden As of December 2012 Google no longer informs the user of possible censorship for certain queries during search 112 Some Chinese Internet users were critical of Google for assisting the Chinese government in repressing its own citizens particularly those dissenting against the government and advocating for human rights 113 Furthermore Google had been denounced and called hypocritical by Free Media Movement for agreeing to China s demands while simultaneously fighting the United States government s requests for similar information 114 Google China had also been condemned by Reporters Without Borders 114 Human Rights Watch 115 and Amnesty International 116 In 2009 China Central Television Xinhua News Agency and People s Daily all reported on Google s dissemination of obscene information and People s Daily claimed that Google s don t be evil motto becomes a fig leaf 117 118 The Chinese government imposed administrative penalties to Google China and demanded a reinforcement of censorship 119 In 2010 according to a leaked diplomatic cable from the U S Embassy in Beijing there were reports that the Chinese Politburo directed the intrusion of Google s computer systems in a worldwide coordinated campaign of computer sabotage and the attempt to access information about Chinese dissidents carried out by government operatives public security experts and Internet outlaws recruited by the Chinese government 120 The report suggested that it was part of an ongoing campaign in which attackers have broken into American government computers and those of Western allies the Dalai Lama and American businesses since 2002 In response to the attack Google announced that they were no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google cn and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law if at all 121 122 On March 22 2010 after talks with Chinese authorities failed to reach an agreement the company redirected its censor complying Google China service to its Google Hong Kong service which is outside the jurisdiction of Chinese censorship laws From the business perspective many recognize that the move was likely to affect Google s profits Google is going to pay a heavy price for its move which is why it deserves praise for refusing to censor its service in China 123 However at least as of March 23 2010 The Great Firewall continues to censor search results from the Hong Kong portal www google com hk as it does with the US portal www google com for controversial terms such as Falun gong and the June 4 incident 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre 124 125 126 In 2018 Lhadon Tethong director of the Tibet Action Institute said there was a crisis of repression unfolding across China and territories it controls and that it is shocking to know that Google is planning to return to China and has been building a tool that will help the Chinese authorities engage in censorship and surveillance She further noted that Google should be using its incredible wealth talent and resources to work with us to find solutions to lift people up and help ease their suffering not assisting the Chinese government to keep people in chains 127 Turkey Edit This section needs expansion You can help by adding to it May 2020 Google has been involved in censorship of Google Maps satellite imagery countrywide affecting Android and iOS apps using com tr and tld automatically Desktop users can easily evade this censorship by just removing tr and tld from the URL but the same technique is impossible with smartphone apps Russia Edit Google removed the Smart Voting app from the Play Store before the 2021 Russian legislative election The application which had been created by the associates of the imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny offered voting advice for all voting districts in Russia It was removed after a meeting with Russian Federation Council officials on 16 September 2021 The Wired reported that several Google employees were threatened with criminal prosecution Google s actions were condemned as political censorship by Russian opposition figures 128 In March 2022 Google removed an app designed to help Russians register protest votes against Putin from its Play Store 129 AdSense AdWords Edit Main articles Google AdSense and Google AdWords In February 2003 Google stopped showing the advertisements of Oceana a non profit organization protesting a major cruise ship operation s sewage treatment practices Google cited its editorial policy at the time stating Google does not accept advertising if the ad or site advocates against other individuals groups or organizations 130 The policy was later changed 131 In April 2008 Google refused to run ads for a UK Christian group opposed to abortion explaining that At this time Google policy does not permit the advertisement of websites that contain abortion and religion related content The UK Christian group sued Google for discrimination and as a result in September 2008 Google changed its policy and anti abortion ads were allowed 132 In August 2008 Google closed the AdSense account of a site that carried a negative view of Scientology the second closing of such a site within 3 months 133 It is not certain if the account revocations actually were on the grounds of anti religious content however the cases have raised questions about Google s terms in regards to AdSense AdWords The AdSense policy states that Sites displaying Google ads may not include advocacy against any individual group or organization 134 which allows Google to revoke the above mentioned AdSense accounts In May 2011 Google cancelled the AdWord advertisement purchased by a Dublin sex worker rights group named Turn Off the Blue Light TOBL 135 claiming that it represented an egregious violation of company ad policy by selling adult sexual services However TOBL is a nonprofit campaign for sex worker rights and is not advertising or selling adult sexual services 136 In July after TOBL members held a protest outside Google s European headquarters in Dublin and wrote to complain Google relented reviewed the group s website found its content to be advocating a political position and restored the AdWord advertisement 137 In June 2012 Google rejected the Australian Sex Party s ads for AdWords and sponsored search results for the July 12 by election for the state seat of Melbourne saying the Party breached its rules which prevent solicitation of donations by a website that did not display tax exempt status Although the Sex Party amended its website to display tax deductibility information Google continued to ban the ads The ads were reinstated on election eve after it was reported in the media that the Sex Party was considering suing Google On September 13 2012 the Party lodged formal complaints against Google with the US Department of Justice and the Australian competition watchdog accusing Google of unlawful interference in the conduct of a state election in Victoria with corrupt intent in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act 138 YouTube Edit Main article Censorship by Google YouTube See also YouTube Moderation and offensive content and YouTube copyright issues YouTube is a video sharing website acquired by Google in 2006 YouTube s Terms of Service prohibits the posting of videos which violate copyrights or depict pornography illegal acts gratuitous violence or hate speech 139 User posted videos that violate such terms may be removed and replaced with a message stating This video is no longer available because its content violated YouTube s Terms of Service YouTube has been criticized by national governments for failing to police content For example videos 140 have been critically accused for being left up among other videos featuring unwarranted violence or strong ill intention against people who probably didn t want this to be published In 2006 Thailand blocked access to YouTube for users with Thai IP addresses Thai authorities identified 20 offensive videos and demanded that YouTube remove them before it would unblock any YouTube content 141 In 2007 a Turkish judge ordered access to YouTube blocked because of content that insulted Mustafa Kemal Ataturk which is a crime under Turkish law 141 On February 22 2008 Pakistan Telecommunications Authority PTA attempted to block regional access to YouTube following a government order The attempt inadvertently caused a worldwide YouTube blackout that took 2 hours to correct 142 Four days later PTA lifted the ban after YouTube removed controversial religious comments made by a Dutch Member of Parliament 143 concerning