A federal judge has dismissed antitrust lawsuits from Chegg and Penske Media accusing Google of harming publishers by using their content in AI Overviews and other AI search features without compensating them or providing a meaningful opt-out. Ars Technica reports: The lawsuits were filed in 2025, and Google requested a dismissal earlier this year. Chegg, an education and learning platform, claimed in its lawsuit that Google illegally scraped its educational content. This allowed Gemini models to essentially recreate that content and reduce the site's traffic. Penske, which owns publications like Rolling Stone and Variety, filed a similar case that alleged lost traffic. Specifically, the publisher claimed it was unfair that sites indexed for organic search would also have their content harvested for AI answers, with no way to opt out.
These arguments did not sway the judge, who noted that Google's implicit agreement with websites is not legally relevant. "Plaintiffs have pleaded only that they have an 'expectation' that Google will send them search "traffic if they make their content available for free," wrote Mehta. "But an expectation is not an agreement. It is simply how a general search engine works."
Since Google never had a formal arrangement with either Chegg or Penske, antitrust law doesn't apply. And Mehta is aware of the legal issues surrounding search. He also heard the DOJ's long-running search antitrust case against Google, eventually finding that Google violated the law. However, the government didn't get the harsh penalties it wanted in that case.
These arguments did not sway the judge, who noted that Google's implicit agreement with websites is not legally relevant. "Plaintiffs have pleaded only that they have an 'expectation' that Google will send them search "traffic if they make their content available for free," wrote Mehta. "But an expectation is not an agreement. It is simply how a general search engine works."
Since Google never had a formal arrangement with either Chegg or Penske, antitrust law doesn't apply. And Mehta is aware of the legal issues surrounding search. He also heard the DOJ's long-running search antitrust case against Google, eventually finding that Google violated the law. However, the government didn't get the harsh penalties it wanted in that case.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Pinto has witness protection status removed
His lawyers will appeal and say his situation is ‘critical’
Rui Pinto has revealed he is preparing to leave Portugal because he fears for his safety after being informed that his participation in the country’s witness protection programme has been terminated.
The Football Leaks founder claimed he has received “multiple death threats” and is facing “the serious risk of an assassination attempt against me” after being informed of the decision by Portuguese authorities on Wednesday. That came two days after Manchester City were found guilty of 115 charges by the Premier League – an investigation that was prompted by Pinto’s leaks of thousands of private documents.
Continue reading...Joshua Kerry, 28, of Rotherham in South Yorkshire, charged with one count of preparation of terrorist acts, say police
The man accused of murdering Ann Widdecombe has been charged with engaging in conduct in preparation of acts of terrorism including against Nigel Farage, police have said.
Joshua Kerry, 28, of Rotherham in South Yorkshire, was charged by the Crown Prosecution Service on Friday with one count of preparation of terrorist acts. The charge relates to activity alleged to have taken place between 31 May 2024 and 8 July this year, counter-terrorism police said.
Continue reading...Buckingham Palace say the king will not ‘shy away’ from Britain’s role in slavery when he visits Commonwealth nations later this month
King Charles III will acknowledge the “darkest days” of colonial rule and slavery while touring Caribbean countries on a visit beginning this month, a Buckingham Palace spokesperson said on Friday.
The king will first visit the Bahamas and Guyana alone, followed by a trip to Antigua and Barbuda with Queen Camilla, where Charles will give a speech at a meeting of Commonwealth heads of government, the palace said.
Continue reading...
Na een ontbonden demonstratie op de Dam in Amsterdam vervoerde de politie betogers naar het Westelijk Havengebied, waar agenten klappen uitdeelden met hun wapenstok. De politie deelt de conclusies van een intern onderzoek na vragen van Het Parool.
