Analysis As blowback against Facebook and its business model enters its third week, with netizens railing against the amount and type of personal data the social network has on them, calls for new privacy laws have started growing. And in response so has a secret lobbying effort, spearheaded by Google, to head those calls off at the …

Around 2003, a computer security portent that had been cheerlessly simmering away for years suddenly came to the boil. This was an era stricken by malware attacks on a scale few had prepared for, running software beset with flaws some vendors seemed disinclined to acknowledge let alone fix. Vulnerabilities, including high- …

It was the weekend that had it all: promiscuous permissions dragged Google into the Facebook privacy row, Facebook apologised again while at the same time denying anything's wrong with its Android apps, and Tim Cook was totally not smug when he chimed into the privacy debate. It's long been understood by people in tech (less …

The US Senate has passed the Stop Enabling Sex Trafficking Act (SESTA) with a 97-2 vote. The passage comes after its twin bill, FOSTA, was passed in the House. President Trump is expected sign the legislation into law shortly. Aimed at ending sex trafficking through online personal ads, SESTA has generated debate between …

The two engineers who further developed and popularized the concept of RISC microprocessors have won the 2017 ACM Turing Award. Professors John Hennessy and David Patterson were today announced as this year's (or last year's, if you want to be particular about it) winners of the prestigious honor named after Brit super-boffin …

Efforts to track down criminals in the US state of North Carolina have laid bare a dangerous gap in the law over the use of location data. Raleigh police went to court at least three times last year and got a warrant requiring Google to share the details of any users that were close to crime scenes during specific times and …

Former UK lottery quango Nesta pocketed cash from Google to set up a Big Tech-friendly think tank. The details of Google's influence in European academic life are detailed in a report by the Campaign for Accountability (CfA), an initiative part-funded by Google's competitors. Google turned out to be the only corporate sponsor …

RTBF trial Google allows software engineers, as well as its dedicated Right To Be Forgotten (RTBF) operatives, to make decisions about which search results ought to be deleted on request – and places such requests onto its internal bug-handling systems. Behind-the-scenes details of how the "online advertising technology" company handles …

Airbus won't eradicate Microsoft Office from its entire user base after all it seems: the Defence, Space and Helicopters units will retain the on-premises version due to the "legal and national security implications" of storing sensitive data in the cloud. As revealed by The Register on 14 March, Airbus will start shifting its …

Comment After years of hype, the connected home is finally here thanks to a range of new products available this week from Google-owned Nest. Having announced back in September that it would launch a new smart security system, doorbell and lock, the company finally put the last two into the market this week, as well as a new, smarter …

Google has escalated the priority and severity rating of a bug that has been silencing microphones on its Pixel smartphones running Android 8.1, aka Oreo. The Chocolate Factory on Wednesday raised the priority level and the severity level from 3 to 1, the highest possible level, signaling that it intends to expedite its …

Google’s beefed up Chrome Enterprise, its US$50-a-year management service for Chrome OS devices. Launched in August 2017, the service introduced integrations with Active Directory, VMware’s Workspace One and printer management, among other features designed to make the idea of running a corporate fleet of Chrome OS devices …

LogoWatch LogoWatch Google’s re-branded Android Wear, the cut of Android for wearable devices, as “Wear OS by Google” and added the tag line "make every minute matter". The company’s brief announcement doesn’t really explain why Google’s made the change, other than to say it’s “a new name that better reflects our technology, vision, and …

Interview Collaboration rather than cost is the reason Airbus has given Microsoft’s old-world Office app bundle the heave ho and is migrating 130,000 staff – the entire workforce – to Google’s G Suite. As exclusively revealed by The Register on Wednesday, Airbus – yes, the designer, builder and seller of civil and military aeronautical …

RTBF trial The man demanding Google deletes search links to interviews he gave about a criminal offence he committed has been accused of giving “demonstrably false” answers in court by Google’s barrister. That accusation came during yesterday’s final hearing in the Right To Be Forgotten trial at the High Court in London. Antony White QC …

In Austin, Texas, on Tuesday, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki told the audience at the South by Southwest Interactive conference that the social video site plans to defuse conspiracy theory content by pairing it with corrective information culled from Wikipedia – a site editable by more or less anyone. However, she neglected to …

Exclusive Airbus is to shift its entire workforce to Google’s cloudy productivity and collaboration tools, ditching Microsoft Office on-prem wares in the process. The “decision that will shape our company” was confirmed by Airbus CEO Tom Enders in a memo to staff – seen by The Register – who said the business is gearing up for the next …

Google has joined the Bitcoin-hating bandwagon with a ban on ads for cryptocurrencies and initial coin offerings from June. The move was announced today as part of an update to its financial services policy to crack down on unregulated products. This will mean companies can no longer serve ads for "cryptocurrencies and …