Islam 144 YouTube has also been criticized by its users for attempting to censor content In November 2007 the account of Wael Abbas a well known Egyptian activist who posted videos of police brutality voting irregularities and anti government demonstrations was blocked for three days 145 146 147 In February 2008 a video produced by the American Life League that accused a Planned Parenthood television commercial of promoting recreational sex was removed then reinstated two days later 148 In October a video by political speaker Pat Condell criticizing the British government for officially sanctioning sharia law courts in Britain was removed then reinstated two days later 149 YouTube also pulled a video of columnist Michelle Malkin showing violence by Muslim extremists 150 Siva Vaidhyanathan a professor of Media Studies at the University of Virginia commented that while in his opinion Michelle Malkin disseminates bigotry in her blog that does not mean that this particular video is bigoted it s not But because it s by Malkin it s a target 151 In 2019 YouTube settled for 170 million the FTC and the New York Attorney General for alleged violations of the US Children s Online Privacy Protection Act COPPA which prohibits internet companies from collecting data from kids under 13 YouTube s enactment of the settlement started in January 2020 this required creators to indicate whether their videos were intended for children with fines of up to 42 530 per violation of COPPA 152 Some features that depend on user data are disabled on videos designated for children including comments and channel branding watermarks the donate button cards and end screens live chat and live chat donations notifications and save to playlist or watch later features Such channels will also become ungooglable 152 In October 2021 YouTube together with Snapchat and TikTok participated in a Senate hearing on protecting children online 153 The session was prompted by Facebook whistle blower Frances Haugen s hearing prior In the hearing the social media companies tried to distance themselves from Facebook to which Senate Commerce consumer protection Chair Richard Blumenthal responded saying Being different from Facebook is not a defense That bar is in the gutter 154 Ungoogleable Edit Main article Ungoogleable In 2013 Google successfully prevented the Swedish Language Council from including the Swedish version of the word ungoogleable ogooglebar sv in its list of new words 155 Google objected to its definition which referred to web searches in general without mentioning Google specifically and the council was forced to remove it to avoid legal confrontation with Google 156 They also accused Google of trying to control the Swedish language 157 Other types of censorship Edit In August 2022 Google closed a person s account on sharing pictures of his son s sensitive areas with the doctor as it was flagged as child abuse by Google s automated systems 158 Labor practices EditSeveral former Google employees have spoken out about working conditions practices and ethics at the company As the company became more concerned about leaks to the press in 2019 it scaled employee all hands meetings from weekly to monthly limiting question topics to business and product strategy 159 Google CEO Sundar Pichai told employees in late 2019 that the company is genuinely struggling with some issues including transparency and employee trust 160 On 2 December 2020 the National Labor Relations Board NLRB filed a complaint against Google for terminations and intimidation in order to quell workplace activism The complaint was filed after a year long investigation by a terminated employee He filed a petition in 2019 after that many Google employees carried out internal protests against Google s work with US Customs and Border Protection 161 Diversity politics Edit Main article Google memo A widely circulated internal memo written by senior engineer James Damore Google s Ideological Echo Chamber sharply criticized Google s political biases and employee policies 162 Google said the memo was advancing harmful gender stereotypes and fired Damore 163 David Brooks demanded the resignation of its CEO Sundar Pichai for mishandling the case 164 165 Ads criticizing Pichai and Google for the firing were put up shortly after at various Google locations 166 Some have called to boycott Google and its services with a hashtag boycottGoogle coming up on Twitter 167 A rally against Google alleged partisanship was planned as March on Google but later cancelled due to threats and the Charlottesville mayhem 168 169 Arne Wilberg an ex YouTube recruiter claimed that he was fired in November 2017 when he complained about Google s new practices in not hiring white and Asian men to YouTube in favor of women and minority applicants According to the lawsuit an internal policy document stated that for three months in 2017 YouTube recruiters should only hire diverse candidates 170 In June 2021 Google removed its global lead for diversity strategy and research after being made aware of an antisemitic comment he made in 2007 171 Harassment and discrimination Edit source source source source source source source Google Silicon Valley Employees Join a Worldwide Protest video news report from Voice of America 172 Further information 2018 Google walkouts In February 2016 Amit Singhal vice president of Google Search for 15 years left the company following sexual harassment allegations Google has awarded Singhal 15 million in severance 173 174 On November 1 2018 approximately 20 000 employees of Google engaged in a worldwide 175 walkout to protest the way in which the company has handled sexual harassment and other grievances 176 177 178 179 180 In July 2019 Google settled a long running age discrimination lawsuit brought by 227 over 40 employees and job seekers Although Google denied it had age discrimination it agreed to a settlement of 11 million for the plaintiffs to train its employees not to have age based bias and to have its recruiting department focus on age diversity among its engineering employees 181 182 In January 2020 the San Francisco Pride organization voted to ban Google and YouTube from their annual Pride parade due to hate speech on their platforms and retaliation against LBGTQ activists 183 In 2020 HR executive Eileen Naughton joined long time Chief Legal Counsel David Drummond in stepping down from their positions over a lawsuit naming them and the company founders in accusations of mishandling years of sexual harassment complaints 184 In February 2020 the U S Equal Employment Opportunity Commission EEOC opened an investigation into former Google employee Chelsey Glasson s allegations of pregnancy discrimination 185 Glasson filed a state civil lawsuit while the EEOC investigated with a trial date set for January 2022 186 187 188 She settled with the company in February 2022 189 She revealed that Google s legal team obtained therapy notes from her sessions through the company s Employee assistance program counseling provider and that the provider dropped her as a client when she filed the lawsuit which sparked Senator Karen Keiser to introduce a bill in Washington in January 2022 to prohibit private sector providers from disclosing private information typically covered under Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act laws 190 191 192 Also in January 2022 she criticized the company s use of non disclosure agreements NDAs in testimony to the Washington House of Representatives for whistleblower protection legislature which she said intimidated her from speaking out about the discrimination she allegedly witnessed and experienced In response Google told Protocol that their confidentiality agreements do not prevent current and former workers from disclosing facts pertaining to harassment or discrimination 193 Both laws were passed into legislature in March 2022 194 195 Allegations of union busting Edit The official settlement agreement that Google signed with the NLRB in 2019 includes this notice to be sent to employees 196 YOU HAVE THE RIGHT to discuss wages hours and working conditions with other employees the press media and other third parties and WE WILL NOT do anything to interfere with your exercise of those rights Google has been criticized for hiring IRI Consultants a firm that advertises its accomplishments in helping organizations prevent successful union organizing 197 Google Zurich attempted to cancel employee organized meetings about labor rights in June and October 2019 198 Some Google employees and contractors are already unionized including