In a legal filing, Google said a DOJ proposal to break up the company was too extreme, and it offered alternatives to address its Search monopoly abuse. “Consumers and advertisers have benefited for decades from extraordinary innovations and product improvements to Google’s search engine and search advertising auction technologies,” . “[And] remarkable artificial intelligence innovations are rapidly changing how people interact with many online products and services, including search engines.” Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each Friday — get free copies of Paul Thurrott's Windows 11 and Windows 10 Field Guides (normally $9.99) as a special welcome gift! , with U.S. district court judge Amit Mehta finding its Search monopoly to be illegal because of anticompetitive agreements with companies like Apple and Mozilla. The Judge later said for its crimes. And he asked the plaintiffs in the case–the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and 17 U.S. states–and Google, to issue remedy proposals for him to consider. Those proposals should consider the growing impact of AI to ensure that Google doesn’t find a new way to abuse its Search monopoly. . The most noteworthy recommendations include forcing Google to divest itself of the Chrome web browser and possibly the Android mobile OS, and to end its illegal agreements with Apple and Mozilla. Google’s recommendations are predictably tamer, and they don’t address every DOJ proposal. Google recommends the following. What could change is that these deals are not exclusive: These companies could still partner with others, and be paid for similar arrangements. “The Court did not find that Google’s payment for would have been anticompetitive or otherwise unlawful,” Google’s filing says. (Emphasis mine.) This would allow Google to “compete on merits.” Today, when hardware makers license Android, they are required to also license Google Search if they bundle the Play Store and a default set of Google apps on the devices. Google proposes a small change to that licensing, or what it calls “additional licensing flexibility.” In short, companies could license the Play Store and Google’s bundled apps, Search, and/or Chrome separately. Google would still be able to compete with other search engines to be the default on devices. To address growing concerns about generative AI and potential further abuses, Google would not require those who license Android or its now-optional other products and services to also bundle its Gemini “assistant chatbot.” And it would not prevent partners from bundling competing AI assistive chatbots, including those that might be positioned as search alternatives. The DOJ and the states recommended a period of 10 years. “Extreme remedies are discouraged,” . “We don’t propose these changes lightly. They would come at a cost to our partners by regulating how they must go about picking the best search engine for their customers. And they would impose burdensome restrictions and oversight over contracts that have reduced prices for devices and supported innovation in rival browsers, both of which have been good for consumers. But we believe that they fully address the Court’s findings, and do so without putting Americans’ privacy and security at risk or harming America’s global technology leadership.” Paul Thurrott is an award-winning technology journalist and blogger with 30 years of industry experience and the author of 30 books. He is the owner of and the host of three tech podcasts: with Leo Laporte and Richard Campbell, , and with Brad Sams. He was formerly the senior technology analyst at Windows IT Pro and the creator of the SuperSite for Windows from 1999 to 2014 and the Major Domo of Thurrott.com while at BWW Media Group from 2015 to 2023. You can reach Paul via , or . Join the crowd where the love of tech is real - become a Thurrott Premium Member today! Sign up for our new free newsletter to get three time-saving tips each FridayEuro zone business activity took a surprisingly sharp turn for the worse this month as the bloc’s dominant services industry contracted and manufacturing sank deeper into recession, a survey showed on Friday. HCOB’s preliminary composite euro zone Purchasing Managers’ Index, compiled by S&P Global, sank to a 10-month low of 48.1 in November, below the 50 mark separating growth from contraction. A Reuters poll had predicted no change from October’s 50.0. “The November PMI is another wake-up call for euro zone policymakers that the economy continues to show signs of weakness,” said Bert Colijn at ING. “New business is weakening again for both manufacturing and services with export orders in particular being down sharply as the euro zone economy battles weak demand from abroad.” The data pushed euro zone government bond yields lower and knocked the euro EUR= to its lowest against the dollar since December 2022 as investors bet on faster rate cuts from the European Central Bank. The central bank has cut rates three times this year to 3.25% amid increasing concerns about the bloc’s lacklustre growth outlook. Money markets expect another quarter-point cut next month and a further 125 basis points of cuts next year that would take the main rate to 1.75% by end 2025. A composite new business index fell to 46.6 from 47.9, its lowest reading this year, suggesting no imminent improvement. The economic downturn accelerated in both Germany and