SUNDAR PICHAI

An anti-vaccine mandate manifesto is circulating around the company as deadline nears.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai and cloud head Thomas Kurian were asked about the company's pursuit of a major government contract at last week's virtual TGIF meeting.

Analysts applauded Microsoft for accelerating cloud growth in constant currency, and they liked that Google isn't getting hit hard by Apple privacy changes.

Two Google recruiters hosted a CV workshop for graduates, and gave four key resume tips for for the company's 2022 internship program.

Alphabet's advertising revenue is increasing as businesses reopen from the pandemic and spending returns.

Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the company's offices are seeing 50% in New York.

House lawmakers are threatening to seek a criminal investigation of Amazon, saying the tech giant has a “final chance” to correct previous testimony by executives on its competition practices.

Searching for flights on Google just got “greener.”.

With the suite of product updates, Google hopes to make sustainability the easier choice, said CEO Sundar Pichai.

Google is planning to buy New York’s St. John’s Terminal for $2.1 billion, making it the anchor of its Hudson Square campus.

Google is edging closer to rolling out its own central processing units for its Chromebook laptops, according to a report from Nikkei Asia.

Google is once again postponing a return to the office for most workers until mid-January.

This marks the company's third delay on returning workers to office, and comes as the highly contagious delta variant of Covid-19 spreads.

The combative post-Snowden relationship with government appears to have mellowed at a meeting last week. Should we be worried about what they might all do together?

Some of the country’s leading technology companies have committed to investing billions of dollars to strengthen cybersecurity defenses and to train skilled workers.

Larry Page and Sergey Brin last sold shares in 2017, when their last plan expired. Since then, the stock price has nearly tripled.

The company will continue to evaluate its approach outside of the U.S.

Employment website Indeed moved its return-to-office date to January 2022, citing the rise of new strains of the virus.

Some employers are moving their return-to-office dates to January 2022, citing the rise of new strains of the virus.

Facebook said Zuckerberg's security costs rose due to the US presidential election, and several companies reported increased costs from the shift to remote work.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the company is extending its office return for employees until Oct. 18 amid the latest Covid-19 outbreaks. In an email to employees Wednesday, Pichai also said the company will require anyone coming to the office to be vaccinated, beginning in the U.S. in coming weeks. Previously, employees were able to voluntarily return to offices until September. Pichai said the company will monitor the data carefully and let employees know at least 30 days in advance before transitioning into our full return to office plans. "Seeing Googlers together in the offices these past few weeks filled me with optimism, and I'm looking forward to brighter days ahead," he added.

Google is postponing its plans to bring most of its workers back to the office until mid-October.

Google is postponing a return to the office for most workers until mid-October and rolling out a policy that will eventually require everyone to be vaccinated once its sprawling campuses are fully reopened in an attempt to fight the spreading Delta variant. In a Wednesday email sent to Google's more than 130,000 employees, CEO Sundar Pichai said the company is now aiming to have most of its workforce back to its offices beginning Oct. 18 instead of its previous target date of Sept. 1. The decision also affects tens of thousands of contractors who Google intends to continue to pay while access to its campuses remains limited.

It comes one year after the company's first-ever annualized revenue decline in Q2 2020.

"It's a long shot, it stresses me out in terms of how to get there," Google CEO Sundar Pichai says of the company's climate change goals.

Not just billionaires but private companies and a growing number of nations are, somewhat abruptly, competing to get into space.

Sundar Pichai says AI will change the world - and defends Google's record on tax, privacy and data.

France's competition watchdog has fined Google 220 million euros ($268 million) for abusing its market power in the online advertising industry.

The change revolves around the Android Advertising ID, a unique string of characters that can identify devices.

At the first Google IO since 2019, the company highlighted advances in AI, shopping tools, and collaboration, including Starline, a 3D hologram conferencing prototype.

Tech companies that signed onto the brief include Adobe, Amazon, Apple, Electronic Arts, eBay, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, PayPal, Reddit, StubHub and Twitter.

More than a year into telework, the tech giant has said 60% of its employees will work remotely two days a week. Twenty percent will work from home permanently.

Google says that it expects about 20% of its workforce to still work remotely after the pandemic.

In an email, chief executive Sundar Pichai suggests working three days in the office is the way forward.

Also on Thursday, Morgan Stanley upped its price target on the stock to $2,350, which implies 15% upside from Friday morning's $2,036 and would mark a new all-time high. Alphabet's technical chart seems to support further upside, Newton Advisors founder and President Mark Newton told CNBC on Thursday. Despite some possible near-term pressure from regulatory crackdowns, Newton expects Alphabet to breach its early February all-time highs in due time. "Technology is going to come under increasing pressure from both the left and the right in the months to come," Newton said. Alphabet found another fan in Nancy Tengler, chief investment officer of Laffer Tengler Investments.