security guards some service workers and analysts and trainers for Google Shopping in Pittsburgh employed by contractor HCL 199 In 2021 court documents revealed that between 2018 and 2020 Google ran an anti union campaign called Project Vivian to convince employees that unions suck 200 As of December 2019 the National Labor Relations Board is investigating whether several firings were in retaliation for labor organizing related activities 201 202 One of the fired employees was tasked with informing her colleagues about Google policy changes and created a message informing them that they have the right to participate in protected concerted activities when they visited the IRI Consultants site 203 204 Xinjiang region Edit In 2020 the Australian Strategic Policy Institute accused at least 82 major brands including Google of being connected to forced Uyghur labor in Xinjiang 205 Other EditNon alignment with US defense Edit See also Artificial intelligence arms race Disassociation Former Deputy Defense Secretary Robert O Work in 2018 criticized Google and its employees have stepped into a Moral Hazard for themselves as not continuing Pentagon s artificial intelligence project Project Maven 206 while helping China s AI technology that could be used against the United States in a conflict He described Google as hypocritical given it has opened an AI center in China and Anything that s going on in the AI center in China is going to the Chinese government and then will ultimately end up in the hands of the Chinese military Work said I didn t see any Google employee saying Hmm maybe we shouldn t do that Google s dealings with China is decrying as unpatriotic 207 208 209 Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford also criticizes Google as it s inexplicable that it continue investing in China who uses censorship technology to restrain freedoms and crackdown on people there and has long history of intellectual property and patent theft which hurts U S companies while simultaneously not renewing further research and development collaborations with the Pentagon He said I m not sure that people at Google will enjoy a world order that is informed by the norms and standards of Russia or China He urges Google to work directly with the U S government instead of making controversial inroads into China 210 Senator Mark Warner D VA criticized Dragonfly evidences China s success at recruit ing U S companies to their information control efforts while China exports cyber and censorship infrastructure to countries like Venezuela Ethiopia and Pakistan 211 Energy consumption Edit See also Google Energy Google has been criticized for the high amount of energy used to maintain its servers 212 but was praised by Greenpeace for the use of renewable sources of energy to run them 213 Google has pledged to spend millions of dollars to investigate cheap clean renewable energy and has installed solar panels on the roofs at its Mountain View facilities 214 215 In 2010 Google also invested 39 million in wind power 216 Google bus protests Edit Main article San Francisco tech bus protests In late 2013 activists in the San Francisco Bay Area began protesting the use of shuttle buses by Google and other tech companies viewing them as symbols of gentrification and displacement in a city where the rapid growth of the tech sector has driven up housing prices 217 218 Google Video Edit Main article Google Video On August 15 2007 Google discontinued its Download to own Download to rent DTO DTR program 219 Some videos previously purchased for ownership under that program were no longer viewable when the embedded Digital Rights Management DRM licenses were revoked Google gave refunds for the full amount spent on videos using gift certificates or bonuses to their customers Google Checkout Account 220 221 After a public uproar Google issued full refunds to the credit cards of the Google Video users without revoking the gift certificates Search within search Edit Main article Google Search For some search results Google provides a secondary search box that can be used to search within a website identified from the first search It sparked controversy among some online publishers and retailers When performing a second search within a specific website advertisements from competing and rival companies often showed up together with the results from the website being searched This has the potential to draw users away from the website they were originally searching 222 While the service could help increase traffic some users could be siphoned away as Google uses the prominence of the brands to sell ads typically to competing companies 223 In order to combat this controversy Google has offered to turn off this feature for companies who request to have it removed 223 According to software engineer Ben Lee and Product Manager Jack Menzel the idea for search within search originated from the way users were searching It appeared that users were often not finding exactly what they needed while trying to explore within a company site Teleporting on the web where users need only type part of the name of a website into Google no need to remember the entire URL in order to find the correct site is what helps Google users complete their search Google took this concept a step further and instead of just teleporting users could type in keywords to search within the website of their choice 224 Naming of Go programming language Edit Main articles Go programming language and Go programming language Google is criticized for naming their programming language Go while there is already an existing programming language called Go 225 226 227 Potential security threats Edit Google s Street View has been criticized for providing information that could potentially be useful to terrorists In the United Kingdom during March 2010 Liberal Democrats MP Paul Keetch and unnamed military officers criticized Google for including pictures of the entrance to the British Army Special Air Service SAS base stating that terrorists might use the information to plan attacks Google responded that it only takes images from public roads and this is no different to what anyone could see traveling down the road themselves therefore there is no appreciable security risk Military sources stated that It is highly irresponsible for military bases especially special forces to be pictured on the internet The question is why risk a very serious security breach for the sake of having a picture on a website 228 229 Google was subsequently forced to remove images of the SAS base and other military security and intelligence installations admitting that its trained drivers had failed to not take photographs in areas banned under the Official Secrets Act 230 In 2008 Google complied with requests from The Pentagon to remove Street View images of the entrances to military bases 231 232 Politics Edit Scope of influence Edit Despite being one of the world s largest and most influential companies unlike many other technology companies Google does not disclose its political spending In August 2010 New York City Public Advocate Bill de Blasio launched a national campaign urging the corporation to disclose all of its political spending 233 In the 2010s Google spent about 150 million on lobbying largely related to privacy protections and regulation of monopolies 234 235 Google sponsors several non profit lobbying groups such as the Coalition for a Digital Economy Coadec in the UK 236 Google has sponsored meetings of the conservative Competitive Enterprise Institute who have had speakers including libertarian Republican and Tea Party member and Senator for Kentucky Rand Paul 237 Peter Thiel stated that Google had too much influence on the Obama administration claiming that the company had more power under Obama than Exxon had under Bush 43 238 There are many revolving door examples between Google and the U S government This includes 53 revolving door moves between Google and the White House 22 former White House officials who left the administration to work for Google and 31 Google executives who joined the White House 239 45 Obama for America campaign staffers leaving for Google or Google controlled companies 38 revolving door moves between Google and government positions involving national security intelligence or the Department of Defense 240 23 revolving door moves between Google and the State Department and 18 Pentagon officials moving to Google As of 2018 studies found that employees of Alphabet donated largely to support the election of candidates from the Democratic Party 241 In 