Free Republic

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 1, 2022 / 12:58 pm New York’s attorney general office sent Google a letter Tuesday requesting that the company remove pro-life pregnancy centers from search results for abortion services. “A search through Google Maps seeking ‘abortion’ and a location will provide a local listing of both those health care providers who offer abortion services and organizations that do not provide abortion care,” wrote Darsana Srinivasan, chief of the health care bureau in the attorney general's office. Nearly 3,000 U.S. pregnancy centers provide “​​essential medical, education and support services” to millions every year at little to no...

Google appeared to remove nearly 100,000 negative reviews for the Robinhood app after outraged investors bombarded the stock-trading startup with complaints. Amateur traders urged each other online to leave negative reviews for the app in the Google Play Store after Robinhood froze trading on shares of GameStop and other stocks whose prices have exploded this week. The campaign appeared to work — Robinhood’s Android app had a one-star rating based on nearly 275,000 reviews on Thursday, according to a screenshot captured by 9to5Google. But that number had fallen to just over 176,000 by midday Friday as Google apparently purged the...

App seen as conservative alternative to Twitter has gone dark in aftermath of Capitol riot The now-silenced Parler app that appeared to have played a key role in mobilizing the Trump-inspired mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 had a greater share of users who are either veterans or in the U.S. military compared with other social media platforms. Parler also drew more users from states in the South and in the Mountain West — tracking closely with pro-Trump Republican voters in those states — than from other parts of the country. The findings come from research by...

A nonprofit legal foundation is suing California on behalf of freelance workers who say the state's recently passed Assembly Bill 5 (AB5) will destroy their livelihoods. Set to take effect on January 1, 2020, AB5 will make it illegal for contractors who reside in California to create more than 35 pieces of content in a year for a single company, unless the outlet hires them as an employee. "By enforcing the 35-submission limit, Defendant, acting under color of state law, unconstitutionally deprives Plaintiffs' members of their freedom of speech as protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S....

We all know all about Windows 10’s most controversial feature, and Microsoft has now confirmed it has struck again… Picked up by the ever-excellent AskWoody, the latest update for Windows 10 (patch KB4482887) has crippled gaming performance on the platform across both Nvidia and AMD GPUs. Microsoft has now confirmed the problem and issued an official warning about the update. “After installing KB4482887, users may notice graphics and mouse performance degradation with desktop gaming when playing certain games (eg: Destiny 2),” explained Microsoft, with the company saying it is working on a fix. Needless to say, users are furious. Woody...

Both Democrats and Republicans on the [Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee] panel expressed concern that fuel prices are choking U.S. consumers. [. . .] Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, said $100 a barrel oil is "not so far out of the realm of possibility," and asked "is that something this country can sustain?" [. . .] Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., said he anticipates "we're going to find many instances of manipulation and fraud." Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., the chairman of the committee, said the panel is prepared to call on oil-company executives to explain rising fuel costs if there is...

... Burst, a two-person dot-com survivor from Santa Rosa, Calif., where I used to live, has been suing Microsoft for two years for anti-trust, breach of contract, restraint of trade, and patent infringement. In the great panoply of Microsoft civil anti-trust lawsuits, Burst's might be the last, and for Microsoft, it has to be the worst because Redmond looks so bad. This week, the news from recently unsealed court documents is that Microsoft may have deliberately lied not only to Burst, but also to the other anti-trust litigants right up to and including the U.S. Department of Justice. You will...