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Department of Justice: Google must sell Chrome to end its monopoly

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Google corporate logo hangs outside the Google Germany offices

The U.S. Department of Justice argued Wednesday that Google should sell its Chrome browser as part of a countermeasure to break the corporate’s illegal monopoly on online search, according to a filing with the Justice Department. United States District Court for the District of Columbia. If the answer proposed by the Department of Justice is approved, Google won’t have the option to re-enter the search marketplace for five years.

Ultimately, it’ll be District Court Judge Amit Mehta who will determine what the ultimate punishment for Google might be. This decision could fundamentally change one of the most important firms on the planet and alter the structure of the Internet as we understand it. This phase of the method is anticipated to begin sometime in 2025.

In August, Judge Mehta ruled that Google constituted an illegal monopoly since it abused its power within the search industry. The judge also questioned Google’s control over various web gateways and the corporate’s payments to third parties to maintain its status because the default search engine.

The Department of Justice’s latest filing says Google’s ownership of Android and Chrome, that are key distribution channels for its search business, poses a “significant challenge” to remediation to ensure a competitive search market.

The Justice Department has proposed other remedies to address the search engine giant’s monopoly, including Google spinning off its Android mobile operating system. The filing indicated that Google and other partners may oppose the spin-off and suggested stringent countermeasures, including ending the use of Android to the detriment of search engine competitors. The Department of Justice has suggested that if Google doesn’t impose restrictions on Android, it must be forced to sell it.

Prosecutors also argued that the corporate must be barred from stepping into exclusionary third-party agreements with browser or phone firms, resembling Google’s agreement with Apple to be the default search engine on all Apple products.

The Justice Department also argued that Google should license its search data, together with ad click data, to competitors.

Additionally, the Department of Justice also set conditions prohibiting Google from re-entering the browser market five years after the spin-off of Chrome. Additionally, it also proposed that after the sale of Chrome, Google mustn’t acquire or own any competing ad text search engine, query-based AI product, or ad technology. Moreover, the document identifies provisions that allow publishers to opt out of Google using their data to train artificial intelligence models.

If the court accepts these measures, Google will face a serious setback as a competitor to OpenAI, Microsoft and Anthropic in AI technology.

Google’s answer

In response, Google said the Department of Justice’s latest filing constitutes a “radical interventionist program” that may harm U.S. residents and the country’s technological prowess on the planet.

“The Department of Justice’s wildly overblown proposal goes far beyond the Court’s decision. “It would destroy the entire range of Google products – even beyond search – that people love and find useful in their everyday lives,” said Google’s president of global affairs and chief legal officer Kent Walker. blog post.

Walker made additional arguments that the proposal would threaten user security and privacy, degrade the standard of the Chrome and Android browsers, and harm services resembling Mozilla Firefox, which depends upon Google’s search engine.

He added that if the proposal is adopted, it could make it tougher for people to access Google search. Moreover, it could hurt the corporate’s prospects within the AI ​​race.

“The Justice Department’s approach would lead to unprecedented government overreach that would harm American consumers, developers and small businesses and threaten America’s global economic and technological leadership at precisely the moment when it is needed most,” he said.

The company is to submit a response to the above request next month.

Wednesday’s filing confirms earlier reports that prosecutors were considering getting Google to spin off Chrome, which controls about 61% of the U.S. browser market. According to to the StatCounter web traffic service.

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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Snowflake acquires data management company Datavolo

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The Snowflake Inc logo, which represents the American cloud computing-based data company that offers cloud-based storage and analytics services, is being displayed on their pavilion at the Mobile World Congress 2024 in Barcelona, Spain, on February 28, 2024.

Cloud giant Snowflake has agreed to take over Datavoloa company managing the data pipeline, for an undisclosed amount.

Snowflake announced the deal on Wednesday after the market bell closed, while reporting its third-quarter 2025 earnings. The purchase has not yet closed and is subject to customary closing conditions, Snowflake noted wa release.

Joseph Witt and Luke Roquet, who met while working together at Hortonworks, founded Datavolo in 2023. Witt was previously a vp at Cloudera, and Roquet was Cloudera’s chief marketing officer and, before that, director of business development at AWS.

