Google's ongoing European saga just saw a new development. After the record $5 billion antitrust fine issued by the European Commission last year, the company had to implement new screens to ask users if they wanted additional browsers and search engines on their devices, and now it's taking that one step further by making the search engine choice a default. However, as would any for-profit company do, it's using this as an opportunity to charge search providers that want to be featured.
Read MoreGoogle turns EU antitrust ruling into profit: Search providers will pay to be featured as default choice on Android
[Update: Back to normal] Google search is not showing recent results right now, which may make this story hard to find
Google has thousands of custom-built servers that scan the web every single second for new content... except right now. Google stopped indexing new webpages a few hours ago, but the company says a fix is on the way.
Read MoreGoogle adds DuckDuckGo as default Chrome search engine option in 60+ countries
Google has been facing a lot of backlash from the EU (and other countries) regarding its dominance over several markets, including online search. "Backlash" is a tame word to describe it too, there have been lawsuits, huge fines in numbers we can't fully comprehend, and lots of politics at stake. But whether this latest change in Chrome's search engines is related to that or not, we'll let you decide.
Read MoreEmployees petition Google to stop work on censored Chinese search engine Dragonfly
News of Google's censored Chinese search engine project Dragonfly has steadily leaked since August, angering many of the company's own employees - especially after the response that filtered down from the higher-ups was essentially: yes, we might compromise core values for business. A group of over 170 employees have now banded together to address the issue publicly with an article and petition posted on Medium in partnership with Amnesty International entitled "We are Google employees. Google must drop Dragonfly."
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Google estimated to be paying $9 billion to be Safari's default search engine
For search engines, there's nothing more lucrative than being the default provider on a popular web browser. In the past, companies have paid massive amounts of money for the position; Yahoo gave Mozilla over $300 million to be the default engine for Firefox, but the company was later outbid by Google. A new report estimates that Google's place as the default iPhone search engine is costing the company $9 billion this year.
Read MoreGoogle expands featured snippets to provide multiple answers to ambiguous search queries
As Google so aptly states, we often pose nuanced, and sometimes ambiguous, questions to our favorite search engines. While we as humans often understand such questions in context, especially if we know each other well, search engines are not that smart or aware. Google is hoping to address that with the addition of its new multi-faceted featured search snippets.
Read MoreDuckDuckGo's new app and extensions block ad trackers and grade websites on privacy
If you prefer that your internet searches not be subject to the all-seeing eye in Mountain View, the privacy-focused DuckDuckGo search engine has got you covered (almost literally). Now with a souped-up browser extension and mobile app, DuckDuckGo is expanding its blanket of privacy across the entire web.
Read MoreChrome on Android adding support for third-party search engine logos
Earlier this year, an anti-trust lawsuit in Russia led Google to make some changes with Chrome on Android. The settlement required Google to develop a search widget that uses any search engine, which shipped as part of Chrome 60. Chrome also now asks users in Russia to pick a search engine when first installed. In a related move, Google is adding support for custom search engine logos in Chrome for Android.
Read MoreChrome 57 adds Custom Tabs improvements, more search engine options, WebAssembly support, and more [APK Download]
A few days after the release of Chrome 57 for the desktop, Google has started pushing out the latest update to Android users. This time around, Chrome has more controls for Chrome Custom Tabs, the ability to add recently-visited search engines, support for WebAssembly, and more.
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Google Turns 16 Today, Celebrates With A Doodle Before Dad Takes It To The DMV
Happy birthday, Google. You didn't invent Android, but you made it awesome, for which we are sincerely grateful. Most of the other stuff that you do is pretty cool too. We'd tell you to watch a certain John Hughes movie, but you're too young to appreciate the reference.
The Doodle seen on Google.com today.
Google declared September 27th its "official" birthday with a 15-year celebration last year, though a precise date for the start of the company isn't really known - you could say that the start of the project goes back at least 18 years to when Larry Page and Sergey Brin began work on their custom "BackRub" search engine at Stanford University.
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