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This will grow their green energy profile by 40%, giving them an extra 1.6 gigawatt of clean energy, the company said. It also has product research and development operations in cities around the world, namely Sydney (birthplace location of Google Maps) and London (part of Android development). In November 2013, Google announced plans for a new London headquarter, a 1 million square foot office able to accommodate 4,500 employees. In 2013, a class action against several Silicon Valley companies, including Google, was filed for alleged “no cold call” agreements which restrained the recruitment of high-tech employees. In a lawsuit filed January 8, 2018, multiple employees and job applicants alleged Google discriminated against a class defined by their “conservative political views[,] male gender[,] and/or … Caucasian or Asian race”.

• Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google on October 20, 2020, asserting that it has illegally maintained its monopoly position in web search and search advertising.

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• The doodle was designed by Larry Page and Sergey Brin to notify users of their absence in case the servers crashed.

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• It had previously accepted requests for removing confidential data only, such as Social Security numbers, bank account and credit card numbers, personal signatures, and medical records.

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• In 2017, three women sued Google, accusing the company of violating California’s Equal Pay Act by underpaying its female employees.

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• After the success of its original service, Google Search (often known simply as “Google”), the company has rapidly grown to offer a multitude of products and services.

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• Google has been criticized for continuing to collect location data from users who had turned off location-sharing settings.

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U.S. government contracts

• In August 2024, Google sent an email to users informing them of its legal obligation to disclose certain confidential information to U.S. government authorities.
• Google CEO Sundar Pichai accused Damore of violating company policy by “advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace”, and he was fired on the same day.
• Page and Brin would also use their friend Susan Wojcicki’s garage as their office when the search engine was set up in 1998.

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• On March 20, 2019, the European Commission imposed a €1.49 billion ($1.69 billion) fine on Google for preventing rivals from being able to “compete and innovate fairly” in the online advertising market.

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• On October 8, 2024, The U.S. government suggested it could request Google to divest parts of its business, such as the Chrome browser and Android, due to its alleged monopoly in online search.

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• Both firms were initially hesitant about investing jointly in Google, as each wanted to retain a larger percentage of control over the company to themselves.

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An average search uses only 0.3 watt-hours of electricity, so all global searches are only 12.5 million watts or 5% of the total electricity consumption by Google. In February 2010, Google announced the Google Fiber project, with experimental plans to build an ultra-high-speed broadband network for 50,000 to 500,000 customers in one or more American cities. Following Google’s corporate restructure to make Alphabet Inc. its parent company, Google Fiber was moved to Alphabet’s Access division. Google also hosts Google Books, which allows users to search books in its database and shows limited previews, or the full book when allowed. In November 2024, Google announced the establishment of a new AI hub in Saudi Arabia, aiming to support the Kingdom’s economic growth and technological development as part of its Vision 2030 initiative.

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On March 20, 2019, the European Commission imposed a €1.49 billion ($1.69 billion) fine on Google for preventing rivals from being able to “compete and innovate fairly” in the online advertising market. On June 27, 2017, the company received a record fine of €2.42 billion from the European Union (EU) for “promoting its own shopping comparison service at the top of search results”. Total carbon emissions for 2010 were just under 1.5 million metric tons, mostly due to fossil fuels that provide electricity for the data centers.

Data loss

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• The DoJ also sought a ban on Google re-entering the browser market for five years and restrictions on its investments in rival search or AI technologies.
• On November 1, 2018, more than 20,000 Google employees and contractors staged a global walk-out to protest the company’s handling of sexual harassment complaints.
• In November 2018, Google announced its plan to expand its New York City office to a capacity of 12,000 employees.

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• In a lawsuit filed January 8, 2018, multiple employees and job applicants alleged Google discriminated against a class defined by their “conservative political views[,] male gender[,] and/or … Caucasian or Asian race”.

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• Schmidt was not initially enthusiastic about joining Google either, as the company’s full potential had not yet been widely recognized at the time, and as he was occupied with his responsibilities at Novell where he was CEO.

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• In the third quarter of 2005, Google reported a 700% increase in profit, largely due to large companies shifting their advertising strategies from newspapers, magazines, and television to the Internet.

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This AI hub is projected to contribute up to $71 billion to Saudi Arabia’s economy by advancing AI-driven solutions tailored to the region’s specific needs and training local talent. On August 10, 2015, Google announced plans to reorganize its various interests as a conglomerate named Alphabet Inc. Google CEO Sundar Pichai accused Damore of violating company policy by “advancing harmful gender stereotypes in our workplace”, and he was fired on the same day. Page and Brin would also use their friend Susan Wojcicki’s garage as their office when the search engine was set up in 1998. Google began in January 1996 as a research project by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were both PhD students at Stanford University in California, United States.

European Union

These centers, which will be built in Columbus and Lancaster, will power up the company’s tools, including AI technology. The said data hub will add to the already operational center near Columbus, bringing Google’s total investment in Ohio to over $2 billion. In August 2024, Google would lose a lawsuit which started in 2020 in lower court, as it was found that the company had an illegal monopoly over Internet search. The EU Court of Justice found that Google’s treatment of rival shopping searches, which the court referred to as “discriminatory”, was in violation of the Digital Markets Act.

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In 2017, three women sued Google, accusing the company of violating California’s Equal Pay Act by underpaying its female employees. In June 2022, Google agreed to pay a $118 million settlement to 15,550 female employees working in California since 2013. The investigation claimed Google used its market power to prevent rivals from competing fairly, affecting billions spent on digital ads. It was ruled in 2025 by the Justice Department alongside 17 other states that Google operates a monopoly in online advertising technology. In March 2024, a former Google software engineer and Chinese national named Linwei Ding was accused of stealing confidential artificial intelligence information from the company and handing it to Chinese corporations. Upon discovering Ding had been in contact with Chinese state-owned companies, Google notified the FBI, who carried on the investigation of the data breach.
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Business trends

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In 1998, Yahoo’s founders offered Page and Brin $1 million for their search engine technology, but they were turned down. Terry Semel, Yahoo’s then-CEO, offered $3 billion to purchase the company, but Page and Brin reportedly held firm on a $5 billion valuation. It has been referred to as “the most powerful company in the world” by the BBC, and is one of the world’s most valuable brands. Google has had criticism over issues such as aggressive tax avoidance, search neutrality, copyright, censorship of search results and content, and privacy. In 2010, Google Energy made its first investment in a renewable energy project, putting $38.8 million into two wind farms in North Dakota. The company announced the two locations will generate 169.5 megawatts of power, enough to supply 55,000 homes.
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Products and services

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Google was grilled at a Senate Methbet casino Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation hearing on the project one month later. The project was canceled in December following the backlash it garnered both externally and internally within the company. In 2008, Google announced its “project 10100”, which accepted ideas for how to help the community and then allowed Google users to vote on their favorites. Responding to the humanitarian crisis after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Google announced a $15 million donation to support Ukrainian citizens. Also in February 2022, Google announced a $100 million fund to expand skills training and job placement for low-income Americans, in conjunction with non-profits Year Up, Social Finance, and Merit America. In September 2020, Google announced it had retroactively offset all of its carbon emissions since the company’s foundation in 1998.