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Instead, Google will have to provide search index data and amalgamated user metrics to at least some of its competitors. Judge Amit Mehta ruled that the government prosecutors couldn't prove that Google's dominance in the browser space—just under 70 percent of market share, at the time of writing—was essential to its illegal monopoly in search, as Ars Technica reports. Ditto for Google's operation of the Android mobile operating system, which it will also get to keep.
And so the biggest shakeup in online power in decades won't happen, at least not now. Things were starting to look interesting, too. OpenAI, the current juggernaut of the "AI" space thanks to ChatGPT, stated an interest in buying Google's browser. Perplexity, makers of a competing "AI" search engine, made a public declaration of intent to buy Chrome if it became available, offering about $35 billion (which, incidentally, is about double the evaluation of the company, which had only 52 employees in 20
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According to YouTube's official guidelines, this has been prohibited since 2023, back when Netflix introduced stricter rules against password sharing, prompting other streaming services to follow suit.
There have also been repeated reports of YouTube cancelling cheap subscriptions from abroad—which were often subscribed to using a VPN service—without warning. This is particularly annoying for anyone who would otherwise be unable to afford YouTube Premium yet is still willing to pay YouTube something for the privilege of premium features.
14-day deadline
Affected users who receive an email from YouTube are apparently informed of a 14-day deadline. After this period, all premium features (such as ad-free viewing and offline downloads) will be cancelled, regardless of how much time actually remains on the subscription.
The YouTube account itself will apparently not be blocked. There's only talk of blocking the family membership. Presumably, all users (except for the account holder) will be banned if YouTube detects a violation
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