Baidu’s video site iQiyi adds 37M subscribers in 2018 amid mounting losses

China’s Baidu, which is often compared to Alphabet’s Google, is showing no signs of slowing down its pace of betting on video content as its core advertising unit feels the squeeze from rivals. The company’s latest financial results show its video streaming business iQiyi posted a net loss of 9.1 billion yuan or $1.3 billion in 2018, […]

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Europe agrees platform rules to tackle unfair business practices

The European Union’s political institutions have reached agreement over new rules designed to boost transparency around online platform businesses and curb unfair practices to support traders and other businesses that rely on digital intermediaries for discovery and sales. The European Commission proposed a regulation for fairness and transparency in online platform trading last April. And late yesterday […]

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A simple bug makes it easy to spoof Google search results into spreading misinformation

A bug that anyone can easily exploit in Google makes it easy to kick out manipulated search results that look entirely real. The search manipulation bug was documented by Wietze Beukema, a London-based security specialist, who warned that a malicious user could use this bug to generate misinformation. This is done by splicing together values […]

View More A simple bug makes it easy to spoof Google search results into spreading misinformation

A simple bug makes it easy to spoof Google search results into spreading misinformation

A bug that anyone can easily exploit in Google makes it easy to kick out manipulated search results that look entirely real. The search manipulation bug was documented by Wietze Beukema, a London-based security specialist, who warned that a malicious user could use this bug to generate misinformation. This is done by splicing together values […]

View More A simple bug makes it easy to spoof Google search results into spreading misinformation

Duck.com now points to DuckDuckGo, not Google

Non-tracking search engine, DuckDuckGo, is now a little easier to find online after the company acquired the premium generic domain name  duck.com — thereby shaving a few letters off its usual URL. This means browsing to duck.com now automatically redirects to DuckDuckGo .com. The twist in this tale is that duck.com’s prior owner was Google. […]

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Google CEO won’t rule out relaunching in China

Members of the House Judiciary committee have today closely questioned Google’s CEO about the company’s intentions in China, following reports this summer it’s planning a controversial return to the market despite local censorship of Internet services. Mountain View pulled its search engine out of China back in 2010, under pressure over censored search results. It also cited cyber […]

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Google ‘incognito’ search results still vary from person to person, DDG study finds

A study of Google search results by anti-tracking rival DuckDuckGo has suggested that escaping the so-called ‘filter bubble’ of personalized online searches is a perniciously hard problem for the put upon Internet consumer who just wants to carve out a little unbiased space online, free from the suggestive taint of algorithmic fingers. DDG reckons it’s […]

View More Google ‘incognito’ search results still vary from person to person, DDG study finds

Europe eyeing bot IDs, ad transparency and blockchain to fight fakes

European Union lawmakers want online platforms to come up with their own systems to identify bot accounts. This is as part of a voluntary Code of Practice the European Commission now wants platforms to develop and apply — by this summer — as part of a wider package of proposals it’s put out which are […]

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Google is surfacing Texas shooter misinformation in search results — thanks also to Twitter

 Google has once again been called out for algorithmically encouraging the spread of dubious, politically charged speculation and misinformation around a topical news event. Read More

View More Google is surfacing Texas shooter misinformation in search results — thanks also to Twitter