GOOG - Alphabet Inc.
| Previous Close | 1,150.34 |
| Open | 1,146.00 |
| Bid | 1,152.82 x 800 |
| Ask | 1,153.19 x 800 |
| Day's Range | 1,145.00 - 1,157.90 |
| 52 Week Range | 970.11 - 1,289.27 |
| Volume | 409,748 |
| Avg. Volume | 1,551,988 |
| Market Cap | 802.375B |
| Beta (3Y Monthly) | 0.99 |
| PE Ratio (TTM) | 28.99 |
| EPS (TTM) | 39.86 |
| Earnings Date | N/A |
| Forward Dividend & Yield | N/A (N/A) |
| Ex-Dividend Date | N/A |
| 1y Target Est | 1,275.00 |
- Yahoo Finance•19 hours ago
Amazon's Echo Show 5 puts Alexa on your nightstand
Amazon's Echo Show 5 brings Alexa to your nightstand in a smart screen packing an appealingly understated design.
- Yahoo Finance•21 hours ago
Amazon's stock is 'not without risk': Analyst
Amazon may be in the middle of its Prime Day shopping bonanza, but that doesn’t mean the stock is without risk.
- Yahoo Finance•23 hours ago
'Unconscionable working conditions': Sanders and Warren support Amazon Prime Day strike
Democratic presidential candidate and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) voiced her support for Amazon (AMZN) warehouse workers expected to go on strike on Monday, the kickoff of the company’s annual sale known as Prime Day.
- Motley Fool•32 minutes ago
Checking Up on 5 Stocks That Spoke to Brexit
It’s been just over three years since U.K. citizens cast their votes for “leave." It’s also this podcast's fourth birthday.
- Barrons.com•46 minutes ago
Trump Wants to Look Into Google’s Relationship With China. The Company Pushes Back.
Investor and Facebook director Peter Thiel has claimed that the search giant has worked with the Chinese military -- claims that the company denies.
- Motley Fool•52 minutes ago
Can Google Parent Alphabet Reignite Revenue Growth When It Reports Earnings?
Can cloud computing pick up the slack as growth in Google ad sales slows?
- American City Business Journals•57 minutes ago
Google accused of 'brazen' patent infringement in online advertising
A tiny software company claims Google spent years courting it for a partnership, urged it to build a custom version of its platform and share its source code — only to launch a competing product that infringed on the smaller company's intellectual property.
- Bloomberg•1 hour ago
Trump Says He Will Look at Thiel’s Treason Accusations on Google
(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump said his administration will “take a look” at businessman Peter Thiel’s allegations that Google’s work with China is “seemingly treasonous.”Trump in a tweet Tuesday called Thiel “a great and brilliant guy who knows this subject better than anyone!” He added that “the Trump Administration will take a look!”Google were up less than 1% at 9:38 a.m. in New York after falling 1% in pre-market trading after the tweet.Thiel, one of Trump’s top Silicon Valley supporters and donors, took aim at Google and the tech industry over the companies’ focus on global markets while brushing aside U.S. interests in a speech Sunday in Washington.Thiel, a Facebook Inc. board member, singled out Google for agreeing to work closely with China, trying to get its search engine back into the country, while deciding to let lapse a U.S. Defense Department contract that gave the military access to its artificial intelligence tools.A spokesman for Google said the company doesn’t work with the Chinese military but declined to comment further.Thiel argued that the kind of AI developed by DeepMind, which like Google is a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., should be thought of as a potential “military weapon.” He then suggested Google’s actions were “seemingly treasonous,” asking whether DeepMind or Google senior management had been “infiltrated” by foreign intelligence agencies.(Updates with shares in the third paragraph.)\--With assistance from Max Chafkin.To contact the reporter on this story: Terrence Dopp in Washington at tdopp@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Michael Shepard at mshepard7@bloomberg.net, Elizabeth Wasserman, Kasia KlimasinskaFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- MarketWatch•2 hours ago
Why the big tech stocks are now contrarian buys
It feels weird to say this, but Facebook, Amazon, and Apple have become — dare we say it? — contrarian plays.