House lawmakers promised that stricter regulations on social media platforms are now inevitable as CEOs from Facebook, Twitter and Google faced intense scrutiny from Democrats and Republicans like at a hearing on Thursday. The hearing was aimed at addressing misinformation that spread on the social media platforms and contributed to the January 6 riot at the Capitol. Pallone Jr. and Republican Congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers both criticized the social media companies' use of algorithms to curate content and suggest posts for users to engage with. McMorris Rodgers said the algorithms used by social platforms are harmful for the mental health of children and added that she doesn't want artificial intelligence manipulating kids. Zuckerberg fired back saying the claims that algorithms feed users content to make them angry is not true.

Scott Applewhite)WASHINGTON – The latest news from a House committee questioning the CEOs of Facebook, Google and Twitter. ___2:30 p.m.Rep. Steve Scalise, a Louisiana Republican, raised the long-running conservative talking point that Twitter, Facebook and Google are biased against conservative viewpoints and censor material based on political or religious viewpoints. Scalise highlighted Twitter’s blocking of a New York Post article on Hunter Biden, which CEO Jack Dorsey said was a mistake that the company corrected within 24 hours. AdThis would include product vice presidents of integrity, trust and safety and vice presidents of platform policy — at Facebook, Twitter, YouTube (rather than Google, which owns YouTube) and perhaps an upstart like TikTok. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and Sundar Pichai, CEO of YouTube parent Google, are facing questioning at a hearing by the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

Please refresh the page if you do not see a player above at that time.] The CEOs of Facebook, Twitter and Google return to Congress on Thursday to address the spread of misinformation on their platforms. At stake is the legal shield that protects their platforms from being held liable for their users' posts, known as Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg plans to offer his own suggestion, according to his written testimony, which some members of Congress have already dismissed as self-interested. Google CEO Sundar Pichai plans to express his concern over the existing proposals to change the foundational internet law.

Republicans raised long-running conservative grievances, unproven, that the platforms are biased against conservative viewpoints and censor material based on political or religious viewpoints. There is increasing support in Congress for legislation to rein in Big Tech companies. The tech CEOs defended the legal shield under Section 230, saying it has helped make the internet the forum of free expression that it is today. Trump enjoyed special treatment on Facebook and Twitter until January, despite spreading misinformation, pushing false claims of voting fraud, and promulgating hate. The tech blog Gizmodo eventually revealed the device was a “BlockClock” that shows the latest prices of cryptocurrencies like bitcoin and ethereum.

A coalition of 12 state attorneys general on Wednesday called on Facebook and Twitter to enforce their community guidelines and rid their services of misinformation being spread by accounts promoting anti-vaccine ideas. "Misinformation disseminated via your platforms has increased vaccine hesitancy, which will slow economic recovery and, more importantly, ultimately cause even more unnecessary deaths," the coalition of attorneys general wrote in a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey. The coalition highlights that just 12 accounts and their associated organizations are responsible for 65% of the public anti-vaccine content on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. In particular, the accounts target people of color to discourage them from getting the Covid-19 vaccines, the letter said. The letter comes a day before Zuckerberg, Dorsey and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai are set to testify before the House Energy and Commerce Committee on the topic of misinformation on their services.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai speaks on stage during the annual Google I/O developers conference in Mountain View, California, May 8, 2018. Last week, Google CEO Sundar Pichai sent an email to employees noting the Atlanta shootings' effect on the company's large Asian population. "I know the effects of the hateful violence reach way beyond Atlanta," Pichai stated in a companywide email sent last week. Pichai sent the email after a shooting spree in Georgia last week killed eight people, including six Asian women, which spurred nationwide protests over the weekend. Countries including the U.S. have seen a rise in discrimination and violence against members of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities during the Covid-19 pandemic.

More than two-thirds of the groups and pages had names that aligned with several domestic extremist movements, the report found. Facebook acknowledged that its policy enforcement “isn't perfect,” but said the report distorts its work against violent extremism and misinformation. In October, it banned QAnon groups across its platform. It has also banned extremist and militia movements and boogaloo groups with varying degrees of success. ___This story has been corrected to show that the groups were still active on the platform as of Feb. 24, not March 18.

“I believe a lasting economic recovery will come from local communities, and the people and small businesses that give them life,” Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google and its parent company Alphabet, said in a news release. “Google wants to be a part of that recovery. That’s why we plan to invest over $7 billion in offices and data centers across the U.S. and create at least 10,000 new full-time Google jobs in the U.S. this year.”