France with business activity falling at the quickest rate since early this year, the survey showed. Political uncertainty in the bloc’s two biggest economies may be partly to blame. Germany’s three-way coalition collapsed earlier this month, leaving the country in political limbo until snap elections in February, while in France a far-right party is threatening to topple Prime Minister Michel Barnier’s fragile coalition government over a dispute about the 2025 budget. Germany’s economy grew less than previously estimated in the third quarter, the statistics office reported on Friday, in further bad news for a country set to be the worst performer among the Group of Seven rich democracies this year. Adding to the gloomy outlook, German industry expects a 3% fall in production in 2024, a third year of decline, with no recovery in sight for 2025, the country’s BDI industry body said on Friday. To boot, President-elect Donald Trump’s proposed trade tariffs will have a significant effect on the euro zone economy in the coming years, according to a strong majority of economists in a Reuters poll. A PMI index of euro zone services, which had been offsetting the decline among manufacturers, fell to a 10-month low of 49.2 from 51.6. The poll forecast was for no change. Firms did increase headcount again but were less optimistic about the year ahead. The business expectations index fell to a two-year low of 55.0 from 59.9. The manufacturing PMI index fell to 45.2 from 46.0, confounding expectations for no change. An index measuring output, which feeds into the composite PMI, dropped to 45.1 from 45.8. That was despite factories cutting their charges for a third month and at a steeper pace than in October. The output prices index dropped to 47.9 from 48.2. In Britain, outside the European Union, business output shrank for the first time in more than a year and tax increases in the new government’s first budget hit hiring and investment plans, its PMI showed, a fresh setback for Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s push for economic growth. British retail sales fell much more than expected in October, according to official data on Friday that added to signs of a loss of momentum in the economy. Source: Reuters (Reporting by Jonathan Cable, Editing by Christina Fincher)
SAD condemns AAP govt’s proposal to sell EWS housing land to private playersALTOONA, Pa. — After UnitedHealthcare’s CEO was gunned down on a New York sidewalk, police searched for the masked gunman with dogs, drones and scuba divers. Officers used the city's muscular surveillance system. Investigators analyzed DNA samples, fingerprints and internet addresses. Police went door-to-door looking for witnesses. When an arrest came five days later, those sprawling investigative efforts shared credit with an alert civilian's instincts. A Pennsylvania McDonald's customer noticed another patron who resembled the man in the oblique security-camera photos that New York police had publicized. Luigi Nicholas Mangione, a 26-year-old Ivy League graduate from a prominent Maryland real estate family, was arrested Monday in the killing of Brian Thompson, who headed one of the United States’ largest medical insurance companies. He remained jailed in Pennsylvania, where he was initially charged with possession of an unlicensed firearm, forgery and providing false identification to police. By late evening, prosecutors in Manhattan had added a charge of murder, according to an online court docket. He's expected to be extradited to New York eventually. It’s unclear whether Mangione has an attorney who can comment on the allegations. Asked at Monday's arraignment whether he needed a public defender, Mangione asked whether he could “answer that at a future date.” Mangione was arrested in Altoona, Pennsylvania, after the McDonald's customer recognized him and notified an employee, authorities said. Police in Altoona, about 233 miles (375 kilometers) west of New York City, were soon summoned. They arrived to find Mangione sitting at a table in the back of the restaurant, wearing a blue medical mask and looking at a laptop, according to a Pennsylvania police criminal complaint. He initially gave them a fake ID, but when an officer asked Mangione whether he’d been to New York recently, he “became quiet and started to shake,” the complaint says. When he pulled his mask down at officers' request, “we knew that was our guy,” rookie Officer Tyler Frye said at a news conference in Hollidaysburg. New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at a Manhattan news conference that Mangione was carrying a gun like the one used to kill Thompson and the same fake ID the shooter had used to check into a New York hostel, along with a passport and other fraudulent IDs. NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said Mangione also had a three-page, handwritten document that shows “some ill will toward corporate America." A law enforcement official who wasn’t authorized to discuss the investigation publicly and spoke with The Associated Press on condition of anonymity said the document included a line in which Mangione claimed to have acted alone. “To the Feds, I’ll keep this short, because I do respect what you do for our country. To save you a lengthy investigation, I state plainly that I wasn’t working with anyone,” the document said, according to the official. It also had a line that said, “I do