- Bloomberg•2 hours ago
Amazon in EU Crosshairs as Vestager Fights Big Tech to the End
(Bloomberg) -- Want the lowdown on European markets? In your inbox before the open, every day. Sign up here.Amazon.com Inc. faces a full-blown European Union antitrust probe as the bloc’s competition chief Margrethe Vestager prepares for a summer finale to her five-year crackdown on U.S. technology giants.The Dane, who heads the EU’s competition division, is poised to open a formal investigation into Amazon within days, according to two people familiar with the case, who asked not to be named because the process isn’t public.Vestager has hinted for months that she wanted to escalate a preliminary inquiry into how Amazon may be unfairly using sales data to undercut smaller shops on its Marketplace platform. By ramping up the probe, officials can start to build a case that could ultimately lead to fines or an order to change the way the Seattle-based company operates.“If powerful platforms are found to use data they amass to get an edge over their competitors, both consumers and the market bear the cost,” said Johannes Kleis of BEUC, the European consumer organization in Brussels.The probe comes as Qualcomm Inc. could be hit with a second hefty EU penalty as soon as next week for allegedly underpricing chips to squeeze a smaller competitor. The U.S. chipmaker was fined last year for thwarting rival suppliers to Apple Inc. and has been the subject of on-and-off antitrust scrutiny since 2005.Vestager has already slapped Google with record fines and ordered Apple to repay billions of euros in back taxes. By taking on Amazon’s Chief Executive Officer Jeff Bezos, Vestager is keeping up the pressure on big tech right to the very end of her mandate, due to expire in October.Amazon and the European Commission in Brussels both declined to comment on the plans to open the probe. Qualcomm representatives declined to immediately comment.Business ModelWhile it will be the first time the EU has directly targeted Amazon’s online retail business model, it’s the third time the company has been probed by the regulator, following tax and e-book investigations.Although Google has been fined once a year for the past three years, racking up 8.2 billion euros ($9.2 billion) in penalties, the Alphabet Inc. unit still faces early-stage inquiries into local business and jobs searches. Apple also has to contend with a complaint from Spotify Technology SA and Facebook Inc. is getting questions on how it uses and shares data from apps.To contact the reporter on this story: Aoife White in Brussels at awhite62@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Peter Chapman at pchapman10@bloomberg.net, Molly SchuetzFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Zacks•2 hours ago
Can Bleak Q2 Earnings Outlook Derail Stock Market Rally?
Most of the concerns related to the contraction of profit margins of the key companies are temporary.
- Bloomberg•4 hours ago
Peter Thiel Says Elizabeth Warren Is Most ‘Dangerous’ Candidate
(Bloomberg) -- Peter Thiel, the technology industry’s most prominent supporter of President Donald Trump, called Elizabeth Warren the most “dangerous” Democratic presidential candidate.In a rare television interview, Thiel said Monday night that Warren, a Massachusetts senator, was the only Democrat talking about important issues like the economy.“All the others are almost equally unimpressive, in that it’s all identity politics in one flavor or another,” he told Fox News’s Tucker Carlson. “I’m most scared by Elizabeth Warren. I think she’s the one who’s actually talking about the economy, which is the only thing, the thing that I think matters by far the most.”Thiel spent most of the interview discussing the subject of a speech he gave Sunday at a conservative conference in Washington: what he called “seemingly treasonous” conduct by Google. The billionaire, who sits on the board of Facebook Inc., said the U.S. should investigate Google’s ties to China. In response, Google denied it works with the Chinese military.In 2016, Thiel established himself as a Silicon Valley pariah when he endorsed Trump for president. The venture capitalist donated $1.25 million to the campaign and spoke in support of Trump at the Republican National Convention. He reiterated his support of Trump in Sunday’s speech by praising the administration’s foreign policy, in particular the trade battle with China.During the speech, Thiel made reference to Warren, who has advocated for breaking up big technology companies including Google and Facebook. She has said concentration of corporate power punishes small businesses and average Americans. Thiel said Google employees had donated to Warren’s campaign, suggesting “a little bit of a bad conscience.”Monday’s Fox News interview concluded with Thiel’s comments about the presidential race: “Elizabeth Warren is the dangerous one.”(Updates with Thiel background in the fifth paragraph.)To contact the reporter on this story: Lizette Chapman in San Francisco at lchapman19@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Milian at mmilian@bloomberg.netFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- TheStreet.com•5 hours ago
[video]Dow Opens at Record High in Cautious Trading
The Dow Jones Industrial Average saw mixed trading on Tuesday as some of the biggest names in the financial sector reported second-quarter earnings.
