Google Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

West Virginia Newspaper Company Files Antitrust Suit Against Google, Facebook Over Ad Revenues

A West Virginia news publisher has filed an antitrust suit against Google and Facebook, who together receive roughly half of all digital ad dollars in the U.S. and are facing antitrust charges from federal and state authorities.

The company, HD Media, owns several papers in the state, including the Herald-Dispatch in Huntington and the Charleston Gazette-Mail.

HD Media claims Google has so monopolized the online ad market that “it threatens the extinction of local newspapers across the country.” The suit also alleges that Google and Facebook conspired to further their dominance with a secret agreement, referring to a suit filed by 10 Republican attorneys general in December.

The company does not specify the impact on its business of the behavior of Facebook and Google beyond saying that it has hurt its ability to “effectively monetize its content” because Google is enabled to take an uncompetitive share of the news publisher’s ad revenues. A lawyer for the company declined to speak on the record.

It’s the first antitrust lawsuit against a tech platform focused on news publishing, said David Chavern, head of the news trade group News Media Alliance. He said the group was not involved in the suit.

HD Media filed in federal court in West Virginia and asked for a jury trial. It asked for unspecified damages and that the court stop Google and Facebook from the uncompetitive conduct it is alleging.

The newspaper industry has been on a long decline, with steep job losses and publications getting thinner and even disappearing. Online ad revenues have been unable to offset print-ad losses.

Federal and state antitrust authorities have sued both Google and Facebook in recent months. The Justice Department alleges that Google abuses its dominance in online search and advertising.

Facebook didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment. Google referred a reporter to a blog post published in mid-Januaryby its director of economic policy, Adam Cohen, that defends Google’s business against antitrust charges brought by the Texas attorney general in December.

Morgantown Student Wins Statewide Doodle 4 Google Contest

When the students at North Elementary School in Morgantown were called to a surprise assembly Thursday morning, they had no idea that one of them – a second grade student named Tarannom Rajaee – had won the statewide Doodle 4 Google contest.

The annual competition challenges grade-school students nationwide to design a doodle, or a fun take of the Google logo. This year’s contest theme was “What I see for the future.” Tarannom’s doodle depicts life on Mars.

“It’s unexplored,” she said. “People can go on Mars and do new discoveries to learn more about Mars and see if once Mars had water or a breathable atmosphere, something.”

Tarannom Rajaee reacts to the announcement that she won the statewide Doodle 4 Google contest.

Google notified Tarannom’s parents and her school more than a month ago – but instructed them to keep it a secret from Tarannom until the assembly, where Senator Shelly Moore Capito and two employees from Google announced her success.

“It was hard for us to keep this secret, but we tried until today,” said Mehdi Rajaee, Tarannom’s father. “We just (stood) outside of the gym, just looking for Tarannom, because if she saw us she would figure out what was going on. It’s kind of hard.”

Tarannom’s mother Zahra Abbasi said she was proud of Tarannom and not at all surprised that her daughter has talent. In fact, Abbasi said Tarannom can create art even better than what she drew for Google.

“I know she could do better than this. She uses (her) imagination very well,” Abbasi said. “She is (talented).”

As the statewide winner, Tarannom won a tablet computer and a t-shirt featuring her design. Her doodle will now compete at the national level. The national winner is selected partially by a public vote, and the winning doodle will be featured on google.com for one day.

Google Visits Berkeley Springs for Online Safety Event

Representatives from Google made a stop in Berkeley Springs Monday to speak with middle schoolers about staying safe online.

Here at Warm Springs Middle School in Berkeley Springs, 470 sixth, seventh and eighth-graders sit in the bleachers of their gymnasium listening to two representatives from Google.

This is Google’s Online Safety Roadshow. Google stopped here to speak with students about developing good habits when they’re online.

The Google reps played interactive games with the students and showed them short animations to help explain why it’s important to stay safe when browsing the web or using an app.

Google shared five main good habits:

Think before you share something
Protect your profiles and photos
Know and use your settings for each device or app
Avoid scams
Be positive when interacting with others

Hynnja Dietrich, an eighth-grader at Warm Springs Middle, tells me some of the different apps she uses on a regular basis. From Facebook to Pinterest, she says out of Google’s five tips, she was most interested in being conscientious of what you post and share.
“Make sure like, before you send something out that it’s not going to hurt anybody else, or like you wanna make sure that if you’re going to post it, that, make sure it’s not going to affect you later on in life,” Hynnja said.

Google spokeswoman Jamie Hill says it’s crucial to teach online safety to this age group.

“We know about 93 percent of teens are online,” Hill noted, “and this is the age where they might be getting that first device, that first cell phone, starting to see technology play a larger role in the classroom, and so it’s a great time to help them start building best practices early, so that then as they get older, they already have those best practices.”

U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito was also at the event. Capito says that while Monday’s presentation didn’t spark any specific online safety legislation, she says it’s still important issue for lawmakers to keep an eye on.

“Certainly there’s a lot in cyber security in terms of, in the bigger picture, whether it’s national security or financial security or security of the energy grid,” Capito said, “so there’s all different kinds of security that we’re dealing with on the internet in that realm. But I think for, in education, we want to make sure that the internet’s used as the education tool that it can be and the social networking tool, you know, just making sure that those parameters are followed and that users know exactly what they’re doing.”

The Google Online Safety Roadshow continues its journey across the country and plans to stop next in Kentucky.