Jaikumar Vijayan

Google has released a framework to open source that it implements internally to evaluate the security posture of the numerous vendors it uses for various services each year. The company’s Vendor Security Assessment Questionnaire (VSAQ) Framework is a collection of four templates with questions for evaluating the quality of a supplier’s security and privacy practices. […]

Starting this week, Google will use a new, broader approach for delisting search results under the Europe Union’s “Right to Be Forgotten” mandate. The move is in response to growing pressure on Google from EU data protection authorities that have been critical of the manner in which the company had implemented the mandate till now. […]

Google released a primer of sorts for enterprises on how to use its machine learning and cloud platform technologies to build an online recommendation engine for their Websites. It uses the example of a house-renting Website to walk developers through the process of creating an engine capable of suggesting houses that the user might be […]

Google is helping UNICEF map and anticipate the spread of the Zika virus disease. A volunteer team of data scientists, engineers and designers from the company has begun working with UNICEF officials to build an open-source platform for collecting and processing Zika-related data from different sources. The platform will combine disease-related information with data pertaining […]

Google has begun pilot-testing a new mobile-payment application that will let smartphone users pay for purchases by verbally providing their initials to the cashier at the point-of-sale system. The company is inviting Android and iOS users in San Francisco’s South Bay area to try out the new app, dubbed Hands Free, at a small number […]

Google has updated the data loss prevention capabilities in Gmail for customers of the premium business version of Google Apps for Work. The new functions, announced Feb. 29, include those that enable scanning of images in email attachments, enhanced detection of personally identifiable content in email messages and better control over data loss prevention (DLP) […]

Google has updated its Cloud Trace cloud application debugging tool with new features that it says will help enterprises troubleshoot and mitigate performance issues in a more efficient manner. The updates include an automatic performance analysis function, a latency detection capability and an optimized user interface that provides developers with a single unified view of […]

Google has made its Project Shield denial-of-service attack mitigation technology available for free to news organizations around the world. Publishers that meet the company’s definition of a news Website can submit an application to sign up for the service. Human rights organizations and Websites that monitor elections-related content also are eligible to sign up for […]

First it was the UK government, and now it is France that is unhappy with Google’s alleged tax avoidance. France’s finance ministry reportedly wants Google to pay the government the equivalent of nearly $1.8 billion in back taxes on revenues earned in that country over the past several years, according to Reuters, quoting an unnamed […]

Starting this week, people searching for news stories on Google’s mobile search engine will see some stories loading a lot faster than others as publishers start pushing out pages based on the company’s Accelerated Mobile Pages framework. Web pages created using Accelerated Mobile Pages, or AMP, will appear under the “Top Stories” section of the […]