Google says it plans to spend more than $7 billion on real estate across the U.S. in 2021 as it resumes spending in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. The company said the money will go toward expanding offices and data centers across 19 states, creating what will amount to at least 10,000 full-time jobs. The company broke out operating results for that business in its last earnings report, revealing that it lost $5.61 billion on $13.06 billion revenue last year. Pichai previously said Google wouldn't adopt a permanent remote work plan, expecting most employees to show up to assigned offices three days a week starting in September. Watch Now: Google extends remote work, rejects permanent remote work

They cited figures from Jounce Media, estimating that 40% of the money flowing from advertisers to publishers on the open internet go through Google's ad buying tools. The Trade DeskKeyBanc analysts said The Trade Desk will contest changes to Google's Chrome browser if it restricts the use of alternative identifiers. The Trade Desk passed last month control of Unified ID 2.0 to a nonprofit called Prebid. Macquarie analysts said Wednesday the announcement appears to restrict the ability of The Trade Desk to buy ads using IDs on Google's exchange or supply-side platform. In a blog post responding to the news, LiveRamp said Google's announcement is in line with what it's been advocating.

The CEOs of several big tech companies will again testify before Congress next month, this time to discuss misinformation on their platforms. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey will appear before members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee on March 25. Of the three, Zuckerberg has made the most appearances before Congress in just the past year. The March hearing will mark his fourth time testifying before Congress since July. Last year, Zuckerberg and Pichai both appeared before lawmakers for hearings probing their competitive behavior and questioning the liability shield that protects their industry.

It's a question dividing proponents and critics of the proposed Australian law: does it effectively make Google and Facebook “pay for clicks” and might it be the beginning of the end of free access? The battle is being watched closely in the European Union, where officials and lawmakers are drafting sweeping new digital regulations. Google contends the law does require it to pay for clicks. Google has reacted to the threat of compulsory arbitration by stepping up negotiations on licensing content agreements with Australian media companies through its own News Showcase model. Google has reached pay deals with more than 450 publications globally since it launched News Showcase in October.

“In response to Australian government legislation, Facebook restricts the posting of news links and all posts from news Pages in Australia. “Facebook’s actions were unnecessary, they were heavy-handed and they will damage its reputation here in Australia,” Frydenberg said. Major Australian media organization Seven West Media reached a deal earlier in the week. who have had their Facebook pages blocked, that’s a public safety issue,” Fletcher said. Some non-Australian outlets also appeared affected, with posts disappearing from Facebook pages belonging to Britain's Daily Telegraph and Sky News.

(AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)CANBERRA – Google is striking deals in Australia to pay for journalism but Facebook is vowing to restrict news sharing as Australian lawmakers consider forcing digital giants into payment agreements. These are good deals for the Australian media businesses,” he added. Google and Facebook, which take a combined 81% of online advertising in Australia, have condemned the code as unworkable. Google did not provide the terms of its News Corp. deal Wednesday. AdThe Australian deals with Google are being negotiated under Google’s own model, News Showcase.

(AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)CANBERRA – Australia’s government said on Tuesday it will amend draft laws that would make Google and Facebook pay for news to clarify that publishers would be paid in lump sums rather than per click on news article links. “On face value, the amendments keep the integrity of the media code intact,” the center’s director Peter Lewis said in a statement. Google and Facebook, which take a combined 81% of online advertising in Australia, have condemned the bill as unworkable. Google has threatened to make its search engine unavailable in Australia if the code were introduced. Seven West Media on Monday became the largest Australian news media business to strike a deal with Google to pay for journalism.

Google and Facebook are "very close" to deals with major Australian media to pay for news, a top government official said Monday, as the tech giants scramble to avoid landmark regulation, according to AFP. Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said talks with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Google CEO Sundar Pichai had made "great progress" in resolving a standoff being closely watched around the world, the news agency reported. Australia is poised to adopt legislation that would force digital companies to pay for news content, something that would create a global precedent and, according to Facebook and Google, wreck the way the internet works. Seven West Media has become the largest Australian news media business to strike a deal with Google to pay for journalism. The announcement also follows weekend discussions between Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Alphabet Inc. and its subsidiary Google.

Kerry Stokes, chairman of Seven West Media, which owns 21 publications, thanked the government and the Australian competition regulator for their proposed law that the Parliament will consider Tuesday. Google has reached pay deals with more than 450 publications globally since News Showcase was launched in October. Neither Google nor Seven West Media mentioned how much the deal was worth. “If it goes through as is, it will be very beneficial for Australian media,” Barnet said of the code. Seven West Media said it will release more details about the deal after those details are finalized within 30 days.

