Ah, I did notice that Black History Month somehow disappeared from my calendar.

Now I know why. Incredible.

https://www.theverge.com/news/608858/google-calendar-missing-events-holidays

via https://mamot.fr/@Khrys/113982030692186300

#news #TechNews #technology #google #diversity #erasure

Google Calendar removed events like Pride and BHM because its holiday list wasn’t ‘sustainable’

Some Google Calendar users noticed that certain events like the Pride month are no longer highlighted. Google stopped manually adding cultural moments last year.

^{Jay Peters (The Verge)}

Google, a brief history

2004: Don’t be evil
2018: OK, be evil but at least don’t kill people
2025: Fuck it, kill people

https://www.independent.co.uk/business/google-drops-pledge-not-to-use-ai-for-weapons-b2692533.html

#Google #BigTech #AI #SiliconValley #USA #capitalism #fascism

Google drops pledge not to use AI for weapons

The tech giant has unveiled an update to its AI principles, which removes references to not pursuing work on weapons and surveillance.

^{Martyn Landi (The Independent)}

The UK Competition and Markets Authority (#CMA) has launched today a new investigation into #Apple and #Google under the Digital Markets Competition Code (#DMCC) to determine their strategic market status in mobile ecosystems, including operating systems, app stores, and mobile browsers.

We welcome this as a step towards fairer markets where #DeviceNeutrality is the standard, and #FreeSoftware its enabler.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/cma-to-investigate-apple-and-googles-mobile-ecosystems

CMA to investigate Apple and Google's mobile ecosystems

Investigations will determine if Apple and Google have strategic market status in their mobile ecosystems, including operating systems, app stores and mobile browsers.

^{Competition and Markets Authority (GOV.UK)}

💥Digital competition is also a priority in the UK!

Yesterday, the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) launched an investigation against #Google under the new digital markets competition regime.

The FSFE submitted a comprehensive position last year explaining how #FreeSoftware is impacted.

Find it here: https://download.fsfe.org/device-neutrality/fsfe-cma-dmcca-07-24.pdf

#softwarefreedom #dma

Back in October I asked here why searching for “Norton Password Manager” on Chrome Web Store brings up five completely unrelated extensions which all show up before the actual Norton Password Manager. Now I know the answer: some extension authors figured out how to use translations in order to mess with the search results. https://palant.info/2025/01/08/how-extensions-trick-cws-search/

I found 920 extensions using this approach. Most of them fall into a few large extension clusters that are spamming Chrome Web Store. For example, I could attribute 122 extensions to the Kodice / Karbon Project / BroCode cluster that I covered in June 2023 originally. Another 100 extensions belong to the PDF Toolbox cluster that originally appeared on my blog in May 2023. The ZingFront / ZingDeck / BigMData cluster is one I also researched back in 2023 but didn’t publish – 223 extensions.

There is also a cluster that was new to me and which I couldn’t really tie to a company name (apart from finding two red herrings). There seems to be a Ukrainian/Russian language part and a Farsi (?) language part here, and it’s hundreds of extensions despite only 55 of them qualifying for the list in this article.

Now that this is out, are you as excited as me to see what Google will do about this?

#google #cws #ChromeExtensions #chrome #ChromeWebStore #spam

How extensions trick CWS search

There are hundreds of extensions in Chrome Web Store using bogus “translation” to mess up search results. Most extensions are produced by a few extensions clusters who are flooding Chrome Web Store with spam.

^{Almost Secure}

Google and Microsoft recently admitted their emissions are soaring as they build out data centers to power the AI boom.

But new analysis from The Guardian suggests the data center emissions of Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Apple are 662% higher than the companies reporting.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2024/sep/15/data-center-gas-emissions-tech

#tech #ai #datacenters #microsoft #google #apple #meta #climate

Data center emissions probably 662% higher than big tech claims. Can it keep up the ruse?

Emissions from in-house data centers of Google, Microsoft, Meta and Apple may be 7.62 times higher than official figures

^{Guardian staff reporter (The Guardian)}

According to the "Terminator" film franchise, TODAY is the day that Skynet became self-aware, took over, and started its campaign to destroy humanity. The good news is that instead we have garbage like #Google Gemini that can't even answer questions like "When was Kamala Harris born?"

So we're probably safe from Skynet for now.

Mr @icing found a HTTP/2 bug in the #Google frontend webserver.

https://github.com/curl/curl/issues/14620

curl 8.9.1 reports HTTP/2 stream was not closed cleanly: PROTOCOL_ERROR for 416 · Issue #14620 · curl/curl

I did this $ curl -vvvS --fail-early -Lo go1.23.0.src.tar.gz https://go.dev/dl/go1.23.0.src.tar.gz # whoops, I didn't see if that finished. try again to be sure $ curl -vvvS --fail-early -Lo go1.23...