2023 Alphabet lobbied on antitrust issues and three particular antitrust bills spending 7 43 million in the first quarter of 2023 lobbying the federal government and more money in the second quarter of 2023 than in any quarter since 2018 42 Climate change Edit In 2013 Google joined the American Legislative Exchange Council ALEC 242 243 In September 2014 Google chairman Eric Schmidt announced the company would leave ALEC for lying about climate change and hurting our children 244 In 2018 Google started an oil gas and energy division hiring Darryl Willis a 25 year BP executive who The Wall Street Journal said was intended to court the oil and gas industry 245 Google Cloud signed an agreement with the French oil company Total S A to jointly develop artificial intelligence solutions for subsurface data analysis in oil and gas exploration and production 246 A partnership with Houston oil investment bank Tudor Pickering Holt amp Co was described by the Houston Chronicle as giving Google a more visible presence in Houston as one of its oldest industries works to cut costs in the wake of the oil bust and remain competitive as electric vehicles and renewable power sources gain market share 247 Other agreements were made with oilfield services companies Baker Hughes and Schlumberger 247 and Anadarko Petroleum to use artificial intelligence to analyse large volumes of seismic and operational data to find oil maximise output and increase efficiency 248 and negotiations were started with petroleum giant Saudi Aramco 249 In 2019 Google was criticised for sponsoring a conference that included a session promoting climate change denial LibertyCon speaker Caleb Rossiter belongs to the CO2 Coalition a nonprofit that advocates for more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere 250 In November 2019 over 1 000 Google employees demanded that the company commit to zero emissions by 2030 and cancel contracts with fossil fuel companies 251 In February 2022 the NewClimate Institute a German environmental policy think tank published a survey evaluating the transparency and progress of the climate strategies and carbon neutrality pledges announced by 25 major companies in the United States that found that Alphabet s carbon neutrality pledge and climate strategy was unsubstantiated and misleading 252 253 In April 2022 Alphabet Meta Platforms Shopify McKinsey amp Company and Stripe Inc announced a 925 million advance market commitment of carbon dioxide removal from companies that are developing the technology over the next 9 years 254 255 In January 2023 the American Clean Power Association released an annual industry report that found that 326 corporations had contracted 77 4 gigawatts of wind or solar energy by the end of 2022 and that the three corporate purchasers of the largest volumes of wind and solar energy were Alphabet Amazon and Meta Platforms 256 AGreenerGoogle com Edit In April 2020 Extinction Rebellion launched agreenergoogle com a spoof website containing a fake announcement by Google CEO Sundar Pichai claiming that they would stop funding of organizations that deny or work to block action on climate change effective immediately 257 258 YouTube user comments Edit Main article YouTube Comment system Most YouTube videos allow users to leave comments and these have attracted attention for the negative aspects of both their form and content In 2006 Time praised Web 2 0 for enabling community and collaboration on a scale never seen before and added that YouTube harnesses the stupidity of crowds as well as its wisdom Some of the comments on YouTube make you weep for the future of humanity just for the spelling alone never mind the obscenity and the naked hatred 259 The Guardian in 2009 described users comments on YouTube as Juvenile aggressive misspelled sexist homophobic swinging from raging at the contents of a video to providing a pointlessly detailed description followed by a LOL YouTube comments are a hotbed of infantile debate and unashamed ignorance with the occasional burst of wit shining through 260 In September 2008 The Daily Telegraph commented that YouTube was notorious for some of the most confrontational and ill formed comment exchanges on the internet and reported on YouTube Comment Snob a new piece of software that blocks rude and illiterate posts 261 The Huffington Post noted in April 2012 that finding comments on YouTube that appear offensive stupid and crass to the vast majority of the people is hardly difficult 262 On November 6 2013 Google implemented a new comment system that requires all YouTube users to use a Google account to comment on videos thereby making the comment system Google orientated 263 The corporation stated that the change is necessary to personalize comment sections for viewers eliciting an overwhelmingly negative public response YouTube co founder Jawed Karim also expressed disdain by writing on his channel why the fuck do I need a Google account to comment on a video 264 The official YouTube announcement received over 62 000 thumbs down votes and only just over 4 000 thumbs up votes while an online petition demanding Google s removal gained more than 230 000 signatures in just over two months 265 266 Writing in the Newsday blog Silicon Island Chase Melvin noted Google is nowhere near as popular a social media network as Facebook but it s essentially being forced upon millions of YouTube users who don t want to lose their ability to comment on videos 267 In the same article Melvin adds Perhaps user complaints are justified but the idea of revamping the old system isn t so bad Think of the crude misogynistic and racially charged mudslinging that has transpired over the last eight years on YouTube without any discernible moderation Isn t any attempt to curb unidentified libelers worth a shot The system is far from perfect but Google should be lauded for trying to alleviate some of the damage caused by irate YouTubers hiding behind animosity and anonymity 267 On July 27 2015 Google announced that Google would no longer be required for using various services including YouTube 268 269 Users are now able to delete their Google profile without losing features or content 270 Zero rating Edit Google has supported net neutrality in the US while opposing it in India by supporting zero rating 271 2016 April Fools joke Edit On April 1 2016 the Mic Drop April Fools joke in Gmail caused damage for users who accidentally clicked the button Google installed on that occasion 272 Think Tank meddling Edit The New York Times reported that Google has pressured the New America think tank which is supported by it to remove a statement supporting the EU antitrust fine against Google After Eric Schmidt voiced his displeasure from the statement the whole research group involved were sidelined in the New America think tank which gets funding from Google 273 274 Consequently the Open Markets research group went to open their own think tank which will not get any funding from Google 274 ANS patent controversy Edit Wide attention in Polish media has resulted from Google s attempt to patent video compression application of ANS coding which is now widely used in products of e g Apple Facebook and Google Its author has helped Google in this adaptation for three years through public forum but was not included in the patent application He was supported in fighting this patent by his employer Jagiellonian University 275 276 277 278 279 Spatial data and the city Edit Google s huge share of spatial information services including Google Maps and the Google Places API has been criticised by activists and academics in terms of the cartographic power it affords Google to map and represent the world s cities 280 In addition given Google and Alphabet Inc s increasing involvement with urban planning particularly through subsidiaries like Sidewalk Labs 281 this has resulted in criticism that Google is exerting an increasing power over urban areas that may not be beneficial to democracy in the long term 282 283 This criticism is also related to wider concerns around democracy and Smart Cities that has been directed to a number of other large corporations 284 285 Breach of court order Edit On 10 December 2018 a New Zealand court ordered that the name of a man accused of murdering British traveller Grace Millane be withheld from the public a gag order The next morning Google named the man in an email it sent people who had subscribed to what s trending in New Zealand 286 Lawyers warned that this could compromise the trial and Justice Minister Andrew Little said that Google was in contempt