what happened
Shares of internet search giant Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) flies today, up 4.8% in afternoon trading, but it’s not immediately clear why. There is good news and bad news for Google’s parent company today, but the bad news dominates.
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Approximately
The good news: Reuters reports that Google is asking a federal judge to remove antitrust lawsuits against ten states and have them tried in California, where judges may be more favorable to the tech company. The bad news: Reuters also reports that 38 other countries are suing Google over monopoly issues, and that the European Union is apparently set to do the same.
With the bad headlines, Axios reports today that Google – which in December was one of its team members for Ethical Artificial Intelligence (AI), or not (the facts are disputed) – Timnit Gebru – discovered that a second member of its AI team , Margaret Mitchell, looked through Gebru’s messages to find examples showing discriminatory treatment of her.
Google has responded to the alleged misuse of data by closing Mitchell’s accounts with the company, saying it is actively investigating the matter.
Now what
How bad it will be for Google and for Alphabet remains to be seen, but it is certainly not a bad optics in the link language. And the fact that Mitchell started tweeting angry remarks about the company suggests that it’s a negative headline that will not soon disappear, that could damage his reputation, and at the same time ward off multiple assaults.
The reason for this is that any of the above will achieve a 4.8% rating for Google.