The feature will sit in the Google News mobile app and Google Discover, which is a feed curated by Google on mobile devices containing articles and videos. When users click on the extracts in the Google News app or on Google Discover they'll be taken to the full article on the publisher's site. "Google News Showcase, our new product experience and licensing program for news, will begin rolling out with local, national and independent publishers in the U.K.," said Ronan Harris, vice president and managing director at Google U.K. and Ireland, in a blog Wednesday. This feature will give readers the opportunity to read more of a publisher's content than they would otherwise have access to, while enabling publishers to encourage readers to become a subscriber." Worldwide, Google has convinced 450 news publications to produce content for Google News Showcase.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison also welcomed the support of Google rival Microsoft, which has touted Australia’s proposed laws that would make Google and Facebook pay as an example for the rest of the world. Google regional director Mel Silva told a Senate hearing last month that the company would likely make its search engine unavailable in Australia if the so-called News Media Bargaining Code forced Google and Facebook to pay for Australian news. While Google and Facebook have condemned the legislation as unworkable, Microsoft President Brad Smith said his business would be willing to pay for news if its search engine increased Australian market share. The law would initially only apply to Google and Facebook, but the government could add other platforms in the future if Google abandoned Australia. AdAlthough Bing is Australia’s second most popular search engine, it has only a 3.6% market share.

SINGAPORE — Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Thursday he had a "constructive meeting" with Google chief Sundar Pichai after the tech giant threatened to pull its search engine from the country over a potential new law. Essentially, Australia wants internet giants Facebook and Google, a subsidiary of Alphabet, to pay for news. If passed, the new media bargaining code would require the digital platforms to pay local media outlets and publishers to link their content in news feeds or search results. "I thought it was a constructive meeting," Morrison told reporters Thursday, according to the transcript of a press conference posted by his office. Morrison said Google raised specific aspects of the media bargaining code on the call and the discussions touched on the company's ability to continue providing services in Australia.

Mark Zuckerberg (R) is about to surpass Jeff Bezos as the world's fifth richest man. Getty ImagesWhen Amazon's Jeff Bezos steps down as CEO later this year, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg will be the last founding CEO left at any of the big tech companies. Now Amazon is shifting from founder Bezos to Andy Jassy, a long-time Amazon employee who built up AWS, the company's cloud-computing business. Unlike these other leaders -- including Bezos -- Zuckerberg holds an absolute majority of voting power over Facebook shares. Tech giants have fared well after replacing foundersApple, Microsoft and Alphabet have all seen their revenues and stock price grow with their newest leaders.

"As much as I still tap dance into the office, I'm excited about this transition," Bezos said in his internal announcement. Being the CEO of Amazon is a deep responsibility, and it's consuming. Industry CEOs and Amazon competitors congratulated Bezos and Jassy on the coming transition, with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella calling Jassy's promotion "well-deserved." Here's the full letter from Bezos to Amazon employees:Fellow Amazonians:I'm excited to announce that this Q3 I'll transition to Executive Chair of the Amazon Board and Andy Jassy will become CEO. Andy is well known inside the company and has been at Amazon almost as long as I have.

LONDON — The U.K. competition regulator has announced that it plans to investigate changes that Google intends to make to its Chrome web browser. Google has said it plans to phase out cookies from its widely-used Chrome browser by 2022 through a group of changes known as a Privacy Sandbox. The CMA has the power to fine Google up to 10% of its annual revenue if it finds that it has broken U.K. competition laws. Around 80% of the £14 billion ($19 billion) of U.K. spending on digital ads in 2019 went to Google and Facebook, the CMA said last July. Google has a more-than 90% share of the search advertising market in the U.K., according to the regulator, while Facebook controls more than 50% of the display advertising sector.

Alphabet employees have long clashed with the company's executives and pushed for change, and its mobilizing efforts, while large, are usually short-lived. Now, Alphabet's Workers Union is hoping it can be a catalyst for change and create long-lasting effects. The union, supported by the Communications Workers of America, was announced Monday after years of long-standing tension between executives and employees and contractors of all ranks. In 2018, Google employees wrote a letter to CEO Sundar Pichai asking him to end a partnership between Google and the Pentagon. "There are all of these other examples of workers coming together and really successfully mobilizing tens of thousands of people and demanding change," Koul said.

FILE - This Thursday, Jan. 3, 2013, file photo shows Google's headquarters in Mountain View, Calif. U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta on Friday, Dec. 18, 2020, set a tentative trial date of Sept. 12, 2023. U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta on Friday set a tentative trial date of Sept. 12, 2023 for the landmark case that the Justice Department filed two months ago. He estimated that once the trial begins it will last about 5 1/2 weeks in his Washington, D.C., courtroom. Another antitrust case filed Thursday is seeking to preempt Google's dominance in other still-emerging fields of technology such as voice-activated devices in the home and internet-connected cars.