- Reuters•5 hours ago
Tech executives head to Capitol Hill for antitrust hearing
Executives from tech giants Apple Inc , Amazon.com Inc , Facebook Inc and Alphabet's Google go before the House Judiciary Committee's antitrust panel Tuesday to discuss competition in online markets. The committee is likely to discuss antitrust probes of the four companies under way at the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission, as well as allegations that the companies seek to thwart nascent competitors. Democrats, in particular, are expected to press Facebook about a proposed $5 billion settlement between the company and the FTC to resolve allegations that the company violated a 2011 consent agreement by inappropriately sharing information on 87 million users with the now-defunct British political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica.
- TheStreet.com•5 hours ago
President Trump Says Google Should Be Investigated for Foreign Behavior
The president tweeted early Tuesday that the recent claims of billionaire investor Peter Thiel will be looked at.
- Bloomberg•7 hours ago
Tech Giants Brace for Washington Showdown in Echo of Bill Gates
(Bloomberg) -- U.S. technology giants are headed for their biggest antitrust showdown with Congress in 20 years as lawmakers and regulators demand to know whether companies like Alphabet Inc.’s Google and Facebook Inc. use their dominance to squelch innovation.Executives from Google, Facebook, Apple Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. are set to appear Tuesday before the House antitrust panel, whose Democratic chairman is leading an investigation into the market power of the biggest tech companies and their effect on competition.The hearing harkens back to Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates’ appearance before the Senate in 1998 when Microsoft was the target of government scrutiny into its monopoly in computer operating systems. Two months later, the Justice Department filed a landmark antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft that reined in its practices and nearly led to the company’s breakup.“This is really a deep dive by the committee to understand what’s going on in the tech sector, what needs to be done in terms of antitrust enforcement but also to understand better whether there is a need for change in the law,” said Gene Kimmelman, a senior adviser at the policy group Public Knowledge, who served in the Justice Department’s antitrust division under President Barack Obama.While the executives testifying Tuesday don’t have the star power of Gates, their appearance marks the first time the largest technology companies will face questions from lawmakers amid a rising chorus of criticism that they are violating antitrust laws. That was the same accusation leveled at Microsoft two decades ago.Rhode Island Democrat David Cicilline, who leads the antitrust panel, is bearing down on technology companies as antitrust enforcers prepare their own scrutiny of the industry. The Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission, which share antitrust jurisdiction, have taken the first steps toward investigating conduct by the biggest companies, with the Justice Department taking responsibility for Google and Apple, and FTC overseeing Facebook and Amazon.For more: Far From Silicon Valley, Trustbusters Plotted Big Tech AssaultTuesday’s hearing will focus on innovation and entrepreneurship. One of the key complaints from critics of the big tech companies is that they can use their power to thwart competition from smaller rivals. Academic research has shown a steady decline in business start-ups across the economy. One possible explanation is that rising market concentration across industries effectively shuts out entry by new businesses.While some barriers to competition are inherent in any business, the key question for the antitrust committee is whether and how dominant tech platforms can intentionally raise barriers to new entrants, said Michael Kades, the director of markets and competition policy at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth.A report by the University of Chicago’s Stigler Center this year found that digital markets tend to be winner-take-all in which one firm comes to dominate. That creates an incentive for the companies to edge out new challengers that could threaten that dominance.Lack of competition can lead to reduced innovation, which harms consumers over time, according to the report. “The evidence thus far does suggest that current digital platforms face very little threat of entry and are negatively impacting investment in key digital areas,” it said.For more: YouTube’s Trampled Foes Plot Antitrust RevengeOne of the authors of the Chicago report -- Yale University economist Fiona Scott Morton -- will testify Tuesday. The company executives scheduled to appear are Adam Cohen, Google’s director of economic policy, Matt Perault, head of global policy development at Facebook, Amazon associate general counsel for competition Nate Sutton, and Kyle Andeer, vice president of corporate law at Apple.E-commerce trade association NetChoice, which includes Google and Facebook, will tell the committee a different story: The reach of tech platforms gives small businesses the opportunity to target large audiences of potential customers through digital advertising. Not long ago, their only choice was expensive advertising in a local newspaper or television station, the group said.