Tag: google

Google Says Users Removed Over COVID-19 Views Can Rejoin YouTube

YouTube creators who were removed over their views concerning COVID-19 or the 2020 election can rejoin the service, Google and its parent company, Alphabet, said in a Sept. 23 letter.

Rules in place prohibiting some discussion of COVID-19 and the election were lifted in 2023 or 2024, Google said through its lawyers.

“Today, YouTube’s Community Guidelines allow for a wider range of content regarding COVID-19 and elections integrity,” it stated. “Reflecting the Company’s commitment to free expression, YouTube will provide an opportunity for all creators to rejoin the platform if the Company terminated their channels for repeated violations of COVID-19 and elections integrity policies that are no longer in effect.”

People whose channels were suspended or taken down included Dan Bongino, the current deputy director of the FBI.

The company said it values conservative content creators and recognizes they regularly land compelling interviewers with politicians, business leaders, and others.

Google described the COVID-19 pandemic as an unprecedented time that forced online platforms to “balance freedom of expression” with moderation of content “that could result in real-world harm.” The situation was complicated by top officials in the Biden administration pressuring the company to take action against certain COVID-19 content “that did not violate its policies,” it said.

“It is unacceptable and wrong when any government, including the Biden Administration, attempts to dictate how the Company moderates content, and the Company has consistently fought against those efforts on First Amendment grounds,” the company stated.

YouTube’s medical content policies evolved throughout the pandemic, as health authorities changed their guidance, the company said. The company is now allowing a wide range of content on COVID-19 and elections.

“In contrast to other large platforms, YouTube has not operated a fact-checking program that identifies and compensates fact-checking partners to produce content to support moderation,” the letter states. “YouTube has not and will not empower fact-checkers to take action on or label content across the Company’s services.”

The letter was sent to Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), chairman of House of Representatives Judiciary Committee.

“Whether you were an established YouTube presence with a massive following like Dan Bongino or just were starting out to express political views there, YOU will have an opportunity to come back onto the platform if you were censored for engaging in political speech,” Jordan wrote on X. “This is another victory in the fight against censorship.”

Google did not respond to a request for comment.

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Google Admits Biden White House Pressured Content Removal, Promises to Restore Banned YouTube Accounts

After years of denying bias, Google now concedes that it gave in to pressure from the Biden White House to remove content that did not breach its own rules.

The admission comes alongside a promise to restore access to YouTube accounts permanently removed for political speech related to COVID-19 and elections, topics where government officials had applied behind-the-scenes pressure to control the narrative.

This move follows sustained scrutiny from the House Judiciary Committee, which Reclaim The Net covered extensively, led by Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH), who issued a subpoena and spearheaded an investigation that revealed the extent of government influence on content moderation decisions at Google.

In a letter from its legal representative, Google confirmed that it faced pressure from the federal government to suppress lawful speech.

We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.

Google revealed that it had been contacted multiple times by top federal officials regarding content on its platforms, even when that content did not break any rules.

The company stated that “Senior Biden Administration officials, including White House officials, conducted repeated and sustained outreach to Alphabet and pressed the Company regarding certain user-generated content related to the COVID-19 pandemic that did not violate its policies.”

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Google pockets $45m to fuel Netanyahu’s propaganda denying Gaza famine

Google is executing a $45-million advertising contract with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office to spread propaganda denying famine in Gaza, Drop Site News reported on 3 September.

The six-month campaign, launched in June, is run through Google’s YouTube and its Display & Video 360 service, and is described in the government contract as hasbara. 

The details were disclosed in official Israeli government contract filings from the state advertising bureau, Lapam, which reports directly to Netanyahu’s office.

A video produced by Israel’s Foreign Ministry declaring “There is food in Gaza. Any other claim is a lie” was placed on YouTube in late August, gaining over six million views. 

Its wide reach was fueled by the ongoing ad campaign coordinated by Lapam.

