The European Union dealt a blow to major online service providers when the European Parliament approved an overhaul to existing copyright laws that place an affirmative duty on the tech industry’s biggest players to monitor their websites for potentially infringing content. The Copyright Directive, as it’s called, has been the subject of intense lobbying from…
Tag: Google
Uber-Waymo Settlement
The Uber-Waymo1 trade secret dispute was one of the biggest intellectual property disputes of the last few years, with overarching ramifications for the race to bring autonomous driving technology to market. In the summer of 2015, it was reported that Anthony Levandowski, a self-driving-car engineer, began asking other Google employees to join him at…
Google Under Investigation in Missouri – Will the Tech Giant be Fined, or Need to Change its Practices?
On Monday, November 13, the Attorney General of Missouri, Josh Hawley, opened an investigation into Google’s business practices, looking into the possibility that the tech giant violated the state’s consumer protection and antitrust laws.1 The AG said that “the state’s preliminary investigation had found that Google may be collecting more information from users than the…
Google Sues Uber Over Self-Driving Technology
Google’s parent company Alphabet is suing Uber Technologies, alleging Uber stole trade secrets to jump-start its own autonomous vehicle program.1 Waymo, the Alphabet-owned self-driving truck company, has filed against Otto, a self-driving truck company, and its parent company, Uber.2 The suit revolves around former Google employee Anthony Levandowski. Levandowski left Google in 2016 to form…
FTC Charges Vulcun for Replacing a Game with Its Own App
On February 5, 2016, app-making company General Holdings Inc., also doing business as Vulcun, agreed with the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) to stop installing its apps on consumers’ mobile devices without their permission and plaguing them with advertisements on their desktop computers.1 The scandal started with Vulcun’s sneaky replacement of a popular browser-based game called…
Alphabet Dethrones Apple As World’s Most Valuable Company – Can It Maintain Momentum?
Alphabet, the recently formed holding company of Google, Inc., has officially surpassed Apple as the world’s most valuable corporation, a title Apple has held since 2012, as trading markets closed on Tuesday, February 2, 2016.1 It achieved this with a rather brief market capitalization of $528 billion, becoming the 12th company listed officially as the…
As tech acquisitions increase, shareholders’ voices diminish even further
Two of world’s largest technology companies, Facebook and Google, both opted for a dual-class capitalization structure for their respective initial public offerings (IPOs).1 Under this dual-class structure, the public holds Class A common stock with only one vote per share, while an insider’s Class B common stock is entitled to multiple votes per share.2 This…