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Faced with growing opposition to datacenters from residents who don't want the bit barns in their backyards, Amazon plans to invest $1 billion over the next five years to indoctrinate the public. The company announced the investment in a whataboutism-packed blog post aimed at convincing readers datacenters are not as bad as they've been led to believe, and that if the common folk don't get in line and support their development, the nation could be left in the dust. The program aims to invest in education, job training, local infrastructure improvements, and sustainability initiatives in communities home to Amazon datacenters. "This build out is so important geopolitically that there are widespread reports of various countries intentionally seeding misinformation in the US about datacenters to trick us into slowing down," the e-tailer turned cloud titan wrote. "Right now there are over 100 datacenter moratoriums being considered across the country. If these measures are enacted, the US could be writing its own losing ticket to this race, and the consequences would last generations." If Jeff Bezos's cash cow is to be believed, datacenters will transform the US economy much like the buildout of the highway system did in the '50s. But that can't happen, Amazon argues, if Americans block the development of these bit barns over misguided fears. The blog post highlights four such datacenter fears, which Amazon claims are "myths," despite plenty of reporting to suggest otherwise. Who needs water? The first "myth" is the fact that datacenters consume an excessive share of water. Bit barns commonly employ evaporative coolers which use water to reject heat generated by the facility into the atmosphere. These cooling towers use less energy than dry coolers or refrigerant-based systems but remove water from local watersheds as a consequence. According to Amazon, citizens should really be more worried about the water consumed by golf courses, which it claims use 200x more water than all of Amazon's datacenters. That argument might be more convincing if people didn't like golf courses. But they do and the whole lesser of two evils argument works a lot better when one of those evils isn't extremely popular. Amazon also attempted to dispel claims that a typical datacenter consumes five million gallons a day, arguing that its facilities are much more efficient using just 13,000 gallons a day, the equivalent of 42 US households. But this leaves out an important detail. It is possible to build datacenters that don't consume large quantities of water, but these facilities often consume large sums of power as a consequence. Most gas, nuclear, coal, and anything else that uses steam to turn a turbine also consumes water. In other words, nearly every large-scale power-generation method uses water either directly or indirectly. And despite Amazon's attempts to downplay the impact of datacenters, there's good reason for those living nearby to be worried. Earlier this year, it was reported that a datacenter, which we'll note was not operated by Amazon, has quietly sucked up nearly 30 million gallons of water and the only reason anyone discovered the issue was that local residents started complaining of unusually low water pressure. We totally won't let datacenters drive up your power bill or poison your air Amazon also attempted to dispel fears that datacenters could leave neighboring residents picking up the tab for their massive power consumption. The company argues that rates are going up because the US grid is old, and that responsible bit barn builders are working with utilities to ensure they're paying their fair share for the additional capacity and infrastructure upgrades required to support them. What wasn't addressed is why folks might be worried about rising rates. One of the reasons that utilities and plant operators are so conservative is that they've been burned by speculative markets before. If new power plants are built to meet demand that never materializes, ratepayers could get stuck with the bill. Amazon and others agreeing to pay higher rates might help, but only if they're consuming an appreciable amount of the capacity they convinced utilities to build. An empty datacenter doesn't pull a lot of juice. Speaking of power, Amazon also attempted to downplay the impact of datacenters on air quality due to their reliance on diesel backup generators. "The truth is the datacenter generators almost never run," the company wrote. Amazon also argued that these generators are subject to stringent permitting requirements which dictate how long they can run for. That might be more reassuring if datacenters in power constrained regions weren't getting permission after the fact to exceed those limits. And, as we saw with Elon Musk's Colossus supercomputer, temporary gas turbines can be deployed when the local grid can't support the load. That hasn't sat well with residents of Boxtown, Tennessee, while the NAACP is suing xAI over allegedly unpermitted turbines in Mississippi. Amazon can argue it's got a better track record than most, but that doesn't mean the community's concerns are misplaced. But think of the taxes Finally, Amazon argues that folks don't realize how big of an economic impact datacenters have on their community. "Datacenter operators are often the single largest taxpayer in a community, with upfront payments routinely exceeding entire annual municipal budgets in the first year of construction," the company claimed. "For example, in St. Joseph County, Indiana, the taxes Amazon will pay to the county are estimated to exceed $3 billion." The subtext is that, by enacting datacenter moratoriums, communities are walking away from billions in tax dollars. Then again, if the tax revenue from these facilities is so great, it raises the question why Amazon needs to spend more than $1 billion over five years sweetening the deal for communities hosting its bit barns. ®
Nine months [in 1996], 25,000 miles, one phone cord, and the kindness of strangers. [Longreads]
De Rotterdamse club Villa Thalia probeerde vrijdagavond de tijdelijke sluiting op last van burgemeester Schouten terug te draaien, maar de rechtbank Rotterdam stelt hen niet in het gelijk. Aanleiding om voor de rechter te verschijnen was het geplande optreden van rapper JoeyAK deze avond. Volgens de burgemeester is de komst van de rapper een risico voor de veiligheid, daarom werd besloten de club te sluiten voor 24 uur.
