Following a ruling from UK regulators, Google plans to allow website owners to opt out of appearing in AI searches, and it’s also agreed to add clearer attributions and links to sources in its AI overviews.

Google announced it will begin testing a new Search Console setting that allows website owners to opt out of having their content used in AI-generated search features such as AI Overviews and AI Mode, while remaining eligible to appear in traditional search results, as Engadget reports. The move follows a ruling by the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority requiring the company to give publishers more control over how their content is used in AI products.

According to Ars Technica, the CMA also ordered Google to provide clearer attribution and links to publishers within AI-generated search results and barred the company from penalizing sites that choose to opt out. The agency said the changes are intended to give publishers, particularly news organizations, greater leverage over how their content is used, amid complaints that AI summaries have reduced referral traffic and advertising revenue.

The directive also comes amid ongoing concerns that AI Overviews can present confident-sounding summaries that don’t always accurately reflect or fully align with the underlying source material.

Sarah Cardell, the CMA’s chief executive, told the Guardian, “It is crucial that content publishers, including news organisations, have appropriate bargaining power over how their content is used.”

Google said the opt-out setting will initially be tested with a small group of UK website owners before expanding globally. The company is also adding new Search Console reporting tools showing which pages appear in AI-generated responses and where those results are being displayed.

Regulators have reportedly given Google nine months to fully comply with the new requirements, though some changes are expected to arrive sooner.

Related: Google Scales Back 'AI Overviews,' Admits the AI Has Been Getting Things Wrong

Image: Cheng Xin/Getty Images

A Google information security engineer who had advance access to Google's year-end round-up of popular searches, is accused of making $1.2 million on a Polymarket bet based on that insider info.

36-year-old Google engineer Michele Spagnuolo has been charged with commodities fraud, wire fraud, and money laundering after federal investigators found that he had illegally placed and profited from a Polymarket bet in December. The bet was on what name would be Google's most-searched person of 2025, and Spagnuolo correctly bet, based on insider info, that it would the singer-songwriter D4vd — who was implicated in the death of his underage girlfriend in Los Angeles, after her body was found in the trunk of a car registered to him in September.

As ABC News reports via the federal complaint, at the time that Spagnuolo placed his bet in mid-October, Polymarket "assigned a near-zero probability to D4vd being 'the #1 searched person on Google this year.'" Then, when Google published its year-end search data, and D4vd came out as #1, Spagnuolo ended up netting $1.2 million from the bet.

"Unlike the counterparties to his trades, Spagnuolo knew the outcome of these wagers before the trading public did because he had accessed Google's confidential, commercially valuable internal data," the complaint states.

Spagnuolo, an Italian citizen who resides in Switzerland, used the username AlphaRacoon in placing his bets.

"In total, from on or about October 15, 2025, through on or about December 4, 2025, Spagnuolo used the AlphaRaccoon account to risk approximately $2,754,092 on markets related to Google’s internal information," says the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York.

"Today’s charges reinforce a decades-old message: corporate insiders cannot use confidential business information to turn a profit in our markets,” says US Attorney Jay Clayton in a statement. "As alleged, Spagnuolo violated the duties he owed to his employer and used Google’s confidential business information to make more than $1.2 million in trading profits on Polymarket. Insider trading compromises the integrity of our markets, and the American people want this greed-driven conduct investigated and prosecuted.”

And FBI Assistant Director in Charge James C. Barnacle, Jr. adds, "The FBI remains dedicated to searching for fraudsters who betray their employer for personal financial gains."

As the world of prediction-market betting grows, so does this kind of fraud. Another federal case involving a Polymarket bet was filed last month against a US Army soldier, Master Sgt. Gannon Ken Van Dyke, who allegedly used classified information to place a bet about the capture of former Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, netting $400K.

Residents in LA reported that Google Maps was displaying satellite images of the Altadena and Pacific Palisades neighborhoods prior to the devastating 2025 wildfires, leading some to believe it was motivated by the upcoming mayoral election.

Over the past few days, some Google Maps users have reported that the app was displaying older satellite images of Los Angeles before parts of it were destroyed by the Palisades and Eaton fires in January 2025, as the California Post reports.

Meanwhile, other users still see the most recent images featuring the devastated, burned-out Altadena and Pacific Palisades neighborhoods, which is what showed up for SFist.

