A month after losing a landmark antitrust case brought by the Department of Justice, Google is headed back to court to face off for a second time against federal prosecutors, CNBC reported.

In August, a judge ruled that Google has held a monopoly in internet search, marking the biggest antitrust ruling in the tech industry since the case against Microsoft more than 20 years ago. This time, Google is defending itself against claims that its advertising business has acted as a monopoly that’s led to higher ad prices for customers.

The trial begins in Alexandria, Virginia, on Monday and will likely last for at least several weeks. It represents the first tech antitrust trial from a case brought by the Biden administration. The department’s earlier lawsuit was first filed in October 2020, when Donald Trump was in the White House.

The Washington Post reported Google makes lots of money but has a miserable year in court, and its judicial travails are far from over.

In the waining days of 2023, a federal jury in San Francisco declared Google’s app store an illegal monopoly. In August, a federal judge in D.C. made the same determination for the keystone of its more than $300 billion in annual revenue: the Google search engine. And on Monday, the company goes on trial again, in Virginia, this time on monopoly charges related to its online business.

Monopoly charges of that magnitude are a rarity. Google is one of the only handful of corporate giants to be taken to court since the 1970s under federal monopoly law. For decades since, U.S. officials have treated high-tech companies gingerly, leery of damaging the nation’s economic engines and of punishing exemplars of innovation and free enterprise. 

The string of cases against Google suggests an end to that reluctance, reflecting instead a shift toward heavier oversight as concerns have grown across the political spectrum over tech giants throwing their weight around.

The Verge reported Google and the Justice Department are set for a rematch of sorts on Monday when they return to court to argue about Google’s alleged monopolistic behavior over how ads are bought and sold on the internet.

The DOJ is fresh off a win in its search antitrust case against Google, where a federal judge in Washington, DC, agreed that Google had illegally monopolized the online search market. This time, the two parties will argue before a different judge in Virginia about whether Google has also illegally monopolized markets for advertising technology.

The DOJ is arguing that Google illegally monopolized the market for ad tech tools across the ecosystem. That includes the demand side of ad networks for buying space on websites, the supply side of publisher ad servers for hawking advertising inventory, and the exchanges like Google AdX that sit between the two.

In my opinion, it appears that Google could – potentially – face additional lawsuits, depending upon what the judge decides. 

Google parent Alphabet is in advanced talks to acquire cybersecurity startup Wiz for roughly $23 billion, according to people familiar with the matter, in what would be the largest acquisition ever, Wall Street Journal reported.

Alphabet is eyeing the deal at a time of intense antitrust scrutiny of the search company and other tech giants. The acquisition could also help boost Alphabet’s efforts in cloud computing, an important and growing business but one where it has lagged behind peers.

Wiz’s valuation has soared since it was founded in 2020 by Chief Executive Assaf Rappaport and several colleagues. The company, which offers cybersecurity software for cloud computing, raised $1 billion earlier this year at a valuation of $12 billion. It is one of only a few startups outside the artificial-intelligence industry to raise money at a higher valuation in 2024.

Wiz said it hit $100 million in annual recurring revenue after 18 months, and achieved $350 million in annual recurring revenue in 2023. The company is backed by prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalists, including Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, Index Ventures, and Lightspeed Venture Partners.

A Wiz acquisition would dwarf the size of Google’s largest deal to date, its $12.4 billion purchase of Motorola Mobility that closed in 2012. Google also spend $2.1 billion on Fitbit in 2012 — a deal that hit regulatory hurdles after it was announced — and $3.2 billion on Nest Labs in 2014. Other acquisitions over the years have included YouTube, DoubleClick, Looker, and Waze.

CNBC reported Wiz was founded in 2020, and has grown at a rapid clip under CEO Assaf Rappaport. It had been eyeing an IPO as recently as May, when the company achieved a valuation of $12 billion.

Wiz’s cloud security offering gives executives and cybersecurity professionals inside into the company’s full cloud presence, something appealing to large firms with significant computing resources. It is back by a roster of blue chip firms, including Israeli VC firm Cyberstarts, Index Ventures, Insight Partners and Sequoia Capital.

If completed, the deal would be Google’s largest ever acquisition. It would also underline a clear and continued bet on cybersecurity, at a time when the nation state and criminal actors have managed to disrupt governments and large organizations. Google has made large cyber acquisitions before: The company acquired cybersecurity firm Mandiant for $5.4 billion two years ago.

Reuters reported Google parent Alphabet is in advanced talks to acquire cybersecurity startup Wiz for roughly $23 billion, a person familiar with the matter said Sunday, in a deal that would represent the technology giant’s biggest acquisition ever.

The deal, being funded mostly in cash, could come together soon, the source added, speaking on behalf of anonymity. Wiz, founded in Israel and now headquartered in New York, is one of the fastest growing software startups globally, providing cloud-based cybersecurity solutions with real-time threat detection and responses powered by artificial intelligence.

In my opinion, if this deal goes through, it could help Alphabet to grow bigger. We will have to wait and see what happens. To me, it seems like a deal this large could become a problem for Google.

Over the last two years, a series of updates to Google Search amount to a dramatic upheaval to the Internet’s most powerful tool, complex with an unprecedented AI features. Will Google save the web, or destroy it? BBC reported.

If you’ve ever typed “air purifier reviews” into Google, you were probably looking for the kind of content that you’ll find on HouseFresh.com, The site started in 2020 by Gisele Navarro and her husband, based on a decade of experience writing about indoor air quality products. They filled their basement with purifiers, running rigorous science-based tests and writing articles to help consumers sort through marketing hype.

Then, in September 2023, Google made one in a series of major updates to the algorithm that runs its search engine. 

A spokesperson for Google tells the BBC that the company only launches changes to Search after rigorous testing confirmed that the shift will be helpful for users, and that the company gives website owners help, resources and opportunities for feedback on their Search rankings.

CNN reported Google promised its new artificial intelligence search tools would “do the work for you” and make finding information online quicker and easier. But just days after the launch, the company is already walking back some factually incorrect results.

Google earlier this month introduced an AI-generated search results overview tool, which summarizes search results so that users don’t have to click through multiple links to get quick answers to their questions. But the feature came under fire this week after it provided false or misleading information to some users’ questions.

For example, several users posted on X that Google’s AI summary said that former President Barack Obama is a Muslim, a common misconception. In fact, Obama is a Christian. Another user posted that a Google AI summary that said “none of Africa’s 54 recognized countries start with the letter ‘K” — clearly forgetting Kenya.

Google confirmed to CNN on Friday that the AI overviews for both queries had been removed for violating the company’s policies.

NBC News reported social media has been buzzing with examples of Google’s new “experimental” artificial intelligence tool going awry. The feature, which writes an “AI overview” response to user queries based on sources pulled from around the web, has been placed at the top of some search results.

But repeatedly, social media posts show that the tool is delivering wrong or misleading results. An NBC News review of answers provided by the tool showed that it sometimes displays false information in response to simple queries.

For example, an NBC News search for “how many feet does an elephant have” resulted in a Google AI overview answer that said “Elephants have two feet, with five toes on the first feet and four on the back feet.”

In my opinion, Google’s AI is not really ready yet. It appears to be grabbing information off various websites and giving wrong answers.