Records show $3 million was also spent on ads with X, while the Israeli digital advertising company Outbrain (that recently acquired the French company Teads) is set to receive about $2.1 million. Other ads accuse the UN of “deliberate sabotage” of aid deliveries and promote the US-backed, deadly Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) aid scheme. 

Campaigns have also sought to discredit the Hind Rajab Foundation (HRF), which documents Israeli war crimes, labeling it tied to “extremist ideologies.”

The propaganda drive comes as famine spreads across Gaza. In late August, the UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) officially declared famine in Gaza City and its surrounding towns for the first time, and warned that Deir al-Balah and Khan Yunis were next by the end of September. By then, a total of over 640,000 people will face “catastrophic levels” of food insecurity – classified as IPC Phase 5 – across the strip.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said on Friday that the strip faced “a descent into a massive famine.” The Health Ministry in Gaza reports at least 367 deaths from hunger and malnutrition, including 131 children, since October 2023.

Despite these figures, Israeli officials have openly called for starvation as policy. Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said, “No water, no electricity, they can die of hunger or surrender.” 

Israeli Heritage Minister Amichay Eliyahu declared that Palestinians “need to starve” and should flee under an emigration plan.

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Google ordered to pay over $425 million in damages for smartphone privacy violations

Tech giant Google has been ordered to pay over $425 million for improperly snooping on the data of smartphone users and invading users’ privacy from 2016-2024.

It’s a violation of public trust,” said attorney & political analyst Madeline Summerville.

The class action lawsuit, initially filed in 2020, accused the company of collecting data from 98 million devices that had turned off a tracking feature in their Google account.

Even though I’ve shutoff all the different apparatuses that would keep Google from monitoring me, they’re still doing it because they were doing it through third party apps,” Summerville said.

The jury found Google spied on users and was in violation of California privacy laws. But Google denied it was improperly accessing devices. A Google spokesperson told Reuters, this decision misunderstands how its products work and it plans to file an appeal. “Our privacy tools give people control over their data, and when they turn off personalization, we honor that choice.”

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Trump and Biden Tried To Break Up Google. Now, They’ve Both Failed.

The federal government’s five-year-long antitrust case against Google has ended. Instead of forcing the tech giant to divest from Chrome, a federal judge on Tuesday opted “to allow market forces to do the work.”

The suit was first brought against Google in October 2020 by President Donald Trump’s Justice Department (DOJ) and 11 states, who complained that the company had violated the Sherman Antitrust Act by monopolizing the general search services, search advertising, and general search text advertising markets in the United States. Judge Amit P. Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia—the same judge who issued Tuesday’s decision—ruled in favor of then-President Joseph Biden’s DOJ in August 2024.

In November 2024, the Justice Department proposed wide-reaching actions that the federal government said were necessary to address Google’s monopolization of the search market: divestiture from Chrome; conditional divestiture from Android; termination of its paid partnerships with Apple and Android; forced sharing of its search, user, and advertisement data with competitors; and prohibition on “query-based AI product” investments. In March, the Justice Department submitted its revised proposal, which largely maintained these remedies but eliminated the AI-investment prohibition.

On Tuesday, Mehta rejected the proposed Chrome divestiture, saying it “cannot reasonably be described as a remedy ‘tailored to fit the wrong'” and characterized the contingent Android divestiture as suffering “from similar legal infirmities.” Mehta declined to forbid Google from paying distributors like Apple for default placement of its search engine on its iPhones in light of the “GenAI products that pose a threat to the primacy of traditional internet.” Doing so would disadvantage “Google in this highly competitive space.”

Geoffrey Manne, president of the International Center for Law and Economics, says that Mehta’s refusal to enjoin Google from making payments for search access is “entirely borne out of adherence to a consumer-welfare-focused antitrust and rejection of the ‘big is bad’ vision underlying the [Justice Department’s] proposed remedies.” Likewise, Mehta’s rejection of the choice screen remedy, which would’ve required users to choose their device’s default search engine on first use and again every year thereafter, “recognized that judicial micromanagement of product design would not be beneficial for innovation or consumer welfare in the long run,” says Manne.