Users in online forums like Y Combinator speculated about whether it was an attempt by Mayor Karen Bass to gloss over issues surrounding the fires ahead of the heated mayoral election. Per the Post, one of Bass’s challengers, Spencer Pratt, was motivated to run against Bass after his home burned down in the Palisades Fire.

Google explained in a statement on social media Monday that old images were being displayed due to a technical issue stemming from a recent update, and the company is working to fix the glitch.

Related: Google Maps Lists an Oakland Homeless Encampment as “Homeless Encampment,” Hilarity Ensues

Image: Hunter Weiss/X

It's a bad week in the courts for Meta, and also for Google and YouTube, after juries in two states came back with verdicts against the companies in high-profile cases about the dangers of social media.

Meta and Google were both found liable Wednesday by a jury in Los Angeles in a closely watched case involving social media addiction and teens. The jury found that both Instagram and YouTube were responsible for cultivating the increased usage of their platforms by plaintiff KGM, whose first name is Kaley — who, her attorneys say, began using YouTube at age 6, and Instagram at age 11, and she is now 20 years old.

Plaintiff's attorneys argued during the month-long trial that both Meta and Google had purposely designed their platforms to be addictive, and that they were aware of the harms they were doing to children and teens. In KGM's case, that addiction led to mental health crises, including depression and suicidal ideation.

The jury awarded KGM $6 million, as NPR reports, with $3 million in compensatory damages and $3 million in punitive damages, and with Meta covering about 70% of that sum.

"For years, social media companies have profited from targeting children while concealing their addictive and dangerous design features," said co-lead attorney for the plaintiff Joseph VanZandt. "Today's verdict is a referendum — from a jury, to an entire industry — that accountability has arrived."

The trial was attended by multiple sets of parents of teens who took their own lives or otherwise suffered mentally due to social media addictions. And the attorney of record for the plaintiff was Matthew Bergman of the Seattle-based Social Media Victims Law Center.

Reminder: This is the same case where CEO Mark Zuckerberg showed up to testify himself in February, and members of Meta's staff were called out by the judge for appearing to be illicitly recording the proceedings using Meta's Ray-Ban sunglasses with built-in cameras.

As NPR notes, the case has drawn comparisons to the landmark cases brought against Big Tobacco in the 1990s over similarly dangerous practices to encourage addiction to their products.

Meta is reportedly weighing its option, and Google has already said it plans to appeal the case. A spokesperson for Google, José Castañeda, said in a statement, "This case misunderstands YouTube, which is a responsibly built streaming platform, not a social media site."

Wednesday's verdict in Los Angeles follows another defeat in court involving Meta on Tuesday, in a case out of New Mexico. Both civil cases were being tried simultaneously, and the monetary damages in the New Mexico case are far larger.

As CNN reports, a jury returned a verdict in the New Mexico case after less than a day of deliberations, following a six-week trial, finding Meta liable for failing to warn users about the dangers of child predators on its platforms, and failing to protect young users from being targeted by those predators.

The jury found that Meta had engaged in “unfair and deceptive” and “unconscionable” trade practices, and ordered the company to pay $375 million in damages.

The case was brought by New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez in 2023, following a whistleblower account from Arturo Bejar, a former engineering director at Meta, who testified at the trial that his own 14-year-old daughter had been targeted with sexually explicit messages on Instagram.

Torrez's investigation involved the creation of fake accounts purporting to be those of children, which investigators found were then contacted by child predators. Two of those men were subsequently arrested at a New Mexico motel in May 2024, after they allegedly arrived there seeking to have sex with a 12-year-old girl, depicted in one of those fake accounts.

Meta has said it will be appealing the case, and the company's attorneys argued in court that while bad actors and messages may slip through its safety filters, it had invested heavily in child safety on its platforms. A company spokesperson earlier said "child exploitation is a horrific crime and we’ve spent years building technology to combat it."

Andy Stone, Meta's longtime communications chief, critized Torrez's probe ahead of the verdict last week, tweeting that it was "an ethically compromised investigation into Meta that knowingly put real children at risk." And, he said that Torrez had "opted for a self-promotional political victory over child safety."

Stone specifically called out Torrez and the law firm that led the investigation for crossing legal and ethical lines through the use of real photos of actual children, without their consent, to create the fake profiles they used as bait for predators.

"And how did they justify using images of real children who would then be forever linked with their new online personas and predatory activity? Because they were 'profile pictures of minors from outside the United States,'" Stone writes. "That's right, it was OK because they weren't American children."