of court 287 288 Google said that it had been unaware of the court order and that the email had been created by algorithms Electronic pop up books patent Edit In 2016 Google filed a patent application for interactive pop up books with electronics 289 Jie Qi noticed that the patent resembled work she had shared when she visited Google ATAP in 2014 as a PhD student at the MIT Media Lab two of the Google employees listed on the application as inventors had also interviewed her during the same visit After Qi submitted prior art to the USPTO the application was abandoned 290 291 Project Nightingale Edit Project Nightingale is a health care data sharing project financed by Google and Ascension a Catholic health care system the second largest in the United States Ascension owns comprehensive health care information on millions of former and current patients who are part of its system Google and Ascension have been processing this data in secret since sometime in 2018 without the knowledge and consent of patients and doctors The work they are doing appears to comply with federal health care law which includes robust protections for patient data 292 293 294 However concerns have been voiced whether the transfer really is HIPAA compliant 295 The project is Google s attempt to gain a large scale foot hold into the healthcare industry 292 YouTube ads forced on all videos without revenue share Edit In 2020 Google owned YouTube changed its policy so that it could include ads on all videos regardless of whether the content creator wanted them or not Those who were not part of Google s Partner Program would receive no revenue for this To join the program creators must have more than 1 000 subscribers and 4 000 hours of viewed content in the last 12 months 296 297 Abuse of attorney client privilege Edit In March 2022 the Department of Justice and 14 state attorneys general accused Google of misusing attorney client privilege to hide emails from subpoenas using an employee policy called Communicate with Care which instructs employees to carbon copy CC Google s attorneys on emails and flag them as exempt from disclosure Employees are directed to add a general request for the attorney s advice even when no legal advice is needed or sought Often Google s lawyers will not respond to such requests which the Justice Department claimed shows they understand and are participating in the evasion 298 See also Edit nbsp Internet portalCriticisms of software and websites DeGoogle Don t be evil Filter bubble Google litigation Google Search Googlization High Tech Employee Antitrust Litigation History of Google Ireland as a tax haven Stochastic parrot Surveillance capitalism The Creepy Line Who Owns the Future References Edit Levine Yasha December 20 2018 Google s Earth how the tech giant is helping the state spy on us The Guardian See List of Google products Financial Tables Google Inc Retrieved July 5 2010 Vise David A October 21 2005 Online Ads Give Google Huge Gain in Profit The Washington Post Retrieved February 14 2010 Google Corporate Page accessed October 17 2011 Ghosh Shona Thousands of Reddit users are trying to delete Google from their lives but they re finding it impossible because Google is everywhere Business Insider V Siskos Dimitrios How to Reduce the Tax Bill of a Multinational Technology Company SSRN 3254816 Drucker Jesse October 21 2010 Google 2 4 Rate Shows How 60 Billion Lost to Tax Loopholes Bloomberg Google is flying a banner of doing no evil and then they re perpetrating evil under our noses said Abraham J Briloff a professor emeritus of accounting at Baruch College in New York who has examined Google s tax disclosures Who is it that paid for the underlying concept on which they built these billions of dollars of revenues Briloff said It was paid for by the United States citizenry Metz Cade October 22 2010 Google slips 3 1bn through Double Irish tax loophole The Register Basically Google licenses foreign rights to its intellectual property to an Irish subsidiary known as Google Ireland Holdings and this outfit owns a separate subsidiary known as Google Ireland Limited It s Google Ireland Limited the second subsidiary that actually sells advertising across the globe Last year it accounted for 88 percent of Google s 12 5 billion in non U S sales a b c Tang Paul September 2017 EU Tax Revenue Loss from Google and Facebook PDF Chew Jonathan March 11 2016 7 Corporate Giants Accused of Evading Billions in Taxes Fortune Retrieved June 20 2017 Barford Vanessa Holt Gerry May 21 2013 Google Amazon Starbucks The rise of tax shaming BBC News BBC Retrieved June 20 2017 a b Bowers Simon Syal Rajeev May 16 2013 MP on Google tax avoidance scheme I think that you do evil The Guardian Retrieved June 20 2017 Staff Telegraph December 12 2012 Google s tax avoidance is called capitalism says chairman Eric Schmidt The Daily Telegraph Archived from the original on January 12 2022 Retrieved June 20 2017 Kumar Nikhil Wright Oliver December 13 2012 Google boss I m very proud of our tax avoidance scheme The Independent Retrieved June 20 2017 Starbucks Google and Amazon grilled over tax avoidance BBC News November 12 2012 Budget 2015 Google Tax introduction confirmed BBC News BBC March 18 2015 Retrieved June 20 2017 Google agrees to pay British authorities 130m in back taxes The Guardian January 20 2016 EU could force Google to pay more UK tax The Guardian January 20 2016 Kanter James Pfanner Eric November 30 2010 Europe Opens Antitrust Inquiry Into Google The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved April 2 2023 Lohr Steve October 20 2020 What Is Happening With the Antitrust Suit Against Google The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved April 2 2023 McCabe David Grant Nico January 24 2023 U S Accuses Google of Abusing Monopoly in Ad Technology The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved April 2 2023 Lomas Natasha September 14 2022 Google fails to overturn EU s 4BN Android antitrust decision TechCrunch Retrieved April 2 2023 McCabe David Wakabayashi Daisuke July 7 2021 Dozens of States Sue Google Over App Store Fees The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved April 2 2023 Vincent James July 1 2022 Google offers small app developers 90 million to settle antitrust allegations The Verge Retrieved April 2 2023 Google offers to let ad rivals place YouTube ads in EU antitrust probe CNBC June 13 2022 Retrieved April 2 2023 Robertson Adi August 2 2022 Rumble s antitrust lawsuit against Google can proceed says judge The Verge Retrieved April 2 2023 Sisco Josh February 22 2023 DOJ pushes ahead with Google Maps antitrust probe POLITICO Retrieved April 2 2023 a b Kelion Leo June 27 2017 Google hit with record 2 7bn EU fine BBC News Episode 787 Google Is Big Is That Bad NPR org PRESS RELEASES Press release Antitrust Commission sends Statement of Objections to Google on comparison shopping service opens separate formal investigation on Android European Commission Retrieved April 7 2018 PRESS RELEASES Press release Antitrust Commission takes further steps in investigations alleging Google s comparison shopping and advertising related practices breach EU rules European Commission July 14 2016 Retrieved April 7 2018 Satariano Adam June 14 2023 Google s Online 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Journal Levine Dan September 1 2011 Google wins antitrust victory in Ohio case Reuters UK Retrieved September 14 2011 Disappearing tycoon Souter blames Google BBC News September 12 2011 Hansell Saul Markoff John June 22 2004 Google Edits Its Prospectus to Highlight Risk of Loss The New York Times Corrections The New York Times June 25 2004 Retrieved April 30 2010 Manjoo Farhad August 30 2002 Conspiracy Researcher Says Google s No Good AlterNet Archived from the original on June 8 2012 Retrieved December 12 2009 Why Daniel Brandt doesn t like Google PageRank Chris Beasley Google Watch Watch accessed October 18 2011 McManus Emily August 7 2014 No Google no I didn t pic twitter com 9BtO4IjBTE emilymcmc Retrieved November 11 2019 Why did this simple Google Search get retweeted 3 500 times ideas ted com August 15 2014 Retrieved November 11 2019 jackyjackyjackyjacky June 28 2015 Google Photos y all fucked up My friend s not a gorilla pic twitter com SMkMCsNVX4 jackyalcine Retrieved November 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copyright concerns Archived September 11 2012 at archive today Stefanie Olsen CNET News July 9 2003 Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law Blake A Field vs Google Inc No CV S 04 0413 RCJ LRL Judge Robert C