“These platforms are helping small businesses the same way a large retailer operates as an anchor for a shopping center or mall,” Carl Szabo, vice president of NetChoice, will say, according to his prepared remarks. “The larger these platforms grow means the more customers small businesses can reach with better targeting and lower costs.”Sarah Miller, deputy director of Open Markets Institute, which advocates for aggressive antitrust enforcement, countered that tech platforms are harming entrepreneurs.“These companies were the darlings of most Democrats and now the dynamic has changed profoundly,” she said. “There is really a period of learning going on in Congress, with staffers, with the broader public, around the varying ways that all of these tech companies, these tech monopolies, are destructive.”To contact the reporters on this story: David McLaughlin in Washington at dmclaughlin9@bloomberg.net;Ben Brody in Washington, D.C. at btenerellabr@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Sara Forden at sforden@bloomberg.net, John HarneyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Bloomberg•9 hours ago
Comcast Has a $45 Billion Cricket Problem
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- England won the Cricket World Cup on Sunday, defeating New Zealand in one of the greatest one-day games ever played. The victory was characterized by the sort of risk-taking and inventiveness which Comcast Corp.’s British pay-TV arm could also use.Sky has long been the broadcast home of English Premier League soccer games. In the past 15 years, it has also hoovered up the rights to cricket matches, Formula One racing, and much more besides. Popular as these sports are in the U.K., though, they don’t have the same cultural pervasiveness as soccer. As more and more games have disappeared behind a paywall, younger viewers have switched off.This is a strategic threat to Sky, which built a pay-TV empire by charging viewers to watch English soccer matches and then adding more sports. The fewer fans there are, the more difficult it will be to attract new customers. The 4.2 billion pounds ($5.3 billion) it spent on domestic Premier League rights alone over the past three years represented almost a quarter of its total European programming costs. But there is a counter-intuitive way to head this off, particularly when it comes to less popular sports: show matches for free occasionally.The need to do this will become more pressing as the giants of Silicon Valley take their first, tentative steps into sports. Amazon.com Inc. will broadcast a handful of Premier League games next season, Facebook Inc. has deals to show Spanish soccer in India, and Alphabet Inc.’s YouTube will show some Major League Baseball games this year.The hope for the league administrators and teams that own the broadcast rights is that these new entrants offer a way out of the almost Faustian pact they have made with subscription broadcasters: in return for more money, they have had to sacrifice some of their audience. The tech firms have both huge user bases and seemingly bottomless pockets of cash. Little wonder the Premier League went so far as to give Amazon a cut-price deal to give it a taster of its appeal.Look at what happened when Sky allowed Channel Four, a British free-to-air broadcaster, to broadcast Sunday’s important match: the number of viewers doubled. Contrast that with the wider decline: Since Sky took English cricket behind a paywall in 2006, the audience for the Ashes, England’s biennial series against Australia, has fallen by almost 90%. The figures for F1 are also falling.The appetite for watching live sport on TV appears to be waning as people have got used to highlights on social media. If Sky can rekindle enthusiasm for these events among younger viewers, it would have a chance of reversing that trajectory. Give them a taste, foster their interest, and they might buy a subscription.The broadcaster, which Comcast acquired for 36 billion pounds in 2018, has time to experiment. The tech giants might take a few years to start bidding on rights for big sporting events as they establish whether the economics add up. For the broadcasters, there are inevitable risks, not least of losing existing subscribers who are happy with just the free-to-air matches. The trick will be selecting carefully which games it picks – and keeping the very best content behind the paywall.To contact the author of this story: Alex Webb at awebb25@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Edward Evans at eevans3@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Alex Webb is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Europe's technology, media and communications industries. He previously covered Apple and other technology companies for Bloomberg News in San Francisco.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Bloomberg•11 hours ago
Alphabet Unveils App to Provide Air-Traffic Control for Drones
