Peter's Interest

India's competition authority has accused Google of abusing its dominant position in online search, people with knowledge of the matter said, which if proven could force the US company to alter its practices in a key market or even pay a big fine. A preliminary report from the Competition Commission of India (CCI), a quasi-judicial regulatory body, found fault with Google's handling of its online advertising services and search results, said the people. Google, which just last month appointed India-born Sundar Pichai as its new CEO, is already facing a billion-euro fine from the European Union after accusations the company cheated competitors by distorting internet search results in favour of its shopping service.  Google has rejected those charges . The Indian regulator first began investigating Google in 2012, and a preliminary report was submitted to the top CCI officials about six months ago. The findings of that report have been mentioned in the local media in the las...

Adobe Flash, the world’s most hated software, is finally dying. Technically, it’s been on its way out for years, but today it received one of its final blows which will go down in history. Google officially killed Flash advertising in its browser. As of September 1, any advertising that uses the technology requires the user to click it to play — it’ll otherwise remain frozen. A new setting,  enabled by default in Chrome  automatically optimizes plugins to save battery power and CPU cycles and specifically targeting autoplaying advertising. The change comes as  Google AdWords now makes it possible to automatically convert advertisements  created using Flash into HTML5, a friendlier and safer format for playback. In recent times, browser support for modern formats, such as HTML5 video, have finally become widespread enough to make such a move. The majority of users are able to ditch Flash already, although time of death can’t...