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As Europe continues to crack down on big tech, some companies are trying to take preventative measures. On Tuesday, Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai announced that the company plans to open a new tech hub in Germany dealing with data privacy. In a blog post , Pichai shared that the Google Safety Engineering Center will open in Munich, Germany, sometime this week. The company plans to increase the number of privacy engineers in Munich to more than 200 by the end of 2019. There, the team will work “hand-in-hand” with privacy specialists in the company’s offices across Europe and the globe. “It’s no accident that we’re building our privacy hub in the heart of Europe, and in a country that in many ways reflects how Europeans think about online safety, privacy and security,” Pichai wrote, adding: “This is a major milestone in our investments in Europe. Since 2007, we’ve grown in Munich to more than 750 people, hailing from more than 60 countries. We’ll continue to invest in all parts of our...
The European Union seems to have lost all patience for playing games with big tech companies. Today, the European Union announced that it fined Google €1.5 billion ($1.7 billion). It’s the company’s third antitrust violation in the country since 2017. The fine came because Google was blocking rival online search advertisers. In a statement, EU Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager said, “Google has cemented its dominance in online search adverts and shielded itself from competitive pressure by imposing anti-competitive contractual restrictions on third-party websites.” Through Google’s AdSense for Search, the company provided ads for websites, like those of newspapers, with a search function that also comes up with results and ads. Google would stop publishers from including any search ads from its competitors on their page results. This meant the publishers were relying on Google in order to profit from ads. In addition, a 2009 clause also made publishers seek Google’s...