(Bloomberg) -- The company that brought you free digital maps and email wants to do the same thing for your drone.Wing LLC, an offshoot of Alphabet Inc.’s Google, on Tuesday unveiled a new app it calls OpenSky that it hopes will become the basis for a full-fledged air-traffic control system to manage the expected growth of this new class of flying devices.It’s been approved to manage drone flights in Australia, where it is free. Wing has been working on demonstration programs with the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration and is also holding discussions with other countries on getting its app approved, according to James Burgess, Wing’s chief executive officer.“This is Wing’s effort to try to make drone flying easier and safer for all operators,” Burgess said in an interview. “We envision a future where it’s easy to access the sky and all drone operators are collaborative, able to follow the rules and work within the constructs of whatever aviation regulation and rules are in place in a country.”Wing isn’t alone in attempting to create a system that helps drone operators plan flights, ensure they adhere to legal restrictions and prevent mid-air collisions. Numerous companies, such as AirMap Inc. and Iris Automation Inc., are developing similar products and have been conducting tests with FAA.But Wing, with its ties to the global data behemoth Google and its simultaneous attempt to create a vast drone delivery network, brings a new heft to the arena.For companies like Wing, Amazon.com Inc.’s Prime Air and scores of others seeking to use drones for deliveries, having a robust air-traffic system for small drones flying at low altitudes is critical. Their business model for robot-like devices zipping across the skies won’t work unless they can keep track of each other and avoid collisions.“It’s a fundamental part,” Burgess said. “Because, for Wing to do the advanced delivery operations and provide that service that we envision, drones will have to share the skies safely and be able to operate in a highly automated fashion while still being compliant and interoperable with everything around them.”Helping build the air-traffic system and inducing all drone operators to participate will help Google reach its goal.Both Burgess and Reinaldo Negron, who heads Wing’s drone air-traffic efforts, said they welcome participation by other companies. Australia’s Civil Aviation Safety Authority has created a computer platform that will allow multiple competitors to provide a similar service as Wing.While the U.S. hasn’t finalized its drone air-traffic plans, officials have said that they anticipate a similar system. Unlike the air-traffic network for traditional aircraft, which is operated by the government, drone tracking and management will be done by private companies, the officials have said.The company has made 80,000 test flights using its OpenSky app in three continents. It is available to Australian users of Apple Inc. and Android operating systems. There is also a PC version.In its initial guise, it will be free to anyone. Burgess declined to speak about Wing’s future plans for whether the app would contain advanced features for which the company would charge a fee.So far, systems such as OpenSky allow users to plan a flight. The Australian app tells drone pilots whether a flight is legal and also provides notifications of no-fly zones, such as a sporting event.As more and more drones become equipped with tracking devices, such apps may become the underpinning of an air-traffic management system for low-level drone flights that uses computers to automatically keep flights flowing orderly.When civilian drones burst onto the scene several years ago, there were few limits on who could fly them and enforcement of aviation regulations was spotty. As their use has exploded, so have safety incidents and the FAA has gradually begun adding restrictions.NASA has been crafting a framework for how drone traffic could be monitored and the FAA is working on regulations to require that the devices send out some type of radio beacon that will identify them, both to prevent midair collisions as well as to ensure they aren’t used illegally.Wing in April was the first U.S. drone company to receive government approval as an airline. The delivery flights the company envisioned haven’t begun yet.To contact the reporter on this story: Alan Levin in Washington at alevin24@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Jon Morgan at jmorgan97@bloomberg.net, John HarneyFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Bloomberg•11 hours ago
Too Much Information: Amsterdam Hits Pause on Data-Center Boom
(Bloomberg) -- Amsterdam reckons it has more data centers than any other major city in the world, and that’s turned out to be too much of a good thing.The Dutch capital, which lured tech companies with attractive taxes and relatively cheap electricity, is halting the setting up of any more data centers until the end of the year, saying the speed with which they’ve opened is putting an untenable strain on its property market and power networks.“It is necessary to take a break and formulate policy first, so that we can get a better grip on the location of data centers,” said Mariëtte Sedee, Alderman for Spatial Development, Environment and Agricultural Affairs in Haarlemmermeer, a municipality southwest of Amsterdam.The Amsterdam region, which encompasses a radius of about 50 kilometers (31 miles) around the capital, houses about 70% of the data centers in the Netherlands. The area in and around the city is home to about a third of all data centers in Europe, including those run by Interxion Holding NV and EdgeConnex Inc to E-Shelter UK LTD and NLDC BV. Many of them opened in just the last five years.Tech companies have rushed to build such facilities because businesses and individuals increasingly store data online and want rapid access to it. The push for such centers has also coincided with demand spurred by a vast number of online transactions. The Netherlands is among Europe’s largest fintech hubs, with more than 430 companies active in the market, according to Holland Fintech.Digitization HinderedThe Dutch Data Center Association said it was dismayed by the city government’s decision to suspend data-center investments.