^GitHub

***** Without warning, #Google appears to have broken #Chrome for still supported Linux systems *****

I'm receiving reports -- and have confirmed locally -- that Google appears to have broken support for the Chrome browser for Ubuntu Linux 18.04 systems, without any warning that I'm aware of.

While 18.04 is an older system, many are running with extended support from Canonical that runs through 2028. Many of these systems are in crucial applications where upgrading to later Ubuntu versions is not currently practical.

The problem appears to be that while Chrome Stable 127 is fine on these systems, Chrome Stable 128 now being rolled will not upgrade via apt, due apparently to the system libgcc-s1 library not being >= 4.2.

While there may be manual workarounds for this situation, they cannot be considered generally applicable since tampering with system libraries can easily render a system unbootable.

If Google intended to obsolete Chrome on these systems, there should have been plenty of warning -- but apparently there was none. Not being able to update Chrome invokes a variety of serious security concerns.

The current situation is unacceptable. -L

Degoogle update - I've successfully migrated a majority of the apps and services I use:

Gmail => Proton
Drive => Proton, Nextcloud
Docs => Obsidian, Nextcloud
Sheets => Nextcloud
Maps => OSMand+
Android => GrapheneOS
Play => F-Droid
Authenticator => Aegis
Podcasts (RIP) => Podverse
Chrome => Firefox, Vanadium, Chromium
Voice => not replaced
Search => SearXNG

Overall, I'm really happy with the experience. It took some effort and cost some money to get things set up, but everything works about as well as the Google equivalents and the agency feels great.

In particular, I can't imagine using the web these days without uBlock Origin. Every time I see someone else's web experience I just want to say "you live like this?"

I still haven't moved away from YouTube / YouTube Music. At this point, I'm not sure I will. I know there's some functional pirate utilities, but my fam uses the subscription and I'm not super interested in trying to maintain a whole media center. Open to suggestions, tho.

Anyone else taking this journey feel like sharing their experience?

#selfhosting #google #grapheneos #nextcloud #libreoffice #proton #obsidian

So will they be made available to watch on Peertube, or at least streamed on Owncast, or will you be pushing people to a centralized, proprietary, privacy invasive, advertising platform as usual?

#Nextcloud #Peertube #Owncast #Youtube #Google #GAFAM

Neue Chrome-API: Google lässt Werbetreibende messen, wann ihre Anzeigen gesehen werden | netzpolitik.org

Google ergänzt seinen Chrome-Browser um eine Programmierschnittstelle, die es Werbetreibenden ermöglichen soll, genau zu messen, wann ihre Anzeigen gesehen wurden. Die „Intersection Observer“ genannte API ist Teil einer Reihe von jüngst angekündigten Maßnahmen, mit denen Googles Werbenetzwerk DoubleClick für seine Kunden das „viewability measurement“ verbessern möchte.

https://netzpolitik.org/2016/neue-chrome-api-google-laesst-werbetreibende-messen-wann-ihre-anzeigen-gesehen-werden/

#chrome #browser #spyware #google #doubleclick

#GoogleCloud joins .NET foundation Technical Steering Group

https://cloudplatform.googleblog.com/2016/11/Google-Cloud-to-join-NET-Foundation-Technical-Steering-Group.html http://www.pcworld.com/article/3142329/application-development/microsoft-and-google-bury-the-hatchet-in-one-small-way.html

#Google #Microsoft

Posted by Chris Sells, Product Manager In tomorrow’s enterprise, developers and IT professionals work in an environment characterized by ...

Wie viel #Google in #Android ist - eine kleine Ãœbersicht

Das Betriebssystem Android und die Firma Google gehören zusammen – soweit bekannt. Google beschreibt Android als „freie“ Software, bei der jeder den Programmcode nutzen und verändern kann. Wem also gehört Android? Und wer bestimmt, was im Code steht?

Na das hört sich doch mal sehr erfreulich an. \o/
#SEO #google

SEO / Linkbuilding nach Pinguin und Panda [Howto] » t3n News

Das jüngste „Qualitäts-Update" von Google (Projektname: Pinguin) hat die Suchergebnisseiten gehörig durcheinander gewirbelt und einige Websites massiv Sichtbarkeit gekostet. Unser Gastautor Martin Missfeld sagt, wie Suchmaschinen-Optimierer auf ...