Stone also accused Torrez and his team of "proactively posting sexualized 'teen' content and friending adult strangers en masse" as part of their sting.

Per CNN, Torrez calls Meta's criticisms, "a distraction" and that the company should "focus on their own accountability."

Previously: Meta Team Scolded For Wearing Those Ray-Ban Glasses In Court During Zuckerberg Testimony

Just two years after Gavin Newsom brokered a $250 million deal with Google and Meta for them to help preserve the local newspapers that their business models have destroyed, Newsom himself is now dismantling the deal.  

Back in 2024, Governor Gavin Newsom signed a deal that persuaded Google and Facebook parent company Meta to pay $250 million over five years to help save local California newspapers, a medium whose advertising had been completely siphoned off by Google, Facebook, and Instagram, among other companies. At the time, Newsom declared, “This agreement represents a major breakthrough in ensuring the survival of newsrooms and bolstering local journalism across California — leveraging substantial tech industry resources without imposing new taxes on Californians.”

Fast forward a year and a half later, and Newsom has quietly killed the deal. Newsom just introduced his proposed $400 billion budget for 2025-27, and Bay Area News Group reports that Newsom has eliminated the newspaper subsidy in that budget.  

Moreover, Newsom’s office has not commented on why, or given any explanation for doing this. But other parties have plenty of comment about the program being eliminated.

“It seems shockingly short-sighted when it comes to supporting local journalism which by now we know has no commercial future,” University of Pennsylvania professor of media policy Victor Pickard told the News Group. “I understand there may be budget shortfalls and there are always thoughtful decisions that need to be made about funding … but local journalism should be a higher priority.”

The state of California was paying into the fund, as were tech companies like Google and Meta. California contributed $10 million in 2025, which was matched by Google, though Meta’s contribution is not mentioned. This year, Google will make like Gavin Newsom, and not contribute to the program.

And the company put out a pretty cheeky statement about how they don't have to pay the $10 million per year now that the state's not paying their share, either.

“We stand ready to match the state’s contribution to the Civic Media Program and are awaiting the final budget later this year,” a Google spokesperson told the News Group.

Related: Meta Wins Antitrust Battle, Does Not Have to Spin Off Instagram or WhatsApp [SFist]

Image: NEW YORK, NEW YORK - DECEMBER 03: California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks during the 2025 New York Times Dealbook Summit at Jazz at Lincoln Center on December 03, 2025 in New York City. NYT columnist Sorkin hosted the annual Dealbook summit which brings together business and government leaders to discuss the most important stories across business, politics and culture. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

Google/Alphabet has agreed to pay $68 million to customers who used its voice assistant and whose words were unwittingly recorded and shared with advertisers.

All those creepy coincidences that people talked about in the last decade, with being fed ads for things they never actually looked up online but which they were, in fact, talking about, were not coincidences after all, at least in the cases of Google's and Apple's voice assistants. Apple already settled a class-action suit about Siri listening in to users' conversations — that $95 million settlement is being distributed now, and if you made a claim it's showing up as Lopez Voice Assistant in your bank account.

Now Google has done the same, after users claimed that their conversations were being recorded by Google Nest speakers even when they hadn't said "Hey Google" or any other activation phrase. A class-action suit was filed Friday in federal court in San Jose, as Reuters reports, and without admitting wrongdoing, Google is looking to settle to avoid a trial.

The litigants are also seeking over $22 million in legal fees.

The suit claimed that the devices began recording after so-called "false accepts," in which it heard certain hot words like "Hey Google" or something similar. The suit covers anyone who owned a Google Nest device from May 2016 onward.

The privacy-invading claims made in the lawsuit are troubling, and Alphabet is likely hoping this story dies a quick death, and doesn't grow legs. As CBS News reports, "Some claimants alleged the Google devices recorded private conversations about financial issues, personal decisions and employment."

Alphabet has not not offered any comment on the suit or settlement.

As with most of these class-action things, the windfall for affected users will be a pittance. As CBS News notes, the sums being received in the Apple settlement are between $8 and $40.

Previously: Guess Who's Helping Pay For Trump's Ballroom? Alphabet, Meta, Apple, Palantir

Top image: Photo by Curtis Berry

We had to do a double-double take at Glassdoor’s new Best Places to Work 2026 list, as they ranked fast-food chain In-N-Out as a better place to work than the cushy, high-paid confines of Nvidia, Facebook, and Google.