Mehta did prohibit Google from maintaining exclusive distribution agreements that condition access to the “Play Store or any other Google application on the distribution, preloading, or placement of Google Search.” He also sided with the plaintiffs on some search-index data-sharing provisions but opted for a narrow definition of search index, which excludes user-side data and only includes information about websites. Qualified competitors will only receive a one-time snapshot of this search index data, not the ongoing, periodic disclosure proposed by plaintiffs.

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Google’s Android Lockdown: Are You Really In Control Of Your Phone?

Android’s new rule requires all app developers to submit personal information to Google, even for apps outside the Play Store. Critics argue this threatens user freedom and ignores solutions…

Android, Google’s mobile operating system, announced on August 25 that it will be requiring all app developers to verify their identity with the organization before their apps can run on “certified android devices.”

While this might sound like a common-sense policy by Google, this new standard is not just going to be applied to apps downloaded from Google Play store, but all apps, even those “side-loaded” — installed directly into devices by side-stepping the Google Play store. Apps of the sort can be found online in Github repositories or on project websites and installed on Android devices directly by downloading the installation files (known as APKs). 

What this means is that, if there is an application that Google does not like, be it because it does not conform to its policies, politics or economic incentives, they can simply keep you from running that application on your own device. They are locking down Android devices from running applications not with their purview. The ask? All developers, whether submitting their apps through the Play store or not, need to give their personal information to Google. 

The decision begs the question, if you can not run whatever app you want on your device without the permission of Google, then is it really your device? How would you respond if Windows decided you could only install programs from the Microsoft app store?

The move has of course made news in tech and cybersecurity media and caused quite a stir as it has profound consequences for the free and open web. For years, Android has been touted as an open source operating system, and through this strategy has gained massive distribution throughout the world with users in developing countries where Apple’s “walled garden” model and luxury devices are not affordable.

This new policy will tighten up controls over applications and its developers, and threatens the freedom to run whatever software you like on your own device in a very subversive and legalistic way. Because of Google’s influence over the Android variety of phones, the consequences of this policy are likely to be felt by the majority of users and devices, throughout the world.

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Google to Require ID Verification for All Android Developers

Google is preparing to implement a wide-reaching identity verification system for Android app developers, one that could significantly alter how apps are installed and shared across the platform.

This new policy will apply not only to those who publish apps through the Play Store but also to developers distributing their software independently, expanding Google’s role as a gatekeeper over what apps are allowed on Android, even when they aren’t downloaded through Google’s app store.

Without passing Google’s verification process, apps will be blocked from running on the vast majority of Android devices.

Android was once known for its hands-off approach, especially when compared to Apple’s tightly managed ecosystem. That distinction is now fading.

Google says the new system is designed to address security concerns, citing internal data that apps obtained outside the Play Store are 50 times more likely to include malicious software. But this goes far beyond policing its own storefront. Instead, it lays the groundwork for universal control over app distribution from other sources.

Developers will be required to submit their identity information, register their app’s package names, and upload signing keys through a revamped Android Developer Console.

Oddly, Google says it will not review the apps themselves, but the identity requirement will serve as a gateway that blocks installation on certified devices unless it is satisfied. This contrasts with Google’s statement that this is all about security. If security is the main concern, then one would expect Google to actually review the app and its safety, rather than simply demanding a developer ID.

Nearly all Android phones outside China rely on Google’s services, meaning this policy will reach almost every user.

Phones running customized versions of Android that lack Google services will not be affected. However, those devices make up only a small portion of the global Android landscape. For nearly everyone else, unverified apps will simply not work.

This move expands on a policy introduced in 2023, when Google began requiring developer verification for apps on the Play Store.

The company says that the effort led to a sharp decline in scams and malware. It argues that forcing developers outside the Play Store to verify themselves will make Android more secure overall by limiting the ability of anonymous actors to spread harmful software.

Even so, this approach could shrink the space for independent app development. Android users and developers have long relied on the ability to sideload apps or use third-party marketplaces without corporate oversight. Now, even those channels may depend on Google’s approval before users can install anything.

