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JUST GROK IT: GOOGLE SEARCH SLIPS BELOW 90% FOR FIRST TIME SINCE 2015

After a decade of ruling the web, Google’s grip is cracking.

Global search share fell to 89.71% in March - its first real stumble since 2015.

Turns out people are done scrolling through SEO sludge and ads pretending to be answers.

AI search is eating Google’s lunch.

Why dig through link farms when you can just Grok it and get straight to the point?

Users want answers, not blue links.

Google will pay the state of Texas $1.375 billion to resolve two privacy lawsuits claiming the tech giant tracks Texans’ personal location and maintains their facial recognition data, both without their consent.

Google announced the settlement Friday, ending yearslong battles with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) over the state’s strict laws on user data. ...

The settlement rivals the $1.4 billion Meta opted to pay Texas last year to resolve facial recognition claims involving its Facebook and Instagram platforms. That agreement, which involved just one case, was the largest ever obtained from a suit brought by a single state. ...

The $1.375 billion exceeds the $391.5 million settlement Google reached with 40 states for misleading consumers over location tracking practices in 2022. ...

Texas relied on lucrative outside contingency contracts with law firms to take on Google and Meta.

Norton Rose Fulbright, which took the Google litigation, will collect up to 18% of the total net recovery in the facial recognition case and up to 27% of the recovery in the location case, according to contracts with the state of Texas that Bloomberg Law obtained through public records requests.

Partners and shareholders will bill $3,780 an hour—which factors in their usual hourly rate of $945 multiplied by four to offset the risk of losing and getting nothing. Senior associates will bill $2,600 an hour, and associates $1,900 an hour.

A federal appeals court has upheld a jury verdict condemning Google’s Android app store as an illegal monopoly, clearing the way for a federal judge to enforce a potentially disruptive shakeup that’s designed to give consumers more choices.

The unanimous ruling issued Thursday by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals delivers a double-barreled legal blow for Google, which has been waylaid in three separate antitrust trials that resulted in different pillars of its internet empire being declared as domineering scofflaws monopolies since late 2023.

The unsuccessful appeal represents a major victory for video game maker Epic Games, which launched a legal crusade targeting Google’s Play Store for Android apps and Apple’s iPhone app store nearly five years ago in an attempt to bypass exclusive payment processing systems that charged 15% to 30% commissions on in-app transactions.

Google revealed Tuesday that it will offer reinstatement to YouTube accounts permanently banned for political speech related to COVID-19 and election integrity.

The move comes after the tech giant acknowledged that the Biden administration pressured the platform to censor lawful and truthful content for political purposes.

The disclosure came in a document sent by Google’s lawyers to the House Judiciary Committee.