Reuters: Tencent’s WeChat makes content searchable on Google and Bing. “Content from China’s most popular messaging app WeChat, including articles and videos on its popular public accounts page, a function similar to a news portal, has opened to external search engines, other than Tencent’s own Sogou search engine, in recent days.”
Business Insider: Google worked with Facebook to undermine Apple’s attempts to offer its users greater privacy protections, complaint alleges. “Google worked with Facebook to undermine Apple’s attempts to offer its users great privacy protections, 12 state attorneys general alleged in an update to an antitrust lawsuit against the search engine.”
Mashable: 4 things to know before googling health issues. “As we come up on its two-year anniversary, the pandemic could still do some good — if we take the time and energy to learn from it. To start, three medical experts share what they would advise their own patients to do while searching for health information online.”
Government of Canada: Competition Bureau obtains court order to advance an investigation of Google. “The Bureau is investigating whether Google has engaged in certain practices that harm competition in the online display advertising industry in Canada. This industry is made up of various technology products that are used to display advertisements to users when they visit websites or use apps.”
CNET: Google moves forward with Matter for smart home developers. “At the Google Smart Home Developer Summit today, the company announced new tools and features for developers ready to jump into building devices compatible with Matter, the open smart home application protocol promising to serve as a new, universal language for the connected home.”
Harvard Gazette: Are Google and smartphones degrading our memories?. “Harvard psychologist updates influential book with latest in research on ability to recall.”
The Register: Not just deprecated, but deleted: Google finally strips File Transfer Protocol code from Chrome browser. “The Chromium team has finally done it – File Transfer Protocol (FTP) support is not just deprecated, but stripped from the codebase in the latest stable build of the Chrome browser, version 95.”
ZDNet: This new Google Docs feature will let you add a lot more stuff to your documents. “Google has announced the Docs ‘universal @ menu’ as a way for adding everything from tables, images, to formatting by typing ‘@’. This feature is an expansion of existing ‘smart chips’ integrations. Google earlier this year launched smart chips, a new @ tag tool for linking information from other Workspace apps to a Docs file. It’s Google’s bid to change the word-processing experience.”
CNET: Google cuts subscription-based service fees for Play Store apps in half . “Effective Jan. 1, Google is decreasing the service fee it collects from subscription-based apps in the Play Store from 30% to 15%, the company announced Thursday via its blog for Android developers. The new rate will be effective for all apps on day one, the announcement reads — that’s a change from the current structure, which requires subscription-based apps to retain their customers for a year in order to enjoy a lower rate.”
Washington Post: New political ad strategy in Virginia: Promoting news articles in Google search results. “Democratic Virginia governor candidate Terry McAuliffe’s campaign is using Google ads to promote articles from news organizations, but swapping the original headlines on the search results page with ones written by the campaign itself — a novel political advertising method.”
Google Blog: Chopin Forever: a digital retrospective on Google Arts & Culture. “Did you know that Chopin was a child star? He was writing and composing poetry at the age of 6, and performed his first public concerto at the age of 7. By the time he was 12, Chopin had already performed in the drawing rooms of countless Polish aristocrats and created multiple original compositions This is just a snippet of what you’ll discover through ‘Chopin Forever’, an original online retrospective dedicated to the life, legacy and music of Chopin — brought to life through a collaboration between The Fryderyk Chopin Institute, twelve partners in 6 different countries and Google Arts & Culture.”
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau: CFPB Orders Tech Giants to Turn Over Information on their Payment System Plans. “Today, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued a series of orders to collect information on the business practices of large technology companies operating payments systems in the United States. The information will help the CFPB better understand how these firms use personal payments data and manage data access to users so the Bureau can ensure adequate consumer protection.”
Google Blog: Google for Creators: Helping creators learn and grow. “Google for Creators shows how the web can become part of your content mix. A quick quiz on the homepage provides personalized recommendations with topics most relevant to you. So if you’re just getting started, the quiz might recommend that you check out guides for finding a niche or creating a content strategy. Or if you’re a more seasoned creator, you might see recommendations for learning how to grow your audience and make more money.”
The Conversation: The easy way to rein in Facebook and Google: stop them gobbling up competitors. “Their future is largely in our hands. For big tech companies able to use the weight of their networks (and only for those companies) we could ‘just say no’ to takeovers. It’s hard to think of a reason for one to proceed. If needed, we could change the law to make ‘no’ the default.”