Jones United States District Court District of Nevada January 12 2006 Memorandum amp Order Gordon Roy Parker v Google Inc No 04 CV 3918 Judge R Barclay Surrick United States District Court Eastern District of Pennsylvania March 10 2006 Google and Bing to demote pirate sites in UK web searches BBC News February 20 2017 Retrieved February 20 2017 Google and Bing to deprecate piracy websites The Guardian Press Association February 20 2017 Retrieved February 20 2017 Google Map Maker Retrieved February 12 2015 We Need to Stop Google s Exploitation of Open Communities Mikel Maron April 11 2011 Google Map Maker Retrieved February 12 2015 Why Google MapMaker is not Open Mikel Maron March 16 2010 Lemon Sumner April 8 2007 Rival Asks Google to Yank Copycat Application PC World IDG Retrieved 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5 2010 Archived from the original on August 15 2010 Retrieved August 7 2010 Angwin Julia October 21 2016 Google Has Quietly Dropped Ban on Personally Identifiable Web Tracking ProPublica Retrieved October 23 2016 Harrington Caitlin September 9 2022 Google and Amazon Want More Defense Contracts Despite Worker Protests Wired Retrieved September 11 2022 Opponents of the deal worry the Israeli military could use the technology to expand surveillance of Palestinians living in occupied territories and violate human rights Nieva Richard September 9 2022 Google And Amazon Workers Protest Their Companies 1 2 Billion AI Contract With Israel Forbes Retrieved September 11 2022 Google employee resigns saying company silences Palestinians Al Jazeera September 1 2022 Retrieved September 11 2022 Disha Ravi arrest puts privacy of all Google India users in doubt India Today February 16 2021 Retrieved August 23 2022 Whittaker Zack December 12 2012 Google com now censors explicit content from image searches ZDNet Retrieved June 14 2013 Google Removes Bisexual From Its List of Dirty Words Michelle Garcia Advocate com September 11 2012 Retrieved March 14 2014 Google censors itself for China BBC January 25 2006 Retrieved January 31 2008 The Great Wall China Against the World 1000 BC AD 2000 Archived March 14 2015 at the Wayback Machine Julia Lovell Grove Atlantic March 2007 ISBN 978 0 8021 4297 9 Google move black day for China BBC News January 25 2006 Google quietly removed search warning message in China in early December 2012 Engadget January 4 2013 Google Stop participating in China s Propaganda Students for a Free Tibet Yahoo Groups February 1 2006 a b AFX News January 25 2006 Google bows to Chinese censorship with new search site Forbes Archived from the original on November 21 2008 3 Google Inc in Race to the Bottom Corporate Complicity in Chinese Internet Censorship Part IV How Multinational Internet Companies assist Government Censorship in China Human Rights Watch Vol 18 No 8 C August 2006 Google does not censor take action to defend freedom of information Amnesty International May 10 2006 Google s don t be evil motto becomes a fig leaf 谷歌 不作恶 口号沦为遮羞布 in Chinese People s Daily June 19 2009 Archived from the original on September 21 2013 Retrieved June 27 2009 English translation Investigating on Google China s obscene information the public says good 查处谷歌中国淫秽信息 公众都叫 好 People s Daily June 26 2009 Archived from the original on July 30 2013 Retrieved June 27 2009 English translation 卫敏丽 June 19 2009 Relevant departments punished Google China s dissemination of obscene information by law 有关部门对 谷歌中国 传播淫秽色情信息行为依法处罚 xinhuanet Archived from the original on June 22 2009 Retrieved June 26 2009 English translation Scott Shane and Andrew W Lehren November 28 2010 Leaked Cables Offer Raw Look at U S Diplomacy The New York Times Retrieved December 26 2010 A new approach to China David Drummond SVP Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer Official Google Blog January 12 2010 A new approach to China Google Inc January 12 2010 Retrieved January 17 2010 Google s strategy in China deserves praise Kansas City Star March 28 2010 Archived from the original on April 1 2010 Retrieved September 29 2012 A new approach to China an update David Drummond SVP Corporate Development and Chief Legal Officer Official Google Blog March 22 2010 Carlson Nicholas March 22 2010 BREAKING Google Pulls Search Engine Out Of China Business Insider Womack Brian March 23 2010 Google Ends Self Censorship Defies China Government Update4 Bloomberg News Gallagher Ryan December 11 2018 RIGHTS GROUPS TURN UP PRESSURE ON GOOGLE OVER CHINA CENSORSHIP AHEAD OF CONGRESSIONAL HEARING The Intercept Retrieved May 6 2020 Hay Newman Lily September 17 2021 Apple and Google Go Further Than Ever to Appease Russia Wired Retrieved September 18 2021 Putin s prewar moves against U S tech giants laid groundwork for crackdown on free expression The Washington Post Archived from the original on 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February 25 2008 Pakistan causes worldwide YouTube blackout Macworld UK Archived from the original on October 12 2015 Retrieved December 23 2010 Pakistan Drops YouTube Ban CBS News AP February 11 2009 Pakistan welcomes back YouTube Archived October 15 2008 at the Wayback Machine Greg Sandoval CNET News Blogs February 26 2008 YouTube shuts down Egyptian anti torture activist s account CNN com November 29 2007 Archived from the original on May 19 2011 Retrieved December 23 2010 YouTube reinstates account of Egyptian human rights activist The CNN Wire Friday Nov 30 CNN com November 30 2007 YouTube stops account of Egypt anti torture activist Archived February 5 2015 at the Wayback Machine Cynthia Johnston Reuters November 27 2007 American Life League video yanked by YouTube Catholic News Agency February 12 2008 Beckford Martin October 3 2008 YouTube censors comedian s anti Sharia video called Welcome to Saudi Britain The Daily Telegraph London Archived from the original on January 12 2022 Rosen Jeffrey November 30 2008 Google s Gatekeepers The New York Times The Googlization of Everything and Why We Should Worry Siva Vaidhyanatan University of California Press 2011 page 39 ISBN 978 0 520 25882 2 a b Spangler Todd November 22 2019 YouTube Creators Worried and Confused Over New Kid Video COPPA Rules Potential Fines Variety Protecting Kids Online Snapchat TikTok and YouTube October 26 2021 Rivals struggle to distance themselves from Facebook Politico October 26 2021 Fanning Sean March 26 2013 Google gets ungoogleable off Sweden s new word list BBC News BBC Retrieved April 5 2013 Williams Rob March 26 2013 Ungoogleable removed from list of Swedish words after row over definition with Google California based search engine giant asked Swedish to amend definition The Independent Retrieved April 5 2013 Irvine Chris March 25 2013 Sweden rows with Google over term ungoogleable The Daily Telegraph Archived from the original on January 12 2022 Retrieved April 5 2013 Hill Kashmir August 21 2022 A Dad Took Photos of His Naked Toddler for the Doctor Google Flagged Him as a Criminal The New York Times No 2022 08 23 Retrieved August 23 2022 Sumagaysay Levi February 7 2020 Life after Google Ex employees keep speaking out as they move on Protocol Retrieved February 26 2020 Bensinger Greg October 25 2019 Google CEO in leaked video says company is genuinely struggling with employee trust The Washington Post Retrieved February 26 2020 Google broke US law by firing workers behind protests complaint says The Guardian December 2 2020 Retrieved December 4 2020 Matsakis Louise Koebler Jason Emerson Sarah August 7 2017 Here Are the Citations for the Anti Diversity Manifesto Circulating at Google Vice Retrieved April 17 2019 Wakabayashi Daisuke August 7 2017 Google Fires Engineer Who Wrote Memo Questioning Women in Tech The New York Times via NYTimes com Brooks David August 11 2017 Sundar Pichai Should Resign as Google s C E O The New York Times Archived from the original on August 11 2017 Retrieved August 11 2017 New York Times columnist David Brooks wants Google s CEO to resign Business Insider Archived from the original on August 12 2017 Retrieved August 12 2017 Someone is plastering anti Google ads outside Google s office criticizing CEO Sundar Pichai Business Insider Retrieved August 11 2017 Alt Right Activists Call For Google Boycott After Employee Is Fired For Anti Diversity Paper August 9 2017 Siu Diamond Naga August 16 2017 Organizer puts March on Google on hold after threats Politico Capitol News Company Retrieved April 17 2019 MarchOnGoogle Google is an anti free speech monopoly www marchongoogle com Ghosh Shona March 2 2018 An ex YouTube recruiter claims Google discriminated against white and