Government agencies have been scrutinizing the company for years, though, with the European Commission cracking down on the search giant well before U.S. regulators caught up. The Commission has already levied billions of dollars in fines against Google in three separate competition cases, which Google has appealed. Regulators in other countries have also taken issue with Google's competitive practices, like in Australia, where top Google critic News Corp has a major presence. Android The European Commission topped its previous record fine against Google in a second antitrust decision targeting Google's Android mobile operating system in July 2018. The Commission's claims centered in part on exclusive contracts Google allegedly had with publishers using its AdSense tool that restricted them from showing ads from its competitors.

Google's Ethical AI team sent Google executives a list of demands to "rebuild trust" following the removal of its co-lead and renowned researcher Timnit Gebru. Google's Ethical AI team, which states it advises on research, product and policy, wrote a six-page letter to company executives CEO Sundar Pichai, AI Chief Jeff Dean and an engineering Vice President Megan Kacholia. The letter, titled "The Future of Ethical AI at Google Research" and seen by CNBC, lists demands of executives, including removing Kacholia from the group's reporting structure, abstaining from retaliation, and reinstating Gebru at a higher level. "Over the past two weeks, we have heard Google leadership say it is committed to continuing the important work of diversity, equity, and inclusion within the Research PA and to supporting the Ethical AI team," the letter states. The employee correspondence represents a distrust in leadership two weeks after Gebru, a well-known artificial intelligence researcher and technical co-lead of Google's Ethical AI team, tweeted that Google fired her over a disagreement about a research paper that scrutinized bias in artificial intelligence.

Google is facing a new antitrust lawsuit from a group of state attorneys general led by Texas, this time targeting its advertising technology services. The lawsuit claims Google unlawfully acquired, attempted to acquire, or maintained a monopoly in several steps of the online ad market including both buy and sell sides. The complaint also claims Google and Facebook, which it names a "co-conspirator," harmed competition through an unlawful agreement to rig auctions and fix prices. "Attorney General Paxton's ad tech claims are meritless, yet he's gone ahead in spite of all the facts," a Google spokesperson said in a statement. "We've invested in state-of-the-art ad tech services that help businesses and benefit consumers.

This photo provided by Google shows Fiona Cicconi, right, who is leaving the biotech firm AstraZeneca to become the head of Google's people operations, effective Jan. 5, 2021. (Courtesy of Google via AP)Google has hired a top executive from pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca to oversee its personnel policies amid ongoing tensions with many employees who are upset with the company's policies. The hiring of Fiona Cicconi also comes while Google sets up plans to allow people to continue to work from home for at least eight more months. The rift incensed hundreds of Google employees who have signed a public letter of protest. Pichahi last week told employees that Google is beginning a thorough review into Gebru's exit, a process that now seems likely to involve Cicconi.

In September, Google said it began working on a "hybrid" work model, as most employees said they wanted to come back to the office at some point, but not full-time. They'll also have the option to book spaces for collaboration for up to a dozen people and outdoor spaces for larger team gatherings. It will also have "reservable" desks for employees who want to work in a quiet space, Pichai's note states. We're also improving products like Meet and workspace to better bridge the gap between colleagues working from the office and those working from home. Ultimately, we are testing a hypothesis that a flexible work model will lead to greater productivity, collaboration and well being.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai has apologized for how a prominent artificial intelligence researcher's abrupt departure last week has “seeded doubts” in the company. Pichai's note doesn't call it either a firing or a resignation but says "we need to accept responsibility for the fact that a prominent Black, female leader with immense talent left Google unhappily." The dispute centered around Google's push to disassociate itself from a research paper Gebru co-authored examining the societal dangers of an AI technology used by Google. Gebru criticized Pichai's memo Wednesday on Twitter, saying she saw “no plans for accountability” in it and because it offered no apology for what happened to her. Thousands of people, many of them Google employees, have signed an open letter showing support for Gebru and accusing Google of “unprecedented research censorship,” racism and defensiveness.

Gebru, who had been outspoken about the company's treatment of Black employees, claimed the treatment was indicative of a broader pattern at Google. Her dismissal set off a firestorm of support across the industry and a petition signed by thousands of Google employees and industry peers. I've heard the reaction to Dr. Gebru's departure loud and clear: it seeded doubts and led some in our community to question their place at Google. First - we need to assess the circumstances that led up to Dr. Gebru's departure, examining where we could have improved and led a more respectful process. This loss has had a ripple effect through some of our least represented communities, who saw themselves and some of their experiences reflected in Dr. Gebru's.

