
A new Google Meet trick to avoid echo.
If you're joining a meeting from a conference room, Meet can 'intelligently knows when you are in a room using an ultrasonic signal' and suggest joining via Companion Mode, according to a blog post. Right now, however, the feature only works with Meet on the web in Chrome. Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates. Jay Peters Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All by Jay Peters
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Tom's Guide
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Jury finds Meta illegally collected data from women's health app Flo — what you need to know
On Friday, a federal jury ruled that Meta – the last defendant in a lawsuit that initially also included Google, Flo Health and Flurry – had illegally collected user health data from period and pregnancy tracking app Flo. The jury found that Meta violated California's Invasion of Privacy Act by collecting data from Flo without user consent which violates the state's wiretap law. The lawsuit was filed in 2021 against Flo Health, the maker of the app which tracks periods, ovulation and pregnancy; later other defendants were added including Meta, Google and Flurry, which is an app analytics company. The plaintiff's trial brief stated that Flo's onboarding survey required users to select a goal: whether they were currently pregnant, wanted to be pregnant, wanted to track a period or input other information (about pregnancy or a menstrual cycle). While Flo said it would not disclose the information provided to it, it then gave access to both Google and Meta through CAEs (Custom App Events) in their respective SDKs (Software Development Kits) that were incorporated into the Flo App. The plaintiff's brief said that each company had its own purpose in collecting and using the user data from the Flo app: Flo used it to acquire new users through advertising and marketing and also sold access to the CAEs to other third parties for profit. Meanwhile Google and Meta each used the data for their own commercial purposes, including 'to feed their machine learning algorithms that power each of their respective advertising networks.' This activity occurred between November 2016 and February 2019. The plaintiffs proved by a preponderance of evidence that Meta had intentionally eavesdropped on and/or recorded conversations using an electronic device, and that the company did not have consent from all parties to do so. According to the verdict released by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, the plaintiffs proved they had a reasonable expectation of privacy. Flo Health's trial brief, although it was filed before that company's settlement, stated the plaintiffs had consented to the very policies and practices they were now attacking and that 'every version of the Flo Privacy Policy explicitly permitted Flo to use third-party analytics to monitor and improve the App and permitted Flo to share de-identified information for any purpose.' The plaintiffs brief countered that Flo did not disclose it would share users' private health data with third parties, and that in fact, it promised the opposite. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. The other defendants – Flo Health, Google and Flurry – all settled with the plaintiffs before the trial, though no details about two of those have been provided, the Flurry settlement is said to have been for $3.5 million and is still pending court approval. Follow Tom's Guide on Google News to get our up-to-date news, how-tos, and reviews in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button.


Axios
24 minutes ago
- Axios
Google says hackers breached one of its databases
Google said that a cybercriminal hacking group broke into one of its own Salesforce database systems that stored information about small and medium-sized businesses. Why it matters: Even Google isn't completely resilient against the wave of social engineering attacks targeting major businesses this year. Driving the news: In a blog post late Tuesday, Google said that a group commonly known as ShinyHunters had broken into the database, which stored contact information and "related notes for small and medium businesses." The hackers had access to the database for "a small window of time before the access was cut off," Google added, and they mostly made off with information that was "basic and largely publicly available business information." The big picture: ShinyHunters is a cybercriminal group known for breaking into organizations via social engineering. In most schemes, they'll impersonate a company's IT support desk using voice phishing techniques and trick an employee into resetting their password. ShinyHunters also tricks these employees into authorizing the installation of a malicious application onto their systems that the hackers then use to access and exfiltrate sensitive information. After ShinyHunters extracts the data, they will call or email employees — often months after the fact — and demand a ransom payment to prevent the publication of the stolen information. Catch up quick: So far this year, ShinyHunters has been linked to a series of data breaches at Australian airline Qantas, insurer Allianz Life, Louis Vuitton and Adidas. What to watch: It is unclear if Google faced a ransom demand for the stolen data.