Datavolo uses Apache NiFi, an open source data processing project developed by the NSA, to power a platform to automate data flow between disparate enterprise data sources. Data “processors” extract, cleanse, transform and enrich data, including for generative use of artificial intelligence.

With Datavolo having raised $21 million in enterprise capital from investors including Citi Ventures and General Catalyst prior to the acquisition, Snowflake CEO Sridhar Ramaswamy envisions creating more comprehensive data pipelines for Snowflake customers. For example, he says Datavolo can enable users to interchange single-use data connectors with flexible pipelines that allow them to maneuver data from cloud and on-premises sources to Snowflake’s data cloud.

“By bringing Datavolo to Snowflake, we are increasing the amount of data captured by Snowflake over the lifecycle, providing our customers with both simplicity and cost savings, without sacrificing data extensibility,” Ramaswamy said in a press release. “We are thrilled to have the Datavolo team join Snowflake as we accelerate the best platform for enterprise data – unstructured and structured, batch and streaming – and committed to the success of the open source community.”

Witt says Snowflake will support and help manage the Apache NiFi project after the acquisition closes. “Data engineering at scale can be extremely expensive and complex, and our goal has always been to simplify our customers’ experiences so they can realize value faster,” he added within the press release. “By joining forces with Snowflake, we can deliver the massive scale and radical simplicity of the Snowflake platform to our customers, ultimately unlocking data engineering for more users.”

Thanks partly to artificial intelligence, demand for data management technologies has increased. Fortune’s business insights estimates that the worldwide enterprise data management market could possibly be price $224.87 billion by 2032.

However, data management has been a challenge for enterprises long before the substitute intelligence boom. According to in a 2022 survey by Great Hopetions, a data quality platform, 91% of organizations said data quality issues impact their performance.

Against this backdrop, it isn’t surprising that firms like Datavolo are gaining prominence.

Today was a giant day for Snowflake who reported better-than-expected earnings sent the company’s shares up 19%. In addition to the acquisition of Snowflake, the company announced a multi-year partnership with Anthropic to integrate the startup’s AI models into Snowflake’s Cortex AI, Snowflake Intelligence and Cortex Analyst products.

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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Federal prosecutors have charged another Forbes 30 Under 30 alum with fraud

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Studio image of a padlock on top of a credit cardchampagne coloured background, could symbolize ideas around encryption, credit card safety, security and passwords

FBI yesterday he unveiled the indictment which accused Joanna Smith-Griffin, founding father of the bogus intelligence startup AllHere Education, of engaging in “securities fraud, wire fraud and aggravated identity theft in connection with defrauding investors” of nearly $10 million. The FBI alleges that from a minimum of November 2020 through June 2024, she misrepresented her company’s revenue, customer base and money to investors.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, the corporate is in Chapter 7 bankruptcy. If convicted, Smith-Griffin faces prison sentences that include a maximum sentence of 20 years for securities fraud, a maximum sentence of 20 years for wire fraud, and a compulsory sentence two years for a professional identity thief. Smith-Griffin couldn’t be reached for comment.

The Forbes 30 Under 30 list has change into a meme over the past few years as several winners have been accused of fraud. The The Forbes-for-scam pipeline includes FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried and Caroline Ellison, co-CEO of (*30*) Research; Fintech founder Frank, Charlie Javice, and “Pharma bro” Martin Shkreli.

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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UK open to banning social media for children as government launches feasibility study

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The UK government just isn’t ruling out further tightening existing web safety rules by adding an Australian social media ban for under-16s, Technology Secretary Peter Kyle has said.

The government warned in the summertime that it could tighten rules on tech platforms within the wake of unrest that was deemed to be sparked by online disinformation following a stabbing attack that left three young girls dead.

It has since emerged that a few of those charged within the riots are minors, increasing concerns in regards to the impact of social media on impressionable, developing minds.

I’m talking to Today program on BBC Radio 4 on Wednesday, Kyle was asked whether the government would ban people under 16 from using social media. He responded by saying, “Everything is on the table for me.”

Kyle was interviewed as the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) presented its position priorities for enforcing the Internet Safety Act (OSA), which Parliament adopted last yr.