Asian men then deleted the evidence Business Insider Australia Retrieved March 2 2018 Gerstein Julie June 3 2021 Google removes its head of diversity after a 2007 blog post surfaced in which he claimed Jews have an insatiable appetite for war Business Insider Quinn Michelle Google Workers Walk Out VOA Retrieved November 5 2018 Google paid 35 million to former executive accused of sexual harassment CBS News March 12 2019 Google confirms it agreed to pay 135 million to two execs accused of sexual harassment March 11 2019 Google Workers Launch Worldwide Protests VOA Retrieved November 5 2018 D Onfro Jillian November 3 2018 Google walkouts showed what the new tech resistance looks like with cues from union organizing CNBC Retrieved November 5 2018 Wakabayashi Daisuke Griffith Erin Tsang Amie Conger Kate November 2018 Google Walkout Employees Stage Protest Over Handling of Sexual Harassment The New York Times Retrieved November 5 2018 Lorenz Taylor November 1 2018 The Google Walkout Doesn t Go Far Enough The Atlantic Retrieved November 5 2018 Google Employees Walk Out To Protest Company s Treatment Of Women NPR org Retrieved November 5 2018 Google walkout Employees protest over sexual harassment scandals Retrieved November 5 2018 Burnson Robert Google Settles Job Seekers Age Bias Claims for 11 Million www bloomberg com Bloomberg News Retrieved February 26 2020 Google settles age discrimination class action lawsuit with more than 200 workers for 11 million The Seattle Times July 23 2019 Ghaffary Shirin January 21 2020 San Francisco Pride members voted to ban Google and YouTube from their parade Vox Retrieved February 26 2020 Elias Jennifer February 11 2020 Google s HR head to step down amid tension among employees CNBC Retrieved February 24 2020 Elias Jennifer February 19 2020 Google faces a new investigation into whether it discriminated against a pregnant employee CNBC Retrieved February 26 2020 Mohan Pavithra August 6 2021 For workers alleging discrimination a convoluted bureaucracy awaits Fast Company Retrieved January 27 2022 Mohan Pavithra July 23 2020 Exclusive Ex Google employee Chelsey Glasson sues over alleged pregnancy discrimination Fast Company Retrieved January 27 2022 Dina Bass Google Whistle Blower Says Speaking Out Is Harder Than It Seems Bloomberg Retrieved December 1 2021 Savov Vlad Bass Dina February 20 2022 Google Reaches Undisclosed Settlement in Discrimination Suit Bloomberg News Retrieved February 24 2022 Gupta Alisha Haridasani Tulshyan Ruchika July 28 2021 You re the Problem When They Spoke Up About Misconduct They Were Offered Mental Health Services The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved January 27 2022 Bhuiyan Johana October 9 2021 Welcome to the party five past tech whistleblowers on the pitfalls of speaking out The Guardian Retrieved January 27 2022 Senate Labor Commerce amp Tribal Affairs Committee TVW tvw org January 17 2022 Retrieved January 27 2022 Lapowsky Issie January 18 2022 Ex Google and Apple workers testify in support of Washington s anti NDA bill Protocol Retrieved January 25 2022 Lapowsky Issie March 4 2022 Washington became the second state to pass the Silenced No More Act Protocol Retrieved March 4 2022 Monthly 35 insulin cap for Washingtonians among bills signed into law Friday MyNorthwest com March 7 2022 Retrieved March 19 2022 google nlrb settlement notice sept 2019 pdf Google Docs Retrieved February 29 2020 Scheiber Noam Wakabayashi Daisuke November 20 2019 Google Hires Firm Known for Anti Union Efforts The New York Times Ghaffary Shirin October 21 2019 Google s attempt to shut down a unionization meeting just riled up its employees Vox Ghaffary Shirin September 24 2019 Tech workers have been reluctant to unionize but Google contractors just changed that Vox Google Had Secret Project to Convince Employees That Unions Suck www vice com January 10 2022 Retrieved January 10 2022 Elias Jennifer December 9 2019 Google under investigation for Thanksgiving Four firings allegedly discouraging unions CNBC Retrieved February 26 2020 Breland Ali December 17 2019 Another Google employee says they were fired for backing a union Mother Jones Retrieved February 26 2020 Gurley Lauren Kaori December 17 2019 Google Fired an Engineer Who Wrote Code Telling Googlers They Had a Right to Organize Vice Retrieved February 24 2020 O Connor Emma December 28 2019 Google Fires Another Transgender Employee Activist Working Solutions NYC Retrieved February 26 2020 Xu Vicky Xiuzhong Cave Danielle Leibold James Munro Kelsey Ruser Nathan March 1 2020 Uyghurs for sale Australian Strategic Policy Institute Archived from the original on August 24 2020 Retrieved March 14 2022 Google to end Pentagon Artificial Intelligence project BBC News June 2 2018 Retrieved March 26 2021 Former US Defense Official Says Google Has Stepped Into a Moral Hazard Voice of America June 26 2018 Where in the World Is Larry Page Bloomberg com September 13 2018 The Pentagon must modernize before it s too late The Washington Post September 17 2018 Top U S general urges Google to work with military Reuters December 6 2018 US general has a question for Google Why will you work with China but not us Yahoo Finance December 8 2018 Strand Ginger March 2008 Keyword Evil Harper s Archived from the original on June 27 2012 Retrieved April 25 2019 Online Cloud Services Rely on Coal or Nuclear Power Report Says New York Times Google to enter clean energy business Archived May 15 2008 at the Wayback Machine CNET News November 2007 Google s Next Frontier Renewable Energy New York Times November 2007 Neate Rupert May 5 2010 Google blows 39m into wind power The Daily Telegraph London Archived from the original on January 12 2022 Retrieved May 25 2010 Streitfeld David January 21 2014 Activists Accuse Tech Community of Throwing San Francisco Under the Bus The New York Times Archived from the original on July 9 2018 Retrieved April 17 2019 Gumbel Andrew January 25 2014 San Francisco s guerrilla protest at Google buses swells into revolt The Guardian Retrieved August 31 2014 Is Google DRM crippling culture as great as it seems Ashlee Vance The Register January 8 2006 Google Video robs customers of the videos they own Boing Boing August 10 2007 Retrieved April 17 2019 Dvorak John C August 14 2007 Google Pulls Plug Everyone Misses Point PC Magazine Archived from the original on April 2 2019 Retrieved April 17 2019 Stamoulis Nick March 24 2008 Why Companies Are Upset With Google s Search Within Search SEO Blog Search Engine Optimization Journal Archived from the original on March 29 2008 a b Tedeschi Bob March 24 2008 A New Tool From Google Alarms Sites The New York Times Regan Keith March 24 2008 Google s Search Within Search Draws Scutiny E Commerce Times Francis McCabe fmccabe November 10 2009 Issue 9 go I have already used the name for MY programming language Claburn Thomas November 11 2009 Google Go Name Brings Accusations Of Evil InformationWeek Archived from the original on July 22 2010 Retrieved November 16 2009 Brownlee John November 13 2009 Google didn t google Go before naming their programming language geek com Archived from the original on May 6 2012 Retrieved November 16 2009 Hough Andrew March 19 2010 Google Street View criticised for showing images of secret SAS headquarters The Daily Telegraph Archived from the original on January 12 2022 Retrieved June 24 2017 Google images of Herefordshire SAS HQ irresponsible BBC News BBC March 20 2010 Retrieved June 24 2017 Hough Andrew March 21 2010 Google Street View forced to remove images of secret British security bases The Daily Telegraph Archived from the original on January 12 2022 Retrieved June 24 2017 Roberts Kristin Auchard Eric March 6 2008 Google pulls some map images at Pentagon s request Reuters Thomson Reuters Retrieved June 24 2017 Weinberger Sharon March 7 2008 Pentagon to Google No Street Views Wired Retrieved June 24 2017 Bill de Blasio August 5 2010 Make Google Disclose Office of the New York City Public Advocate Archived from the original on January 23 2011 Retrieved October 3 2013 Jardin Xeni January 23 2020 Google spent 150 million on US lobbying over last decade followed by Facebook at 81M Amazon almost 80M Federal filings Boing Boing Retrieved April 30 2022 Tech giants led by Amazon Facebook and Google spent nearly half a billion on lobbying over the past decade new data shows Washington Post ISSN 0190 8286 Retrieved April 30 2022 Orlowski Andrew Why DOES Google lobby so much The Register July 23 2012 Anatomy of a Washington dinner Who funds the Competitive Enterprise Institute Juliet Eilperin The Washington Post