“Our excellent data center infrastructure is a magnet for (international) tech companies and brings a lot of employment with it,” the group said in a statement. “We are surprised that a rigorous decision like this is being taken right now and so suddenly.”Big technology companies like Microsoft Corp. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google have built large data centers outside Amsterdam, in Middenmeer and Groningen, while laying a cable to the capital. Microsoft’s regional hub for cloud-computing services is in the Netherlands while Google unveiled plans at the end of June to invest 1 billion euros ($1.1 billion) to expand its data center infrastructure. A new facility will be built in Agriport, about 30 miles north of Amsterdam, while an existing site about 130 miles further north, in Eemshaven, will be expanded.Amsterdam has gone out of its way to lure such companies. The Netherlands also offers a relatively cheap supply of sustainable electricity, according to its foreign investment agency.The suspension of approvals for new data centers is aimed at taking stock of the situation, according to the city government. At present, municipalities have few means at their disposal to steer where data centers are located, or the requirements they must meet, it said. The aim is to ensure data centers occupy as little space as possible and that they fit well -- architecturally -- with the environment, the government concluded.The demand on commercial property and the need for new housing, combined with policies for safeguarding space for other businesses and nature, is putting pressure on Amsterdam’s real estate market. Property prices in Amsterdam have steadily hit records as more companies and people have moved to the city -- many after the Brexit vote in the U.K.[For more on Dutch Housing Turmoil: Amsterdam Housing Market Gets Some Help From Dutch Government.]While the Dutch Data Center Association asserted that its members are at the top of the list in terms of sustainable development “with data centers fully electrified and running for 80% on green energy,” the city says it may need more.“We are going to set requirements in the area of making available residual heat free of charge for the heating of homes and the use of green energy,” said Marieke van Doorninck, Alderman for Sustainability and Spatial Development in Amsterdam.To contact the reporter on this story: Ellen Proper in Amsterdam at eproper@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Anthony Palazzo at apalazzo@bloomberg.net, Vidya Root, Giles TurnerFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Bloomberg•13 hours ago
Google Protest Leader Meredith Whittaker Is Leaving the Company
(Bloomberg) -- Meredith Whittaker, who helped lead employee protests at Google over the search giant’s military work, artificial intelligence and policies, is leaving the company.A Google spokeswoman confirmed Whittaker’s departure after another Google worker tweeted about the move on Monday. Whittaker didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment."Today is @mer__edith’s final day at Google. Watching her experience as a whistleblower at Google and a victim of retaliation cannot signal good things for how AI institutions will react to negative criticism. NotOkGoogle," Chris Lu, a software engineer at Google, wrote on Twitter.Over the past year, some staff at Alphabet Inc.’s Google have erupted in protest, prompting the company to drop a Pentagon AI contract and a search project in China. Whittaker, who led Google’s Open Research group, was one of the most outspoken voices. She was one of six women who organized massive walkouts after reports that Google paid handsome sums to executives accused of sexual harassment.While at Google, Whittaker also served with AI Now, an ethics organization affiliated with New York University that she co-founded. The group often criticizes businesses and government agencies for using AI systems, like facial recognition, in policing and surveillance. Whittaker also publicly denounced some Google decisions, including the appointment of Kay Coles James, a conservative think tank leader, to an AI ethics board. Google soon nixed the board."People in the AI field who know the limitations of this tech, and the shaky foundation on which these grand claims are perched, need to speak up, loudly. The consequences of this kind of BS marketing are deadly (if profitable for a few)," Whittaker wrote on Twitter on Sunday.In April, about six months after the big employee walkout, Whittaker and another protest leader, Claire Stapleton, said the company was retaliating against them for their role in the activity. In an email to colleagues, Whittaker said her Google manager told her to "abandon [her] work on AI ethics" and blocked a request to transfer internally. At the time, Google denied it retaliated against Whittaker.To contact the reporters on this story: Mark Bergen in San Francisco at mbergen10@bloomberg.net;Joshua Brustein in New York at jbrustein@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Jillian Ward at jward56@bloomberg.net, Alistair BarrFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