If you had your choice between job offers from the Silicon Valley tech giants Nvidia, Google, and Meta, with their massively lucrative stocks and lavish perks and salaries, or a job offer flipping burgers at a local In-N-Out, which offer would you take? According to the just-released Best Places to Work 2026 list from the employer review site Glassdoor, you would want to take that job flipping burgers at In-N-Out.

Yes, KTVU reports that Glassdoor’s new list of the best places to work in California ranks In-N-Out ahead of Nvidia, Apple, Meta, and Google. And these are not corporate jobs at In-N-Out’s headquarters in Irvine, California, we’re talking crew jobs at In-N-Out, many of which are largely occupied by high school students.  

As seen above, Glassdoor's Best Places to Work 2026 list is not of the best places to work in California, it’s of the best places to work in the entire US. And In-N-Out does not come in at Number One nationally — that distinction belongs to Crew Car Wash, another odd choice, a car-wash chain that only exists in Indiana and Minnesota.

But In-N-Out is the top-ranked company that is based in California, and comes in at Number Two nationally, just ahead of Nvidia at Number Three. And yes, Glassdoor knows they are ranking a burger joint ahead of perhaps the most lucrative tech company on earth.

"By outranking Silicon Valley heavyweights like Nvidia, Google, and Apple, In-N-Out has signaled a major shift in the American workforce, where the perceived instability of the tech sector — marred by ‘forever layoffs’ and AI-driven anxiety — is being passed over for the stability and clear upward mobility of the service industry," as KTVU explains.

And hey, nothing against In-N-Out (except that the company is run by a right-wing lunatic nepo baby who pushes her anti-vaxx idiocy on the the public at large). In-N-Out pays well over $20 an hour even to starting employees, and store managers are routinely paid six-figure annual sums. Compare that to the stingy Shake Shack, who closed California stores in response to the state’s $20 fast-food minimum wage law.

And maybe Glassdoor really has a point about In-N-Out being a better place to work than the Menlo Park Facebook headquarters. After all, Meta just laid off another 1,000 employees after Mark Zuckerberg was dumb enough to blow $77 billion on the wildly unsuccessful Metaverse project.

Related: The Only In-N-Out in Oakland Is Closing ‘Due to Ongoing Issues With Crime’ [SFist]

Image: LAS VEGAS, NEVADA- MARCH 14: The In-N-Out Burger logo is displayed outside of one of their restaurants on March 14, 2025 in Las Vegas, Nevada. (Photo by Kevin Carter/Getty Images)

When a pit bull, nicknamed “Google,” was abandoned outside Google’s Sunnyvale office the morning of Christmas Eve and animal control was closed, Bay Area Reddit users came together to give it food and water and find it shelter with the help of Sunnyvale police.

As KRON4 reports, Reddit user Substantial_Train_23 posted to the Bay Area Reddit community Wednesday that the dog, which appeared to be a pit bull, had been found tied to a light pole in the parking lot of Google’s office in Sunnyvale. Google’s security personnel weren’t able to get in touch with Sunnyvale Animal Control and called the Sunnyvale Police Department instead.

Substantial_Train_23 said they pulled over to give the dog some food, which it ate without hesitation despite being skittish, and it appeared to have scars all over its face, per KRON4. “The dog looked soooo sad and was very skinny!” they added. “They seemed to be scared of me a little bit cuz they backed away when I approached standing up. The poor thing had a lot of scars on its face.”

Soon after, Cassandra Lopez, who’s the general manager of CityDog! Club, a dog boarding facility in Mountain View, and known as Goatfeetandweed on Reddit, chimed in, saying she had arrived on the scene and was helping Sunnyvale police find somewhere safe and warm for “Google” to stay. Per KRON4, Lopez said the scars indicate the dog came from a fighting background.

“Big, huge, massive shout out to you Reddit! Thank you for getting me to the right place at the right time,” said Lopez, per KRON4. “Sending good vibes to you all, happy holidays! From all of us at Citydog! Club in Mountain View.”

“Google” is now at Sunnyvale Animal Control and will be transferred to a local shelter for adoption.

