Google

Google avoids paying $1.64 BILLION in back taxes after winning French court case

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– Google avoids paying $1.64b in back taxes after winning French court case:

Google will not have to pay 1.1 billion euros ($1.64 billion) in back taxes after winning a court case in Paris.

France’s tax authorities unsuccessfully argued that Google should have paid that amount of tax between 2005-2010.

The US tech giant sold online advertising which was displayed in France but booked through its subsidiary in low-tax Ireland.

The court ruled that the way in which Google operates in France allows it to be exempt from most taxes.

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H/t reader kevin a. 

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Google Fined A Record €2.4 Billion For Skewing Search Results In European Antitrust Ruling

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– Google Fined A Record €2.4 Billion For Skewing Search Results In European Antitrust Ruling:

Google suffered a major regulatory blow on Tuesday, when the EU’s antitrust regulator fined Alphabet’s Google a record €2.42 billion ($2.71 billion) fine for “abusing its dominance in search” and favoring its own comparison-shopping service in search results: a decision with far-reaching implications for both the tech sector and already strained transatlantic relations. The EU further ordered the search giant to apply the same methods to rivals as its own when displaying their services in search results.

Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s competition commissioner, said Google “denied other companies the chance to compete” and left consumers without “genuine choice.” 

Read moreGoogle Fined A Record €2.4 Billion For Skewing Search Results In European Antitrust Ruling

Google Promises To Bury “Questionable” Content On YouTube

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– Google Promises To Bury “Questionable” Content On YouTube:

“…we will be taking a tougher stance on videos that do not clearly violate our policies — for example, videos that contain inflammatory religious or supremacist content. In future these will appear behind an interstitial warning and they will not be monetised, recommended or eligible for comments or user endorsements.”

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GOOGLE to target criticism of Islam in new anti-First Amendment censorship purge

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– GOOGLE to target criticism of Islam in new anti-First Amendment censorship purge:

One of the examples cited by Google for what it now considers “upsetting-offensive” content that will be subject to flagging, de-listing and possible censorship is a website that describes the religion of Islam as “intolerant.”

Infowars  Associated Press reported that Google will begin directing teams of employees to flag content that is deemed “upsetting” or “offensive” and bury such websites in order to “improve the quality of its search results”.

“The new “upsetting-offensive” flag instructs quality raters to “flag to all web results that contain upsetting or offensive content from the perspective of users in your locale, even if the result satisfies the user intent,” according to the report.

Read moreGOOGLE to target criticism of Islam in new anti-First Amendment censorship purge

Austria Has Found A Way To Tax Google Searches And Social Media Posts

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“It’s always just raise more and more taxes without end.”

– Austria Has Found A Way To Tax Google Searches And Social Media Posts:

Highlighting the difficulty both public and private establishments can have when it comes to adapting methods in the digital age, it was reported Monday that one government is now trying to tax search giant Google and social media companies.

From a report by Bloomberg:

“Austria is seeking ways to make digital services like Alphabet Inc.’s Google or Facebook Inc. pay taxes for transactions with the nation’s internet users, trying to plug gaps in a tax system still designed for brick-and-mortar business.”

Continuing, Bloomberg explains something most people don’t stop to consider: how social media actually functions, and at no monetary cost to users:

Read moreAustria Has Found A Way To Tax Google Searches And Social Media Posts

PURE EVIL: How Google steals content, crushes small publishers and monopolizes the internet for profit

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– PURE EVIL: How Google steals content, crushes small publishers and monopolizes the internet for profit:

If you don’t yet realize how Google has become the most EVIL corporation in the world, check out this article from TheWeek.com which reveals how Google steals content from small publishers, crushes their revenue, puts them out of business and monopolizes the internet.

The article, entitled, “Google is a monopoly — and it’s crushing the internet,” reveals how Google destroys small publishers by literally stealing their content and denying them revenues, putting them out of business:

Read morePURE EVIL: How Google steals content, crushes small publishers and monopolizes the internet for profit

YouTube ad boycott could cost Google parent Alphabet $US750 MILLION

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– YouTube ad boycott could cost Google parent Alphabet $US750m:

The world’s second-largest company by market capitalisation Alphabet, which owns Google, is under pressure in its key source of income – advertising.

Companies are pulling their ad dollars from Alphabet-owned YouTube after discovering their brands were being linked with extremist content because of a numbers-based system driven by profiling and popularity.

This week Australian companies including Telstra joined a host of global brands that have stopped advertising on the platform, and analysts say the boycott could cost Alphabet $US750 million – a big number but a small fraction of the company’s expected revenue of $US73 billion.

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H/t reader kevin a.

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The High Priests of Political Correctness Are at It Again!

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H/t reader squodgy:

“All part of the plan.

End FREE SPEECH and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN?”

– The High Priests of Political Correctness Are at It Again!:

Dear American Free Press supporter:

Let’s be honest. As far as cash reserves go, the bank account of American Free Press is usually as empty as Mother Hubbard’s cupboard. We struggle every month to make ends meet, but always get the job done. We publish a real newspaper—not one loaded with the kind of fake news you get from the controlled media and so many “alternative” media outlets who don’t bother to check the facts. That’s right:?Our bank account is small, but our staff and writers have the hearts of lions.

And though our print subscribership is relatively small and we are lucky to crack the top 75,000 websites in the world every year, we certainly get noticed by a lot of high-powered agitators.

Just recently, for instance, Internet giant Google informed us that they will no longer do business with us. On February 9, we received a termination notice from the brass at Google ending our advertising contract. The reason?  AFP?is, in a nutshell, too politically incorrect for them. Incidentally, we were making just $144 a month from what is known as Google Ad Sense. Google Ad Sense monitors website traffic and discovered last year that AFP’s Internet site, staffed by just one part-time employee, had, on average, nearly 400,000 different people reading a grand total of over 1.7 million pages on our website every month.

Despite the small staff and the minimal budget, these are very good numbers for some of the “big boys,” let alone one small, independent newspaper fighting for its existence.

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