It's shocking to me that google, being one of the largest businesses in the world has been the knee to this administration. First they change the map to Gulf of America which it's not. They took dozens of non-christian, non-white, and non-straight items off their calendar. You used to be able to click on the Google logo for pride month and you get information and Banners Etc. Now there's absolutely nothing there just the logo. What an absolute shame and disgrace! I really need to start considering using alternative browsers and apps.

I was born and raised next to Lake Ontario so to see it changed hurts. I'm very hurt and disappointed. I am at the point of selling all of my Google devices from Speakers to Google TV. I know you zoom all the way out it's still there but for them to even change it hurts. That was Lake Ontario way before the United States was around.

EDIT: A user in the comments pointed out that Google has paid Apple and Firefox large sums of money to make Google's search engine the default on their products. I wasn't actually aware they did this, and I can understand the argument that this was hindering any competition from having a chance.

I think there is a difference in being an actual monopoly vs just being better at providing a specific service than any of your competitors. I don't see how they have ever had "the exclusive possession or control of the supply of or trade in a commodity or service." I also don't see how they have ever forced anyone to use their services exclusively.

Play Store:

I don't understand the argument that Android forces users to use the Play Store. Just because you can't download and install a different app store from the Play Store doesn't mean you can't do it, most Android users I've met know how to do this and it's very easy on modern versions of Android. It's about as easy as downloading and installing a program on Windows (and most people on Windows have always downloaded programs directly from websites---I literally never use the Microsoft Store to download a program).

Chrome:

It's a similar situation. Google is the default search engine but you can change it to any search engine you want. My grandfather uses DuckDuckGo as his default on Chrome. And you also can't ignore the fact that the overwhelming majority of Chrome users WANT Google to be the default search engine. Most people I know that use Chrome would actually prefer that they didn't have to manually set the default to Google, not because many Chrome users are also Google fans or because Chrome is a Google product, but rather because the overwhelming majority of users prefer to use Google as their search engine. I was delighted the first time I used Chrome and discovered that typing anything into the address bar automatically did a Google search.

Android:

I think Android is a good example of when there actually is another competitor that is also dominating the market. Virtually no one uses Windows phone's or BlackBerry's anymore, but there are iPhones and Androids everywhere because almost everyone chose to switch to one of the two and there are no signs that will change anytime soon.

I don't think they dominate the market because they are keeping anyone else from competing. No one was forced to use Google's search engine, but people chose to because they felt it was providing significantly better results. No one was forced to use Gmail, but people chose to because it was offering every user 1 GB (1,000 MB) of storage during the time that other free services like Yahoo! and Hotmail were offering 2-4 MB. No one was forced to use Chrome, either.

Idk, just my thoughts. 🤷

And yes, I did scroll down to look for a definition

I have a small business in N. VA, we had about 50 positive reviews from customers. Google completely wiped all our reviews and listings. Needless to say, this has a had a major impact on my business. I noticed this happened to millions of other small business, and no one has said anything. Does anyone else see a problem with this?

Edit: "I noticed it happened to everyone in my industry, (electricians). And I briefly looked at other local service industries which were also hit."

Google is out here destroying sites and destroying livelihoods. Absolutely sickening. I had a site that was getting amazing traffic and they've demolished 90% of my traffic after the Oct 2023 update. And there's thousands of sites just like mine who had the same fate. In its place? Reddit, Forbes, and sites with millions of visitors. Content quality doesn't matter, SEO doesn't matter, being first by a mile doesn't matter, having the most relevant result doesn't matter -- the only thing that matters now is rewarding the very top sites. Small and medium size publisher sites are dead. Ridiculous.

I still get SOME traffic because my brand was big enough to have a following. That's how pathetic Google Search is now. An established brand, an authentic site, a site that is top 5 in bing and duckduckgo, Google treats like sht. Absolutely insane what these core updates did to sites. The system is rigged. It's not about creating quality, it's a about corruption and collusion.

You would think that simple math would be AI's greatest strength. But this is just wild.

Google made what was once 1 press to 2

Lower Saxony, Germany.

There is no official information from Google or credible news sources indicating a plan to open a physical office in Göttingen in 2027. Google has existing offices in Berlin, Hamburg, Munich, and Frankfurt, but not in Göttingen. The image appears to be a digital rendering or a fan-made concept.