Substantial_Train_23/Reddit

• Muir Woods National Park temporarily reopened Thursday for ten days, thanks to donations from some of the park’s operational partners. The $15 entry fee will be waived, and park rangers will be on-hand offering programs through November 1 during the ongoing government shutdown. [KQED]
• Bay Area residents are advised to avoid swimming at local beaches along the coast over the weekend. The National Weather Service is forecasting potential rip tides and 15- to 25-foot sneaker waves. [KRON4]
• Google deleted years’ worth of content and programming geared toward women in tech from its website. It’s just one of many steps tech companies, and corporations in general, have taken toward unraveling DEI initiatives. [CNN]
• Pharmacy customers at the last remaining Walgreens in San Francisco's Mission District are forced to wait an average of 45 minutes, many of them seniors and people living with chronic pain. [Mission Local]
• District 9 Supervisor Jackie Fielder called for an investigation at a San Francisco Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday into the egregiously pricey contract the mayor’s office signed with tech firm OpenGov last week. [KALW]

National:

• The USS Gerald R. Ford, the US’s largest warship, set off to the Caribbean from the Mediterranean Sea Friday. The ship joins eight other warships, along with a nuclear submarine and an F-35 aircraft, taking part in the military’s supposed crackdown on drug trafficking in the region. [BBC]
• Despite claims that Amtrak is failing, the agency broke ridership records in 2024. Proponents emphasize that Amtrak is a government agency successfully fulfilling its mandate to serve the public, not a business meant to turn a profit, as it’s often incorrectly categorized by critics. [Streetsblog]

• It appears that Suzanne Somers’s widower has successfully created an AI clone of the late star — upon her request, with the help of Boston-based inventor Ray Kurzweil (who’s also Google’s top AI researcher). [People]
• Chelsea Clinton and Donald Trump Jr. had a bit of a spat on X after Clinton said Trump Sr. was “taking a wrecking ball to our heritage.” [Huffington Post]

Video of the Day:

Families: Get those oversized tote bags ready — tomorrow is Yerba Buena Gardens’ First Annual Pumpkin Giveaway. Starting at 10 am, the first 100 kids under 12 get a free pumpkin. Plus, free carousel rides until 11 am!

Image: Leanne Maxwell/SFist

Given how the billionaire CEOs all lined up to throw money at Trump's second inauguration, helping the despot feel like the king he's always wanted to be, his royal ballroom is also being funded by these billionaires, including the Bay Area's tech-wealthy.

Trump's thousand-seat ballroom, to be named after himself, which replaces the entire East Wing of the White House that has already been demolished, is slated to cost around $300 million to construct. Trump has touted the fact that the project is all being privately funded by donors and by himself — though his portion may only come if the DOJ decides to hand him $230 million to cover previous lawsuits filed against him.

On Thursday, CNN reported on the full roster of donors to the ballroom project, which includes plenty of Silicon Valley names and corporations, including Apple, Alphabet, Coinbase, Palantir, Meta, and early crypto players the Winklevoss Twins, and their crypto exchange Gemini. Salesforce wasn't mentioned on that list, but maybe old Benioff helped sweeten the deal with a ballroom donation in his Wednesday chat with Trump about calling off his goons in SF.

Amazon, Microsoft, Tether and billionaire Trump ally Miriam Adelson are all on the list of ballroom donors as well.

As CBS News previously reported, Google/Alphabet agreed to throw $22 million at Trump's ballroom dreams in order to settle a lawsuit he brought about YouTube suspending his account over the January 6th riots — and one can imagine that Meta's donation is probably a similar sort of apology over all that.

Trump hosted a special dinner last week for ballroom donors, in the White House's East Room, as CNN reported. Guests included the Winklevosses, former journalist turned NewsMax anchor Greta Van Susteren, and representatives from Meta, Google, Amazon, and Palantir. The event had previously been billed as a fundraiser for the project, but when all these corporations and inviduals showered Trump and the ballroom with cash, it became more of a "thank you" dinner.

Meanwhile, as Americans who receive food assistance start running out of food amid the government shutdown, and as the 1.4 million Americans who are employed by the federal government start seeing their finances tighten after missed paychecks, Trump is sitting back like a French king overseeing the construction of a Gilded Age ballroom.

The dark-sided flycatcher, a small brown bird from Asia, made its California debut last week when it veered off-route and spent three days at the nature preserve behind Google’s Mountain View campus, attracting birding enthusiasts from across the country.

As the Mountain View Voice reports, a couple of birders first spotted the flycatcher the morning of Wednesday, September 17 at Charleston Retention Basin, a six-acre marsh and nature trail that runs adjacent to Google’s campus.