TechCrunch
24 minutes ago
- TechCrunch
Google denies AI search features are killing website traffic
Numerous studies indicate that the shift to AI search features and the use of AI chatbots are killing traffic to publishers' sites. But Google on Wednesday denied that's the case, at least in aggregate. Instead, the search giant says that total organic click volume from its search engine to websites has been 'relatively stable' year-over-year and that average click quality has slightly increased. 'This data is in contrast to third-party reports that inaccurately suggest dramatic declines in aggregate traffic — often based on flawed methodologies, isolated examples, or traffic changes that occurred prior to the roll out of AI features in Search,' writes Google VP and Head of Search, Liz Reid, in a new blog post. Though Google hasn't shared any specific data to back up its conclusions, even if we assume Google's claims to be true, this doesn't necessarily mean that AI isn't having an impact. Even Google has to admit this, as Reid acknowledges that 'user trends are shifting traffic to different sites, resulting in decreased traffic to some sites and increased traffic to others.' That word 'some' is doing heavy lifting here, as Google doesn't share data about how many sites are gaining or losing. And while chatbots like ChatGPT have certainly seen traffic increase in recent months, that doesn't mean online publishers aren't suffering. Image Credits:Google Google has been revamping its search engine for years to answer more questions directly on the search results page, and now does so with AI through its 'AI Overviews' that appear at the top of search results. Google also allows users to interact with an AI chatbot for some queries. Yet Google denies that this is significantly reshaping the search landscape. Rather, it points to users shifting their attention to other sites to start their queries. Reid explains, 'People are increasingly seeking out and clicking on sites with forums, videos, podcasts, and posts where they can hear authentic voices and first-hand perspectives.' Reading between the lines, it seems like isn't necessarily people's first stop on the web these days. But that's something we've known for some time. Back in 2022, a Google exec even said that social sites like TikTok and Instagram were eating into Google's core products, like Search and Maps. 'In our studies, something like almost 40% of young people, when they're looking for a place for lunch, they don't go to Google Maps or Search,' said Google SVP Prabhakar Raghavan, who ran the company's Knowledge and Information organization at the time (he is now its Chief Technologist). 'They go to TikTok or Instagram,' he noted. Google has also long been worried that had become people's first stop for online shopping searches, and had become the first stop for researching topics of interest. Over many years, the company has tried to come up with compelling features for both consumers and retailers that would attract more users to Google Shopping. These efforts have included universal shopping carts, local inventory checks, deal finders, shopping from product images on websites, and more. It even made its Shopping listings free for merchants in 2020. Meanwhile, as users complained that Google Search quality was declining, the search giant was seeing so much demand for Reddit that it finally added a 'Reddit' filter to allow users to narrow down results on relevant search queries. (Now that filter simply reads, 'forums.') So perhaps there's some truth in Google's denials — it's not AI that's entirely responsible for killing search. Search was already dying. Close-up of a person's hand holding an iPhone and using Google AI Mode, an experimental mode utilizing artificial intelligence and large language models to process Google search queries, Lafayette, California, March 24, 2025. (Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images) Image Credits:Smith Collection/Gado / Getty Images Google's new blog post also attempts to move the goal posts a bit about what it means for websites receiving Google's clicks. Now, instead of counting clicks, it wants publishers to think about click quality. The company says average click quality has increased, and Google is sending 'slightly more quality clicks' to websites than a year ago. (Google explains that a quality click is one where users don't quickly click back — they stay and read.) How much of an increase, though, Google doesn't say. The company only points out that when people click through on an AI response to the source, they're more likely to dive deeper, so those clicks are more valuable. What's more, Google paints AI as an opportunity for web publishers to gain increased exposure, saying that '…with AI Overviews, people are seeing more links on the page than before,' as Reid writes. 'More queries and more links mean more opportunities for websites to surface and get clicked.' But AI, while a growing referral source, isn't yet making up the difference in terms of clicks, reports have shown. One recent study from Similarweb indicates that the number of news searches on the web resulting in zero clicks to news websites has grown from 56% (when Google launched AI Overviews in May 2024) to 69% as of May 2025. Image Credits:Similarweb Google appears to knows this is a trend, too, as it recently launched a product for publishers that helps them monetize their dwindling traffic in other ways that don't rely only on advertising, like micropayments or newsletter sign-ups. The fact that Google is pushing this 'AI is not the end of search traffic!' PR now only makes the situation seem more dire. It's as if Google wants publishers to believe not what their own eyes — and graphs and charts — tell them, but instead take comfort in the fact that Google still sends 'billions of clicks to websites' every day, just as the post claims.