Google made more than $10 million from ads for fake abortion clinics

Hello there, It’s another weekend. Welcome to another round of Global roundup.

This week, Twitter made the front pages of major news outlets for not-so-good reasons. First, a U.S. judge signed off a notice to evict the tech giant from its Boulder office, after it discovered that the Elon Musk owned company had not paid its rent for 3 months.

Also, the micro-blogging platform was sued by a group of 17 music publishers who accused it of copyright infringement on about 1,700 songs and is seeking as much as $250 million in damages.

An interesting report has shown that popular search engine company, Google made more than $10 million from ads for fake abortion clinics.

The world’s largest crypto exchange, Binance, may have found itself in deep waters lately. The crypto exchange has been the target of an SEC lawsuit seeking to charge the company with evading securities laws. Read more on this here.

This week, the exchange said it was leaving the Dutch market because it had been unable to meet registration requirements to operate as a virtual asset service provider.

In other news involving big tech firms, Meta is set to appeal Kenya’s court decision declaring it as the primary employer of the moderators that reviewed content on its platforms in sub-Saharan Africa. The tech giant has been in court following a decision to lay off moderators that worked for it under its contractor, Sema in Kenya.

If you missed these major stories this week, have a seat and enjoy our expertly chosen collection of the important bits, which should keep you informed of all that has occurred across the world.

Here is a summary of the bulletin

• Google made more than $10 million from ads for fake abortion clinics
• Judge signs off eviction notice to Twitter
• Binance to quit the Netherlands
• Meta to appeal court’s decision on employment of moderators in Kenya
• Grubhub layoff about 400 employees, 15% of its workforce

Read also: Here are the iOS 17 features Apple didn’t announce onstage

Google made more than $10m from fake abortion clinic ads

A new study has revealed that the popular search engine company, Google, is making money off promoting ads for fake abortion clinics. The study revealed that so far, it had made more than $10 million in the last 2 years.

Citing data from enterprise analytics tool Semrush. a new report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) revealed that fake abortion clinics have spent a combined $10.2 million on Google search ads over the last two years.

These “fake reproductive health clinics—sometimes called Crisis Pregnancy Centers—appear to offer independent advice on reproductive healthcare but are actually run by ideological anti-choice organisations that try to shame those seeking abortions and employ scare tactics based on medical misinformation,” the CCDH wrote in its findings published on June 15.

The report revealed that the number of Crisis pregnancy centres that had placed these ads on Google worth an estimated total of more than $10 million over two years was 188. Also, it showed that over 2600 of these so-called Crisis Pregnancy Centers operating across the U.S., outnumbered genuine clinics by a factor of three to one.

Judge signs off eviction notice on Twitter

Twitter owes three months’ rent to its Boulder landlord, and a judge has signed off on evicting the tech giant from its office there, court documents show.

According to court documents and reports by the Denver Business Journal, Lot 2 SBO LLC, the Chicago-based landlord that owns Twitter’s office at 3401 Bluff St in Boulder, was provided with a $968,000 letter of credit back in February 2020.

It has been drawing on this to pay the rent in lieu of ordinary payments (the details of this arrangement are somewhat obscure), but the money ran out in March, and the company has not paid since. (If we assume rent was paid regularly from that sum, that places it at around $27,000 per month, giving a sense of the values involved here.)

In May the landlord took Twitter to court, and on May 31 the judge issued an order that the sheriff should assist in the eviction of the company within the next 49 days — i.e. before the end of July. The case number is 2023CV30342 in Boulder District Court.

Also, a group of 17 music publishers this week sued Twitter, accusing it of copyright infringement on about 1,700 songs, and is seeking as much as $250 million in damages. The publishers filed the suit in Federal District Court in Nashville, saying Twitter violated copyright law by allowing users to post music to the platform without permission. Negotiations between Twitter and the music industry to put broad licensing agreements into place had broken down months ago.

Binance to exit the Netherlands

Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange, said on Friday that it was leaving the Dutch market because it had been unable to meet registration requirements to operate as a virtual asset service provider.

It is the latest in a string of setbacks for Binance including the June 5 decision by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to charge the company with evading securities laws though Binance disputes the SEC charges.

Since then, the exchange has announced the suspension of US dollar deposits and notified its customers of an incoming pause to fiat (USD) withdrawal channels as early as June 13. According to Binance, it was forced to take this action amid “extremely aggressive and intimidating tactics” from the United States Securities and Exchange Commission.

But now, the exchange has announced it is discontinuing its operations in the Netherlands after failing to register the company despite several trials.

A spokesperson for Binance, which had been operating in the Netherlands without permission from regulators, said that the company had tried “many alternative avenues” to meet Dutch registration requirements.

“While Binance is disappointed that this has become necessary, it will continue to engage productively and transparently with Dutch regulators,” they said.

Meta set to appeal Kenya court decision on Moderators

Apparently, the ongoing lawsuit between Meta and moderators that worked for it under the company’s sub-contractor in Kenya, Sema is not coming to an end anytime soon. According to TechCrunch, Meta is now set to appeal Kenya’s court decision declaring it as the primary employer of the moderators that review content on its platforms in Kenya.

Meta has filed a notice of appeal against the ruling made last week on orders issued in March. This comes after 184 moderators sued the Facebook parent company, and its content review partner in sub-Saharan Africa, Sama, for alleged unlawful termination of contracts. The moderators also claim that Majorel, the social media giant’s new moderation partner in the region, blacklisted them under instruction from Meta.

The Employment and Labor Relations Court in the ruling made last Friday ruled that Meta was the primary and principal employer of the moderators and that Sama was “merely an agent…” outsourced to oversee the work.

In its decision, the court stated that the moderators’ services related to Meta and were carried out using its technology while conforming to its performance and accuracy measures. In its order, the court stated that it had “determined that the job of content moderation is available” and that “the applicants will continue working upon the prevailing or better terms in the interim.”

The court also barred Meta and Sama from laying off moderators, awaiting the final determination of the case, adding that there was no suitable justification for the redundancies.

Read also: Pixel Fold, android 14 updates, AI announcements expected during the Google I/O 2023 event

Grubhub layoff about 400 employees

Have you ever stopped to think about why layoffs persist? If you have, we would like to hear it.

This week, food delivery platform Grubhub laid off about 400 employees, or 15% of its corporate workforce, citing a need to maintain “competitiveness,” the company’s CEO said in a message to employees Monday.

CNBC reports suggest that the company has struggled to capture market share, lagging significantly compared with competitors such as Uber Eats and DoorDash, according to research from Bloomberg Second Measure.

Grubhub said it would offer employees a minimum of 16 weeks severance but declined to comment on specific groups or positions that were affected.

“There is no doubt whatsoever that we have a solid foundation in place and an immense opportunity ahead of us — but it is also clear that we need to make some tough decisions in order to maintain our competitiveness, deliver the best possible service for diners and our other partners, and be successful for the long-term,” CEO Howard Migdal said in his memo.

The layoff is surprising given that the company is valued at $7.3 billion according to all-time transactions.