The outlet reports that the sighting was immediately listed on the eBird list-serve, and word quickly spread. Within a few hours, 40 birders had shown up hoping to catch a glimpse. The next day there were 80 visitors, and over the course of three days, birders from as far as Michigan, New York, and Washington State hopped on planes to capture the tiny celebrity on camera.

The Mountain View Voice spoke to Matthew Dodder of the Santa Clara Valley Bird Alliance who said the bird had previously never been spotted in the lower 48 states, and there have only been a few sightings in Alaska. He said the flycatcher likely took a wrong turn when heading south along its usual migratory route from the Siberian region to China or the Himalayas.

Per the Voice, Google also took part in the flycatcher’s big welcome, inviting visitors to upload photos via a QR code. The company also provided parking and refreshments.

The last flycatcher sighting was reportedly on Friday evening when birders speculate it either moved somewhere else in the area or left altogether, per the Voice. Perhaps it gained enough respite to get back on its course.

As a commenter on the Voice emphasized, “protected spots like the Charleston Retention Basin can serve as sanctuaries for wildlife, welcoming unexpected visitors from far away. By preserving and restoring these natural spaces, we not only support the species we already know but we also open the door to surprises!”

Top image: Kevin Shen, ABA Birds and Birding Group/Facebook

YouTube’s parent company Alphabet announced Tuesday it’s allowing creators who received permanent bans over misinformation relating to COVID-19 and the 2020 election to apply to be reinstated. This likely includes Robert F. Kennedy Jr and Steve Bannon.

As CNBC reports, Alphabet referred to the new policy as a limited pilot program made available to a “subset of creators” who might be allowed back, along with those who violated policies that have since been revised.

As CBS News reports, the decision comes after the company began loosening its content moderation standards in 2023 surrounding election conspiracies, most notably the 2020 election. In 2024, the company eliminated its dedicated COVID-19 content restrictions, allowing discussions of unproven treatments on the platform.

Attorneys for Alphabet wrote in response to subpoenas from the House Judiciary Committee that the new policy honors free speech and the company “values conservative voices,” which it says were censored by the Biden administration.

“No matter the political atmosphere, YouTube will continue to enable free expression on its platform, particularly as it relates to issues subject to political debate," the letter reads, per CBS. “YouTube will provide an opportunity for all creators to rejoin the platform if the Company terminated their channels for repeated violations of COVID-19 and elections integrity policies that are no longer in effect.”

“YouTube values conservative voices on its platform and recognizes that these creators have extensive reach and play an important role in civic discourse,” the letter states, per CNN.

The letter also accuses the Biden administration of coercing the company into banning nefarious accounts, via CNN. “As online platforms, including Alphabet, grappled with these decisions, the Administration’s officials, including President Biden, created a political atmosphere that sought to influence the actions of platforms based on their concerns regarding misinformation,” the letter states. “It is unacceptable and wrong when any government, including the Biden Administration, attempts to dictate how the Company moderates content.”

As CNBC notes, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon, and Deputy FBI Director Dan Bongino could potentially be reinstated on the platform.

As cybersecurity expert Yael Eisenstat tells CBS in the above clip, it’s really more about Alphabet’s bottom line than free speech.

Image: Cheng Xin/Getty Images

Related: Saying Its Content Moderation Has 'Gone Too Far,' Meta Now Set to Become Hotbed of Transphobia and Conspiracies

• CHP is searching for 38-year-old Coretta Gibson who was last seen in San Lorenzo around 8 pm on August 29. [KRON4]
• State lawmakers passed a bill Saturday that would provide safeguards surrounding the state’s vaccine policy to prevent interference by the federal government. [KGO]

• San Francisco held the ribbon-cutting for Cityside Park on Treasure Island Saturday, which will start out as a 6-acre park and then grow to eventually extend along the entire west side of the island. [KPIX]

Image: Leanne Maxwell/SFist

In a landmark decision in a landmark antitrust case, a federal judge in DC has ruled that in order to make restitution for its longstanding monopoly over internet search, Google will have to share some of its data and its search results to several qualified competitors.

As the New York Times reports, Judge Amit P. Mehta of the US District Court for the District of Columbia finally issued a decision on remedy in the antitrust case which has been one of several to have roiled Silicon Valley in recent years. And Judge Mehta stopped short of forcing Google/Alphabet to break itself up or sell off its Chrome web browser or Android operating system — both things that the Justice Department, while still under President Biden, pushed for in a court filing last fall.