apologize for any strife or traumas but it had to be done. Frankly, these parasites simply had it coming.” Pennsylvania prosecutor Peter Weeks said in court that Mangione was found with a passport and $10,000 in cash — $2,000 of it in foreign currency. Mangione disputed the amount. Thompson, 50, was killed last Wednesday as he walked alone to a midtown Manhattan hotel for an investor conference. Police quickly came to see the shooting as a targeted attack by a gunman who appeared to wait for Thompson, came up behind him and fired a 9 mm pistol. Investigators have said “delay,” “deny” and “depose” were written on ammunition found near Thompson’s body. The words mimic a phrase used to criticize the insurance industry. From surveillance video, New York investigators gathered that the shooter fled by bike into Central Park, emerged, then took a taxi to a northern Manhattan bus terminal. Once in Pennsylvania, he went from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, “trying to stay low-profile” by avoiding cameras, Pennsylvania State Police Lt. Col. George Bivens said. A grandson of a wealthy, self-made real estate developer and philanthropist, Mangione is a cousin of a current Maryland state legislator. Mangione was valedictorian at his elite Baltimore prep school, where his 2016 graduation speech lauded his classmates’ “incredible courage to explore the unknown and try new things.” He went on to earn undergraduate and graduate degrees in computer science in 2020 from the University of Pennsylvania, a spokesperson said. “Our family is shocked and devastated by Luigi’s arrest,” Mangione’s family said in a statement posted on social media late Monday by his cousin, Maryland lawmaker Nino Mangione. “We offer our prayers to the family of Brian Thompson and we ask people to pray for all involved.” Luigi Nicholas Mangione worked for a time for the car-buying website TrueCar and left in 2023, CEO Jantoon Reigersman said by email. From January to June 2022, Mangione lived at Surfbreak, a “co-living” space at the edge of Honolulu tourist mecca Waikiki. Like other residents of the shared penthouse catering to remote workers, Mangione underwent a background check, said Josiah Ryan, a spokesperson for owner and founder R.J. Martin. “Luigi was just widely considered to be a great guy. There were no complaints,” Ryan said. "There was no sign that might point to these alleged crimes they’re saying he committed.” At Surfbreak, Martin learned Mangione had severe back pain from childhood that interfered with many aspects of his life, from surfing to romance, Ryan said. “He went surfing with R.J. once but it didn’t work out because of his back," Ryan said, but noted that Mangione and Martin often went together to a rock-climbing gym. Mangione left Surfbreak to get surgery on the mainland, Ryan said, then later returned to Honolulu and rented an apartment. Martin stopped hearing from Mangione six months to a year ago. Although the gunman obscured his face during the shooting, he left a trail of evidence in New York, including a backpack he ditched in Central Park, a cellphone found in a pedestrian plaza, a water bottle and a protein bar wrapper. In the days after the shooting, the NYPD collected hundreds of hours of surveillance video and released multiple clips and still images in hopes of enlisting the public’s eyes to help find a suspect. “This combination of old-school detective work and new-age technology is what led to this result today,” Tisch said at the New York news conference. ___
By Lindsay Shachnow Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal sent a letter to President Joe Biden and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin Sunday, urging them to issue a policy directive which would prevent the deployment of military personnel against Americans “unless specifically authorized.” Warren, a member of the Armed Services Committee, asked that the Insurrection Act — which allows the president to deploy the military for civilian law enforcement — be “narrowly applied and that the President must consult with Congress to the maximum extent practicable.” “In instances when federal forces are necessary to protect or prevent violations of individuals’ civil liberties, federal forces should only be authorized when state, local, or federal civilian law enforcement personnel are unable, fail, or refuse to protect their rights,” the letter , dated Dec. 1, says. For years, advocates have been calling to reform the Insurrection Act , calling it “dangerously vague” and “ripe for abuse.” “In theory, the Insurrection Act should be used only in a crisis that is truly beyond the capacity of civilian authorities to manage,” according to New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice . “However, the Insurrection Act fails to adequately define or limit when it may be used and instead gives the president significant power to decide when and where to deploy U.S. military forces domestically.” In his first term, Donald Trump considered using military force in response to Black Lives Matter protests and was encouraged to invoke martial law after losing the 2020 election, according to NBC News . And recently, Trump has promised to lean on military forces when launching the “ largest deportation program in American history .” In an October interview with Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo on “Sunday Morning Futures,” Trump was asked