Employees from competitors have already begun offering Google's AI employees a chance to learn more about their respective employers, should they decide to move away from the search giant. Ethics in artificial intelligenceBecause artificial intelligence is relatively new and potentially powerful, many in the tech industry are still grappling with how it should -- and shouldn't -- be used. In 2018, thousands of Google employees signed a letter urging their CEO to pull out of a satellite image-based defense contract called Project Maven, and about a dozen staffers resigned in protest. The protest came after employees grew concerned that the Defense Department would use Google's AI research and expertise to kill people during warfare. A group of current and former Google employees went further on Monday, detailing a list of push-backs against Dean's claims.

Republican senators, including Committee Chairman Sen. Lindsey Graham, revived complaints of censorship and anti-conservative bias against the social media platforms. The actions that Twitter and Facebook took to quell the spread of disinformation angered Trump and his supporters. They have focused their concern on hate speech and incitement on social media platforms that can spawn violence. Twitter and Facebook have both slapped a misinformation label on some content from Trump, most notably his assertions linking voting by mail to fraud. For days after the election as the vote counting went on, copycat “Stop the Steal” groups were easily found on Facebook.

The committee summoned the CEOs of Twitter, Facebook and Google to testify during the hearing. (Michael Reynolds/Pool via AP)WASHINGTON – The CEOs of Facebook and Twitter are being summoned before Congress to defend their handling of disinformation in the 2020 presidential election, even as lawmakers questioning them are deeply divided over the election's integrity and results. Twitter and Facebook have both slapped a misinformation label on some content from Trump, most notably his assertions linking voting by mail to fraud. Facebook insists that it has learned its lesson from the 2016 election and is no longer a conduit for misinformation, voter suppression and election disruption. The organization had pressed Facebook to take down the “Stop the Steal” group.

Google parent company Alphabet 's stock rose as much as 9% in after-hours trading as it crushed expectations for both earnings and revenue in its third-quarter earnings results, showing strong growth in advertising revenue across the board. It follows similarly strong earnings reports by ad-driven online companies Pinterest and Snap earlier this month. For the quarter ending September 30, the company brought in total advertising revenue of $37.10 billion, compared to $33.80 billion a year ago. Fears of a search advertising crunch did not materialize, as the company's "Search and Other" advertising category showed 6% growth from a year ago. Correction: YouTube advertising revenues were $5.04 billion for the quarter, and TAC was $8.17 billion.

The committee summoned the CEOs of Twitter, Facebook and Google to testify during the hearing. Dorsey said Twitter was working closely with state election officials. Dorsey told Cruz that he does not believe that Twitter can influence elections because it's only one source of information. GOP senators raised with the executives an array of allegations of other bias on the platforms regarding Iran, China and Holocaust denial. “We approach our work without political bias, full stop," Pichai said.

WASHINGTON – Less than a week before Election Day, the CEOs of Twitter, Facebook and Google are set to be grilled by Republican senators making unfounded allegations that the tech giants show anti-conservative bias. With the election looming, Republicans led by President Donald Trump have thrown a barrage of grievances at Big Tech’s social media platforms, which they accuse without evidence of deliberately suppressing conservative, religious and anti-abortion views. The tech platforms are gateways to news online. It proposes that Congress enact rules preventing tech platforms from taking local news content without fair payment. “For too long, social media platforms have hidden behind Section 230 protections to censor content that deviates from their beliefs,” Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., the committee chairman, said recently.

FILE - This combination of photos shows logos for social media platforms Facebook and Twitter. (AP Photo/File)WASHINGTON – The GOP push against Facebook and Twitter accelerated Thursday after Republican senators threatened the CEOs of the social media companies with subpoenas to force them to address accusations of censorship in the closing weeks of the presidential campaign. Russia backed President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign through hacking of Democratic emails and a covert social media campaign. It was the first time in recent memory that the two social media platforms enforced rules against misinformation on a story from a mainstream media publication. With Trump leading the way, conservatives have stepped up their claims that Facebook, Twitter and Google, which owns YouTube, are biased, charging without evidence Silicon Valley’s social media platforms are deliberately suppressing conservative views.

WASHINGTON – The CEOs of technology giants Facebook, Google and Twitter are expected to testify for an Oct. 28 Senate hearing on tech companies’ control over hate speech and misinformation on their platforms. It marks a new bipartisan initiative against Big Tech companies, which have been under increasing scrutiny in Washington and from state attorneys general over issues of competition, consumer privacy and hate speech. With Trump leading the way, conservative Republicans have kept up a barrage of criticism of Silicon Valley’s social media platforms, which they accuse without evidence of deliberately suppressing conservative views. The Justice Department has asked Congress to roll back long-held legal protections for online platforms, putting down a legislative marker in Trump’s drive against the social media giants. Democrats, on the other hand, have focused their criticism of social media mainly on hate speech, misinformation and other content that can incite violence or keep people from voting.

