Business & Tech

Google Cracking Down On Apps That Don’t Pay Them a 30% Cut

The Fortnite legal kerfuffle has Apple and now also Google digging in their heels that they should get a 30% cut of any purchase made within apps on their respective platforms.

SF News

Day Around the Bay: Napa Businesses Upset About Homeless Quarantine In Church

Trump's DOJ is aiming to announce antitrust action against Google before the election, cannabis may or may not help with COVID infection symptoms, and some protesters staged a die-in over the government's COVID response at 16th and Mission today.

Business & Tech

Twitter Says It Is Adding 'Context' to Trending Topics; Facebook and Google at War With Australian Government

Ahead of the latest U.S. election, Twitter is responding to criticism that one of its defining features, the Trending Topics sidebar, tends to promote misinformation and conspiracies.

Business & Tech

Self-Driving Car Engineer Anthony Levandowksi Gets 18-Month Sentence For Stealing Waymo Technology

One time Google/Alphabet employee Anthony Levandowski, who jumped ship to take a generous offer from Uber in 2016 that included $680 million for his self-driving truck startup Otto, has just been sentenced to 18 months in jail for stealing trade secrets.

Business & Tech

While National Economy Tanked Last Quarter, Apple, Alphabet, and Facebook Made Bank

Despite a historic economic downturn in which the American economy contracted more than it ever has in one quarter, four big tech companies — Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, and Facebook — saw huge profits and extremely healthy second quarters.

Business & Tech

Google Doodles Honor Frontline and Essential For Month of April

Google's landing page graphics, the daily (and sometimes hourly) changing "Google Doodles," will be dedicated this month to all the frontline workers in the pandemic — from doctors and nurses to delivery drivers, transit operators, grocery store clerks, and farmers.

Business & Tech

Ex-Uber Exec Pleads Guilty to Stealing Google’s Self-Driving Car Trade Secrets

Wunderkind engineer Anthony Levandowski pled guilty to stealing Google’s trade secrets on his way out the door, but it’s hard to think justice has been done when he got let off on 32 of 33 counts.

Business & Tech

Google/Alphabet Joins Apple and Microsoft in the $1 Trillion Club

Alphabet officially reached a valuation of $1 trillion on Thursday, becoming only the fourth American company — and the fourth tech company in history — to reach this once unthinkable milestone.

Business & Tech

Google and Facebook Slip Out of Top Ten In Glassdoor Ratings By Employees

Two of the Bay Area's big tech companies that have long been evangelized by their employees and praised as places to work are steadily slipping in their popularity rankings on Glassdoor.

Business & Tech

Almost Every State Except California Is Coming After Google In Antitrust Action

A coalition of attorneys general from 50 U.S. states and territories formally announced an investigation into possible antitrust-violating practices by Google/Alphabet with regard to advertising. The only states not participating: California and Alabama.

Business & Tech

Eight LGBTQ YouTubers Sue Over The Company's Alleged Discrimination Against Them

In an ever-evolving uproar around the tech-gargantuan that gave rise to viral makeup tutorials, eight LGBTQ YouTubers are suing the Google-owned video platform, saying, per court-released documents, that they’re being illegally discriminated against.

Arts & Entertainment

Google Street View Blurred Out This Cat, For Privacy

A cat of unknown color or gender was given their privacy by Google Street View's facial-recognition software, and perhaps that's as it should be.

SF News

Peter Thiel Goes on Fox News to Accuse Google of Treason

Without citing any evidence, proud gay libertarian billionaire and Gawker-killer Peter Thiel went on Tucker Carlson Tonight Monday to accuse Google of conspiring with China, and also to discuss his fears of an Elizabeth Warren presidency.

Business & Tech

Over 120 LGBTQ Google Employees Say They Don't Want Google Marching In SF's Pride Parade

An open letter from disgruntled Google employees comes after the company refused to allow them to protest from within the company's contingent at Sunday's Pride parade. But SF Pride says Google is still marching.

Business & Tech

Questionable Study Shows How Much Ad Revenue Google News Has Siphoned From The News Industry

News organizations nationwide have been complaining how Big Tech was thriving on the backs of journalists. Now a new report finds that Google made almost as much ad revenue last year on news searches as the entire news industry combined made on its own content.

SF News

Google Could Be Barred From SF Pride For Allowing Homophobic Harassment

The historically corporate-friendly SF Pride could end up taking a stand, amidst controversy over Google’s YouTube saying that racist and homophobic videos “don’t violate our policies.”

Business & Tech

Google Cloud Outage Shuts Down Everything From Smart Locks To Snapchat

A significant outage with Google Cloud Services Sunday had widespread impacts that included right here on SFist — there were some scary moments there — but the most noticeable impacts for users were probably on Snapchat, YouTube, and Nest.

Arts & Entertainment

Video: Baby's First Word Is 'Google'

It's 2019. We've sent men space, possibly cured AIDS, and we regularly tell bodiless robots to do things for us in our homes like turn on lamps and play songs we like. Why shouldn't babies imitate us?

SF News

Wife Of Maine Man Arrested For Threats Against YouTube Actually Deleted His Channel, Lied To Him About It

The story about the jilted YouTuber who took a cross-country trip just to have a word with Google about his deleted channel has taken a darkly funny new twist.

Business & Tech

Jilted YouTuber Arrested for Making Criminal Threats Against Google Personnel

Upset that his YouTube channel was shut down, a man drove 3,000 miles across the country to settle a score with Google.

SF News

Tech Companies Come Out In Force Against Trump's DACA Decision

Many of tech's biggest companies are banding together to resist President Trump's stated decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program. Per CNet's report, Google, Microsoft, and Facebook are

SF News

Facebook, Twitter, And Google Testimony Leaves Senators Visibly Dissatisfied

To put it in the simplest terms: Senators are unhappy with what they've been hearing from Facebook, Twitter, and Google executives, who are currently being questioned about how their platforms were exploited by

SF News

Disagreement Over Proper Cheeseburger Topping Placement In Emoji Prompts Google CEO To Make Some Changes

I think we need to have a discussion about how Google's burger emoji is placing the cheese underneath the burger, while Apple puts it on top pic.twitter.com/PgXmCkY3Yc— Thomas Baekdal (@baekdal)

SF News

Senators Aim To Regulate Political Ads On Social Media With 'Honest Ads Act'

A group of United States senators is looking to lead the charge on creating legislation that would ensure full transparency when it comes to buying political ad space on the internet. Senators Amy

SF Restaurants, Food & Drink

Google Pulls Calorie Counting 'Cupcakes' Feature From Maps After Strong Backlash

BuzzFeed News' Katie Notopoulos documented a new, short-lived Google Maps feature that would suggest walking to a given close-by destination while telling you how many calories the average human would burn doing so.