Rollout will happen in phases. Google plans to open early access to the new system in October 2025. Developers worldwide will gain access by March 2026.

The policy will go into effect first in Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand in September 2026.

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Chrome VPN Extension With 100k Installs Screenshots All Sites Users Visit

FreeVPN.One, a Chrome extension with over 100,000 installs and a verified badge on the Chrome Web Store, is exposed by researchers for taking screenshots of users’ screens and exfiltrating them to remote servers.

A Koi Security investigation of the VPN tool reveals that it has been capturing full-page screenshots from users’ browsers, logging sensitive visual data like personal messages, financial dashboards, and private photos, and uploading it to aitd[.]one, a domain registered by the extension’s developer.

Koi Security’s forensic analysis showed that the surveillance mechanism is triggered automatically, within seconds of loading any web page. Using Chrome’s privileged chrome.tabs.captureVisibleTab() API, screenshots are silently taken in the background and bundled with metadata including page URLs, tab IDs, and unique user identifiers. This data is then transmitted to the attacker-controlled server aitd.one/brange.php, without user interaction or visible indication.

The spying behavior is powered by a two-stage architecture:

  1. A content script injected into every visited site using matches (http:///, https:///).
  2. A background service worker that listens for an internal captureViewport message and initiates the screenshot capture.

The extension also promotes an “AI Threat Detection” feature which, when clicked, captures another screenshot and sends it to aitd.one/analyze.php. However, the real issue lies in the fact that screenshots are being taken long before users ever interact with this feature, making the user interface a decoy.

Koi Security further explains that the latest version of the extension, v3.1.4, introduced AES-256-GCM encryption with RSA key wrapping to obfuscate the exfiltrated data, making it harder to detect or analyze with network monitoring tools.

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Thousands Of Grok chats Now Searchable On Google

Hundreds of thousands of conversations that users had with Elon Musk’s xAI chatbot Grok are easily accessible through Google Search, reports Forbes.

Whenever a Grok user clicks the “share” button on a conversation with the chatbot, it creates a unique URL that the user can use to share the conversation via email, text, or on social media. According to Forbes, those URLs are being indexed by search engines like Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo, which in turn lets anyone look up those conversations on the web. 

Users of Meta‘s and OpenAI‘s chatbots were recently affected by a similar problem, and like those cases, the chats leaked by Grok give us a glimpse into users’ less-than-respectable desires — questions about how to hack crypto wallets; dirty chats with an explicit AI persona; and asking for instructions on cooking meth. 

xAI’s rules prohibit the use of its bot to “promote critically harming human life” or developing “bioweapons, chemical weapons, or weapons of mass destruction,” though that obviously hasn’t stopped users from asking Grok for help with such things anyway.

According to conversations made accessible by Google, Grok gave users instructions on making fentanyl, listed various suicide methods, handed out bomb construction tips, and even provided a detailed plan for the assassination of Elon Musk.

xAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment. We’ve also asked when xAI began indexing Grok conversations.

Late last month, ChatGPT users sounded the alarm that their chats were being indexed on Google, which OpenAI described as a “short-lived experiment.” In a post Musk quote-tweeted with the words “Grok ftw,” Grok explained that it had “no such sharing feature” and “prioritize[s] privacy.”

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Google Expands Age Verification to Search

Google is extending its AI-driven age estimation system beyond YouTube and into its flagship search engine, raising renewed concerns over user surveillance and the growing reliance on opaque algorithmic profiling.

The technology, supposed to predict a user’s age by analyzing massive amounts of behavioral data such as search queries and watch history, has already triggered significant backlash.

Users are now encountering age verification prompts within Google Search.

One individual described to Reclaim The Net being asked to verify their age while watching a video on YouTube, only to face a similar prompt during later Google searches.

This suggests that once a user is tagged for age checking, the requirement may be enforced across their entire Google profile.

While sightings of the feature on Search are still limited, users have noticed the demands for more data across the European Union. The full extent of the deployment is still unclear.

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