(AP Photo/Amr Alfiky, File)WASHINGTON – A Senate panel voted Thursday to compel testimony from the CEOs of Facebook, Google and Twitter as lawmakers opened a new front in the battle over hate speech, misinformation and perceived political bias on social media a month before the presidential election. With Trump leading the way, conservative Republicans have kept up a barrage of criticism of Silicon Valley’s social media platforms, which they accuse without evidence of deliberately suppressing conservative views. The Justice Department has asked Congress to roll back long-held legal protections for online platforms, putting down a legislative marker in Trump’s drive against the social media giants. At a White House event last week, officials said the legislative proposal would protect the open internet and prevent hidden manipulation by social media. The subcommittee, which is expected to issue a report on its findings soon, held a hearing Thursday at which experts discussed proposals to strengthen the antitrust laws and promote competition among Big Tech companies.

LONDON – Google will pay publishers $1 billion over the next three years for their news content. “This financial commitment - our biggest to date - will pay publishers to create and curate high-quality content for a different kind of online news experience," CEO Sundar Pichai said in a blog post. It will appear first on Google News on Android, then Apple iOS, before it is rolled out to Google Discover and Search. News companies want Google, and its Silicon Valley rival Facebook, to pay for the news content that they siphon from commercial media while taking the lion's share of ad revenue. The European Publishers Council said it’s an attempt by Google to stave off legislation and government action to get them to negotiate.

CANBERRA Australias prime minister said Monday that he expected a sensible outcome to his governments plans to make digital platforms pay for journalism after Facebook threatened to block Australian publishers and individuals from sharing news stories. Prime Minister Scott Morrison said he had discussed his proposed laws with very senior-level executives including Google's chief executive, Sundar Pichai, last week. Im quite certain well come to a sensible outcome on this and it wont need coercion wherever it comes from. Australia is drafting the final version of the legislation after a consultation period ended in late August. If the U.S.-based platforms could not agree with Australian media businesses on pricing after three months, arbitrators would be appointed to make binding decisions.

(Mandel Ngan/Pool via AP)WASHINGTON The House Judiciary chairman was closing in on his Perry Mason moment with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Fortified with hot internal company documents, Rep. Jerrold Nadler was building his case at a hearing that seemed almost like a trial for Facebook and three other tech giants over alleged anti-competitive tactics. Looking ahead, the hot documents dont by themselves guarantee successful legal action by regulators, legal experts say. But it can be a violation of antitrust law for a company at the top of the heap to use its power to kick competitors off the hill. The head of the Federal Trade Commission has said that as a result of the review, the government may require tech giants to unwind earlier takeovers and divest assets if the agency finds violations of antitrust law.

(Graeme Jennings/Pool via AP)WASHINGTON Congressional lawmakers finally got a chance to grill the CEOs of Big Tech over their dominance and allegations of monopolistic practices that stifle competition. While the executives faced hostile questioning and frequent interruptions from lawmakers of both parties, little seemed to land more than glancing blows. But Stephen Beck, CEO of the management consulting firm cg42, said the tech companies and their brands emerged relatively unscathed. As Democrats largely focused on market competition, several Republicans aired longstanding grievances, claiming the tech companies are censoring conservative voices and questioning their business activities in China. While forced breakups may appear unlikely, the wide scrutiny of Big Tech points toward possible new restrictions on its power.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg speaks via video conference during a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing on antitrust on Capitol Hill on Wednesday, July 29, 2020, in Washington. His comments came Wednesday during a congressional hearing into the market dominance of four tech giants Amazon, Google, Facebook and Apple. Zuckerberg's comments came at hearing that also featured Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google CEO Sundar Pichai. The questioning came at a congressional hearing that also featured Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google CEO Sundar Pichai. He is Jeff Bezos.

A key question: whether existing competition policies and century-old antitrust laws are adequate for overseeing the tech giants, or if new legislation and enforcement funding is needed. While forced breakups may appear unlikely, the wide scrutiny of Big Tech points toward possible new restrictions on its power. The companies face legal and political offensives on multiplying fronts, from Congress, the Trump administration, federal and state regulators and European watchdogs. I understand that people have concerns about the size and perceived power that tech companies have, Zuckerberg's statement says. He is making the case that the fees Apple charges apps to sell services and other goods are reasonable, especially compared with what other tech companies collect.