Mehta issued his ruling in the case just over a year ago, finding that "Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly." But the question of what remedy would be demanded of Google remained.

The case has drawn many comparisons to the first major antitrust case of the personal computing age, United States v. Microsoft, in which a federal court originally ordered that Microsoft be broken up in 2000, due to its monopolistic dominance over computer operating systems, which at the time also extended to search engines. An appeals court later overturned the decision in part, and Microsoft was able to get away with a lesser remedy in the end, allowing the company just to share of its technology with competitors.

Judge Mehta appears to have heeded the way that case shook out, deciding on a somewhat more lenient remedy. Though as the Times notes, Google is still expected to appeal, and much like the Microsoft case, this will likely be tied up in courts for years to come.

"Notwithstanding [Google's] power, courts must approach the task of crafting remedies with a healthy dose of humility," Mehta said in Tuesday’s decision. "This court has done so."

Bill Baer, an assistant attorney general for antitrust under Obama, tells the Times that this is "the most important antitrust case of the 21st century."

But given the speed at which technology moves, compared to the slowness with which such cases move, the Google monopoly over search could appear moot in several years when it is finally resolved — just like Apple's rise in popularity in the late 90s and early aughts, and the rise of companies like Google and Facebook, helped to make the Microsoft case seem less urgent over time. AI chatbots are already replacing Google searches for many people, and no doubt Apple will at some point release a version of Siri that functions in a similarly powerful way — we already know that they working on this as part of a push for new products in their hardware pipeline.

Google separately faced an antitrust case over its dominance in the world of online adverstising. A different federal judge at a court in Virginia, US District Judge Leonie Brinkema, ruled against the company in that case in April. A decision on remedy in that case is still forthcoming.

Previously: Google Has Illegal Monopoly Over Web Searching, Federal Judge Rules

Photo by Greg Bulla

A group of nearly 4,000 current and former Black Google employees will split a $50 million pot after the online search giant agreed to that settlement in a lawsuit that alleges Black employees were paid lower wages and denied promotions.

It has not been a great year, in the courtroom at least, for the Mountain View-based search company Google, or their parent company Alphabet. Last summer, a federal judge ruled that Google had an illegal monopoly in their internet search department, and had inflated prices for that service. Because of that, the US Department of Justice moved to force Google to sell off their Chrome browser this past November. And Google took another gut punch when a different federal judge ruled last month that Google had a monopoly in online advertising. Google is appealing these decisions.  

And it may be financially small potatoes for Google compared to those landmark rulings, but the Bay Area News Group reports that now Google has agreed to pay a $50 million settlement to a large pool of current and former Black employees of the company who alleged racial workplace discrimination.

The suit was originally brought by former Google recruiter April Curley, a Black woman who was hired, ironically, to recruit more Black Google employees. But according to the UK tech publication Silicon, Curley’s 2022 discrimination lawsuit said Google/Alphabet had a “racially biased corporate culture” wherein Black employees were allegedly paid lower wages, denied promotions over biased performance ratings, and generally subjected to a hostile race-based work environment.

While Google agreed to pay the $50 million settlement, the settlement is also one of those admit-to-no-wrongdoing arrangements.

“We strongly disagree with the allegations that we treated anyone improperly,” Google said in a statement. That statement added that the company would “continue to analyze pay to identify unexplained differences based on race,” and would “maintain well-publicized methods for employees to report concerns related to the terms and conditions of their employment.”

The $50 million will be split between roughly 4,000 current and former Black Google employees. Google also agreed to not force employees into mandatory arbitration for employment disputes until 2028.

The settlement agreement still requires a judge’s approval. But this agreement follows a $28 million settlement Google agreed to pay just last month for allegedly paying Latino, Indigenous, and Pacific Islander employees less money, and a $118 million settlement in 2022 in a class-action suit alleging discrimination against women employees.

Related: Federal Judge Rules Against Google In Second Antitrust Case, This One About Its Ad Network [SFist]

Image: CHONGQING, CHINA - APRIL 20: In this photo illustration, the Google logo is displayed on a smartphone screen, with the colorful Google branding seen in the background, on April 20, 2025, in Chongqing, China. Google, a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., is a multinational technology company best known for its search engine, Android operating system, YouTube, cloud computing, and AI-powered services. (Photo illustration by Cheng Xin/Getty Images)