OSA targets a big selection of online harms, from cyberbullying and hate speech to the usage of intimate images, deceptive promoting and cruelty to animalsand British lawmakers say they need to make the country the safest place on this planet to use the web. While child protection was the strongest factor, lawmakers responded to concerns that children were accessing harmful and inappropriate content.

DSIT’s Statement of Strategic Priorities continues this theme by placing child safety at the highest of the list.

Strategic Internet security priorities

Here are DSIT’s five priorities for OSA in full:

1. Safety by design: Integrate security by design to ensure a secure online experience for all users, but especially children, combat violence against women and girls, and work to ensure there aren’t any secure havens for illegal content and activities, including fraud, child sexual exploitation and child abuse and illegal disinformation.

2. Transparency and accountability: Ensure industry transparency and accountability from platforms to deliver online safety outcomes, promoting greater trust and expanding the evidence base to provide safer user experiences.

3. Agile regulation: Ensure a versatile approach to regulation by providing a sturdy framework for monitoring and addressing emerging harms – such as AI-generated content.

4. Inclusion and resilience: Create an inclusive, informed and vibrant digital world that’s resilient to potential harm, including disinformation.

5. Technology and innovation: Supporting innovation in web security technologies to improve user safety and drive development.

The mention of “illegal disinformation” is interesting since the last government removed clauses from the bill that focused on this area somewhat than free speech issues.

In ministerial attacker In an accompanying statement, Kyle also wrote:

“A particular area of ​​concern for the government is the enormous amount of misinformation and disinformation that users may encounter online. Platforms should have robust policies and tools in place to minimize such content where it relates to their obligations under the Act. Combating disinformation and disinformation is a challenge for services, given the need to preserve legitimate debate and freedom of expression on the Internet. However, the growing presence of disinformation poses a unique threat to our democratic processes and social cohesion in the UK that must be vigorously countered. Services should also respond to emerging information threats, providing the flexibility to respond quickly and decisively and minimize harmful effects on users, especially vulnerable groups.”

DSIT’s intervention may have an impact on how Ofcom enforces the law, requiring it to report on the government’s priorities.

For over a yr, Ofcom, the regulatory body tasked with supervising the compliance of online platforms and services with the OSA, has been preparing for the implementation of the OSA by consulting and developing detailed guidelines, including: in areas such as age verification technology.

Enforcement of the regime is predicted to start next spring when Ofcom actively takes over the powers, which could lead to financial penalties of up to 10% of worldwide annual turnover on technology corporations that fail to comply with their legal duty of care.

“I want to look at the evidence,” Kyle said in an interview with children and on social media, pointing to the simultaneous launch of a “feasibility study” that he said “will look at areas where the evidence is lacking.”

According to DSIT, this study “will examine the impact of smartphone and social media use on children to help strengthen the research and evidence needed to build a safer online world.”

“There are assumptions about the impact of social media on children and young people, but there is no solid, peer-reviewed evidence,” Kyle also told the BBC, suggesting that any UK ban on children using social media have to be evidence-based.

During an interview with the BBC’s Emma Barnett, Kyle was also pressed about what the government is doing to close loopholes he believes were previously present in web safety laws. In response, he signaled the introduction of a change that requires platforms to be more proactive in combating the abuse of intimate images.

Combating abuse related to intimate images

IN September DSIT has announced that it recognizes the non-consensual sharing of intimate images as a “priority offense” under the OSA – requiring social media and other covered platforms and services to clamp down on abuse or face heavy financial penalties.

“This move effectively increases the seriousness of the offense of sharing intimate images under the Online Safety Act, so platforms must proactively remove content and prevent it from appearing in the first place,” confirmed DSIT spokesman Glen Mcalpine.

In further comments to the BBC, Kyle said the change means social media corporations must use algorithms to prevent the upload of intimate photos in the primary place.

“They had to actively display to our regulator Ofcom that the algorithms would prevent the spread of this material in the primary place. And if the photo did appear on the Internet, it must have been removed as quickly as could reasonably be expected after receiving the warning,” he said, warning of “heavy penalties” for non-compliance.

“This is one area where you can see that harm is being prevented, rather than leaking into society and then dealing with it, which was the case before,” he added. “Now thousands of women are now protected – prevented from being degraded, humiliated and sometimes pushed towards suicidal thoughts because of this one power I introduced.”

This article was originally published on : techcrunch.com
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