The House Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust is capping its yearlong investigation of Big Techs market dominance with Wednesdays teleconferenced hearing spotlighting the four CEOs. The tech companies now face legal and political offensives on multiplying fronts, from Congress, the Trump administration, federal and state regulators and European watchdogs. Facebooks fiercest critics in Congress, including liberal Democrat Sen. Elizabeth Warren and conservative Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, have put breaking up Big Tech companies on the table. He also met privately with key lawmakers and with President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly criticized the tech companies and asserted without evidence that they are biased against him. Cook is expected to lay out the case that the fees Apple charges apps to sell services and other goods are reasonable, especially compared with what other tech companies collect.

Biden is paying Facebook handsomely to show ads that accuse Facebook of posing a threat to democracy. Meantime Trump is paying Facebook to run ads trashing the medium he uses like none other, Twitter. Before this years election, Twitter banned political ads altogether, a decision a company spokesman told the AP it stands behind. And Facebook, along with Google, began disclosing campaign ad spending while banning non-Americans from buying U.S. political ads. Twitter became a Trump campaign target after the company rolled out its first fact check of his inaccurate tweet about voting in late May.

This Sept. 19, 2019 photo shows Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos arriving to a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington. Bezos is willing to testify to the congressional panel investigating the market dominance of Big Tech, but along with other tech industry CEOs, lawyers for the company say, according to a published report Monday, June 15, 2020. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)WASHINGTON Four Big Tech CEOs Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg, Amazons Jeff Bezos, Google's Sundar Pichai and Apple's Tim Cook will answer for their companies practices before Congress at a hearing Wednesday by the House Judiciary subcommittee on antitrust. The panel has conducted a bipartisan investigation over the past year of the tech giants market dominance and their effect on consumers. Its the first such congressional review of the tech industry.

(AP Photo/Ben Margot)SAN RAMON, Calif. Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak is launching a legal attack against Google's YouTube video site for allowing con artists to use him as a pawn in a Bitcoin scam believed to have heisted millions of dollars from people around the world. The suit also represents 17 alleged victims of the bitcoin scam, including 10 people who live outside the U.S. Videos spread on YouTube as part of the scheme entice viewers to send their bitcoins to an anonymous digital address, promising to return double that amount. Wozniak, though, said he has been trying to get Google and YouTube to prevent videos peddling the scam with his name and picture in it since May 10. YouTube will try to persuade a judge to dismiss Garlinghouse's lawsuit during a hearing scheduled next month.

NEW DELHI U.S. tech giant Google is investing in a $10 billion fund to help accelerate Indias transition to a digital economy in the next five to seven years. The company also announced it will invest $1 million to support digital education in India. It said the fund will enable 1 million teachers in 22,000 schools across the country to use Google services that can facilitate online learning. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made digitization a major priority for India. He envisions a Digital India, where high-speed Internet access will empower entrepreneurs to build software and other technology products to help raise the standard of living in a country where many households are still impoverished.

(CNN) Silicon Valley is pushing back against President Donald Trump's latest immigration curbs, this time targeting visa programs that tech companies use to bring in thousands of skilled foreign worker. Both visas are popular with the United States' tech giants, and many were quick to condemn the executive order. "Immigration has contributed immensely to America's economic success, making it a global leader in tech, and also Google the company it is today," Google CEO Sundar Pichai said on Twitter. "Disappointed by today's proclamation we'll continue to stand with immigrants and work to expand opportunity for all," he added. "Preventing high skilled professionals from entering the country and contributing to America's economic recovery puts American's global competitiveness at risk," a company spokesperson said.

Even as prosecutors have said little about how they arrived at the precise number, it has fast grown into a potent symbol of the suffering Floyd and many other black men have experienced at the hands of police. In Boston and Tacoma, Washington, demonstrators this week lay down on streets staging die-ins" for precisely 8 minutes, 46 seconds. ViacomCBS, owner of MTV and Nickelodeon, stopped its programming earlier this week to air a silent, somber video honoring Floyd for 8 minutes, 46 seconds. Pausing for a full 8 minutes, 46 seconds helps turn the abstract into a reality, said Monica Cannon-Grant, the founder of Violence in Boston Inc., which organized a Tuesday protest that included the minutes of silence. Using those, Chauvin had his knee on Floyd for 7 minutes and 46 seconds, including 1 minute and 53 seconds after Floyd appeared to stop breathing.

Sundar Pichai, who has been leading Google as CEO for more than four years, will stay in his role and also become CEO of Alphabet. Both founders promised they plan to stay actively involved as board members and shareholders and lauded Pichai for his leadership of Google. Alphabet -- an umbrella corporation that the two created in 2015 -- still boasts Google as its central fixture and key moneymaker. Page and Brin both have been noticeably absent from Google events in the past year. Pichai, who has an engineering background, took over as the head of Google’s products before being promoted to CEO when Alphabet was created.