about fears of “chaos” ensuing on Election Day. “We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics,” he said. “It should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard or, if really necessary, by the military.” Ahead of Trump’s inauguration, the senators hope the directive will serve as a preventive measure against the former president whose advisers are drafting plans to potentially invoke the Insurrection Act on day 1 in office, The Washington Post reported last month . Vice President Elect J.D. Vance has reportedly defended Trump’s pledge to use military force against certain Americans deemed “the enemy from within.” Warren has also taken aim at Trump’s choice of Fox News host Pete Hegseth as his secretary of defense, calling for the appointment to “be rejected.” In the letter, Warren and Blumenthal raised concerns about the U.S. Supreme Court’s Trump v. United States decision which “significantly expanded presidential immunity for official acts.” “Given the disagreement amongst scholars on the serious implications of the recent Supreme Court decision, it is reasonable to assume that service members, other DoD personnel, and the broader military community may not be aware of or fully understand their rights and responsibilities,” the letter says. “If unaddressed, any ambiguity on the lawful use of military force, coupled with President-elect Trump’s demonstrated intent to utilize the military in such dangerous and unprecedented ways, may prove to be devastating.” Lindsay Shachnow Lindsay Shachnow covers general assignment news for Boston.com , reporting on breaking news, crime, and politics across New England. Boston.com Today Sign up to receive the latest headlines in your inbox each morning. Be civil. Be kind.Buccaneers are back to .500 and in position to control their playoff hopes down the stretch
Wildlife TV presenter and conservationist Chris Packham has resigned as president of the RSPCA after an investigation made allegations of animal cruelty at some of the charity’s approved abattoirs. Former Green Party leader Caroline Lucas has also resigned as vice-president of the animal welfare organisation, with both of them expressing their “sadness” over leaving the roles. It comes after an Animal Rising investigation made claims of cruelty at “RSPCA Assured” slaughterhouses in England and Scotland, with the campaign group sharing footage of alleged mistreatment. RSPCA Assured is a scheme whereby approved farms must comply with the organisation’s “stringent higher welfare standards”, according to its website. Mr Packham shared the news of his resignation on social media, saying: “It is with enormous sadness that I have resigned from my role as president of the RSPCA. “I would like to register my respect and admiration for all the staff and volunteers who work tirelessly to protect animals from cruelty.” Ms Lucas said she and Mr Packham failed to get the charity’s leadership to act. She posted on X, formerly Twitter: “With huge sadness I’m resigning as VP of the RSPCA, a role I’ve held with pride for over 15 years. “But their Assured Schemes risk misleading the public & legitimising cruelty. “I tried with @ChrisGPackham to persuade the leadership to act but sadly failed.” In June, the RSPCA commissioned an independent review of 200 farms on its assurance scheme which concluded the scheme was “operating effectively” to assure animal welfare on member farms. Following Animal Rising’s release of footage last week, the charity said it was “appalled” by what was shown, adding that it launched an immediate investigation and suspended three slaughterhouses from the scheme. In the wake of Mr Packham and Ms Lucas’ resignations, an RSPCA spokesperson said it is “simply not true” that the organisation has failed to take urgent action. They said: “We agree with Chris and Caroline on so many issues and have achieved so much together for animals, but we differ on how best to address the incredibly complex and difficult issue of farmed animal welfare. “We have discussed our work to drive up farmed animal welfare standards openly at length with them on many occasions and it is simply not true that we have not taken urgent action. “We took allegations of poor welfare incredibly seriously, launching an independent review of 200 farms which concluded that it was ‘operating effectively’ to improve animal welfare. “We are taking strong steps to improve oversight of welfare, implementing the recommendations in full including significantly increasing unannounced visits, and exploring technology such as body-worn cameras and CCTV, supported by £2 million of investment.” The charity insisted that while 94% of people continue to choose to eat meat, fish, eggs and dairy, it is the “right thing to do” to work with farmers to improve the lives of animals. “RSPCA Assured visit all farms on the scheme every year, but last year just 3% of farms were assessed for animal welfare by state bodies,” the spokesperson continued. “No-one else is doing this work. We are the only organisation setting and regularly monitoring animal welfare standards on farms. “We have pioneered change through RSPCA Assured, which has led to improvements throughout the industry including CCTV in slaughterhouses, banning barren battery cages for hens and sow stalls for pigs, giving salmon more space to swim and developing slower growing chicken breeds who have better quality of life.”