June 20 2013 Retrieved March 22 2014 Dowd Maureen January 11 2017 Confirm or Deny Peter Thiel The New York Times Dayen David April 25 2016 Google s unusually close relationship with the White House raises lots of questions Mashable Retrieved May 3 2016 Google s Remarkably Close Relationship With the Obama White House in Two Charts The Intercept April 22 2016 Retrieved May 10 2016 D Onfro Jillian May 26 2018 Google employees are spending heavily to elect Democrats in California and to flip the House CNBC Retrieved September 6 2018 Pitkin Emil September 6 2018 Alphabet s Political Contributions Capitol Canary Retrieved September 6 2018 Stangel Luke May 25 2018 New data Googlers really want to flip the House blue in the 2018 midterms Silicon Valley Business Journal Retrieved September 6 2018 Solomon Norman October 10 2013 Google Doing Evil with ALEC Daily Kos Retrieved November 8 2013 Surgey Nick December 6 2013 Google Moves Right By Funding ALEC amp Heritage Action The Real News Network Archived from the original on December 8 2013 Retrieved December 6 2013 Johnson Brad September 23 2014 Google Drops American Legislative Exchange Council Over Climate Denial They re Literally Lying Hill Heat Matthews Christopher M July 24 2018 Silicon Valley to Big Oil We Can Manage Your Data Better Than You The Wall Street Journal Retrieved February 24 2020 Total Google Cloud Team Up to Develop Oil Gas AI Solutions www rigzone com Rigzone April 25 2018 Retrieved February 24 2020 a b Blunt Katherine September 13 2018 Google partnership adds momentum to Houston s tech dreams HoustonChronicle com Retrieved February 24 2020 Crooks Ed December 18 2018 Oil producers drill down on data with Google venture Financial Times Retrieved February 24 2020 Kovach Steve February 1 2018 Google s Parent Company Wants to Help Aramco Build a Tech Hub in Saudi Arabia According to Reports Inc com Retrieved February 24 2020 Funes Yessenia January 28 2019 AOC Slams Google Facebook and Microsoft for Sponsoring Conference Promoting Climate Denial Earther Gizmodo Retrieved February 24 2020 Ghaffary Shirin November 4 2019 More than 1 000 Google employees signed a letter demanding the company reduce its carbon emissions Vox Retrieved February 24 2020 Bussewitz Cathy February 7 2022 Report Climate pledges from Amazon others weaker than they seem The Seattle Times The Seattle Times Company Retrieved July 14 2022 Corporate Climate Responsibility Monitor 2022 Assessing the Transparency and Integrity of Companies Emission Reduction and Net Zero Targets PDF Report NewClimate Institute 2022 pp 76 78 Retrieved July 14 2022 Clifford Catherine April 12 2022 Stripe teams up with major tech companies to commit 925 million toward carbon capture CNBC Retrieved July 6 2022 Brigham Katie June 28 2022 Why Big Tech is pouring money into carbon removal CNBC Retrieved July 6 2022 Clifford Catherine January 18 2023 Amazon Meta and Google buy more clean energy than any other companies CNBC Retrieved January 18 2023 Pichai Sundar April 1 2020 Today Google stops funding climate change deniers A Greener Google Google LLC Alphabet Archived from the original on April 5 2020 Retrieved April 12 2020 Don t be April fooled Google did not just swear off funding climate deniers Grist April 1 2020 Retrieved April 20 2020 Time s Person of the Year You Time December 13 2006 Owen Paul November 3 2009 Our top 10 funniest YouTube comments what are yours The Guardian Retrieved February 12 2015 YouTube s worst comments blocked by filter The Daily Telegraph September 2 2008 Rundle Michael April 7 2012 Policing Racism Online Liam Stacey YouTube And The Law Of Big Numbers The Huffington Post Retrieved June 1 2012 Dredge Stuart November 7 2013 YouTube aims to tame the trolls with changes to its comments section The Guardian Retrieved November 16 2013 Hern Alex November 8 2013 YouTube co founder hurls abuse at Google over new YouTube comments The Guardian Retrieved November 16 2013 YouTube Help November 6 2013 Meet the new YouTube comments YouTube Google Inc Archived from the original Video upload on October 30 2014 Retrieved November 16 2013 YouTube Founder Blasts New YouTube Comments Jawed Karim Outraged At Google Plus Requirement Ryan W Neal International Business Times November 8 2013 Retrieved November 9 2013 a b Chase Melvin November 20 2013 YouTube comments require Google account Google faces uproar Newsday subscription required Alternate link Archived December 3 2013 at the Wayback Machine Lardinois Frederic July 27 2015 Google Weans Itself Off Of Google TechCrunch AOL Retrieved June 6 2017 Amadeo Ron July 27 2015 Google officially ends forced Google integration First up YouTube Ars Technica Conde Nast Retrieved June 6 2017 Changes to using YouTube with Google YouTube Help Retrieved June 6 2017 Google joins Facebook in trying to prevent IAMAI from taking strong anti Zero Rating stand MediaNama August 20 2015 Hern Alex April 1 2016 Google disables April fool joke amid user fury after prank backfires The Guardian Vogel Kenneth P August 30 2017 Google Critic Ousted From Think Tank Funded by the Tech Giant The New York Times Retrieved April 7 2018 a b Citizens Against Monopoly citizensagainstmonopoly org Poland s oldest university denies Google s right to patent Polish coding concept Polish Press Agency August 6 2017 Archived from the original on August 20 2017 Retrieved September 3 2017 r programming Google is currently trying to patent video compression application of Asymmetric Numeral Systems which is replacing Huffman and arithmetic coding due to up to 30x speedup reddit June 13 2017 Google Accused of Trying to Patent Public Domain Technology Bleeping Computer September 11 2017 Inventor says Google is patenting work he put in the public domain Arstechnica June 10 2018 After Patent Office Rejection It is Time For Google To Abandon Its Attempt to Patent Use of Public Domain Algorithm Electronic Frontier Foundation August 30 2018 Shaw Joe Graham Mark February 2017 An Informational Right to the City Code Content Control and the Urbanization of Information Antipode 49 4 907 927 doi 10 1111 anti 12312 Sadowski Jathan October 24 2017 Google wants to run cities without being elected Don t let it The Guardian Retrieved October 1 2017 Joe Shaw and Mark Graham February 15 2017 Our Digital Rights to the City meatspacepress org Meatspace Press Morozov Evgeny October 22 2017 Google s plan to revolutionise cities is a takeover in all but name The Guardian Retrieved May 2 2018 Poole Steven December 2014 The truth about smart cities In the end they will destroy democracy The Guardian Retrieved May 9 2018 Vanolo Alberto April 2014 Whose smart city openSecurity openDemocracy Retrieved December 21 2019 Manhire Toby December 13 2018 New Zealand courts banned naming Grace Millane s accused killer Google just emailed it out The Guardian Justice Minister says Google has to be called to account for breaching suppression in Grace Millane case TVNZ Lawyers Ongoing suppression breaches in Grace Millane case endanger trial N Z Herald via Newstalk ZB US application 2016063876 Storytelling Device Company Tried to Patent My Work After a Job Interview Patent Pandas May 14 2018 The dingo er Google stole my patent Biz boss tells how Choc Factory staff tried to rip off idea from interview The Register November 30 2018 a b Copeland Rob WSJ News Exclusive Google s Project Nightingale Gathers Personal Health Data on Millions of Americans WSJ Evans Zachary November 11 2019 Google Gathering Health Care Data on Millions of Americans with Secret Project Nightingale National Review Retrieved December 21 2019 Griggs Mary Beth November 11 2019 Google may be secretly gathering millions of personal health records with alleged Project Nightingale The Verge Google s secret cache of medical data includes names and full details of millions whistleblower The Guardian 2019 Koetsier John YouTube Will Now Show Ads On All Videos Even If Creators Don t Want Them Forbes Updates to YouTube s Terms of Service November 20 YouTube Community Brodkin Jon March 22 2022 Google routinely hides emails from litigation by CCing attorneys DOJ alleges Ars Technica External links Edit Google s Email Service Gmail Sacrifices Privacy for Extra Storage Space Privacy Rights Clearinghouse April 2 2004 Privacy Group Flunks Google Lisa Vaas eWeek com June 12 2007 Who s afraid of Google The Economist August 30 2007 Google Watch Archived 2011 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Criticism of Google amp oldid 1179678795, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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