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Google might have been officially ruled to have a monopoly, but we're still a long way from figuring out exactly what that determination will change at the tech company. Today, the US Department of Justice filed notice of a plan to cross-appeal the decision last fall that Google would not be required to sell off the its Chrome browser. The agency's Antitrust Division posted about the action on X. According to Bloomberg, a group of states is also joining the appeal filing.
At the time of the 2025 ruling, the Justice Department had pushed for a Chrome sale to be part of the outcome. Judge Amit Mehta denied the request from the agency. "Plaintiffs overreached in seeking forced divesture of these key assets, which Google did not use to effect any illegal restraints," Mehta's decision stated. However, he did set other restrictions on Google's business activities, such as an end to exclusive deals for distributing some services and a requirement to share select search data with competitors.
Google has already filed its own appeal over this part of its ongoing antitrust battle. Of course, the tech giant is hoping to get off the hook with fewer penalties rather than the heavier ones the DOJ is seeking.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/doj-and-states-appeal-google-monopoly-ruling-to-push-for-harsher-penalties-against-the-company-235115249.html?src=rss
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If you had trouble using ChatGPT today, you aren't alone. The AI chatbot experienced a partial outage for many users this afternoon, with Down Detector saw reports reaching more than 12,000 reports around the peak point of the issue today.. OpenAI issued a status update shortly after noting that "elevated error rates" were occurring for ChatGPT and Platform users. That problem was marked as resolved at 5:14PM ET.
While the initial outage may be repaired, OpenAI does still have an active status alert up. It's only for the fine-tuning component of its API service. But the end may also be in sight for that final issue, because the current statement from the company is "We have applied the mitigation and are monitoring the recovering.
Another AI chatbot, Anthropic�s Claude, also experienced an outage today. It listed similar issues with "Elevated error rate on API across all Claude models." That status was resolved by 1PM ET.
Update, February 3, 2025, 6:17PM ET: Updated to reflect the change in status and mention Claude outage.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/ai/chatgpt-is-back-up-after-an-outage-disrupted-use-this-afternoon-210238686.html?src=rss
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WATCH: Karin Smyth unveils new Labour plans to cover travel costs for children with cancer
February 02 | 2026
Health Minister Karin Smyth MP unveils new Government plans to cover the travel cost of treatment for children with cancer.Speaking to GB News, Ms Smyth said: "This is really the central ask of children and their families who are diagnosed and being treated for cancer. I met some people involved in the campaign at Downing Street last night,they've been talking about this campaign for 20 years as part of our national cancer plan. "The problem for them was that travelling is one of those additional worries on top of the already shocking diagnosis when you have a child with with cancer, about 9,500 families are affected by this, and help with those travel costs mean that some people have told us that they are making real, difficult choices about other support to their families, including good food and support to their families, so making sure that those travel costs are covered takes a little bit of the worry off of families at that particularly troubling time."WATCH ABOVE.
WATCH: Tory frontbencher apologises to Rhiannon Whyte's mother for receiving no support from MPs
February 02 | 2026
Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Alex Burghart has issued an apology to Rhiannon Whyte's mother Siobhan after receiving no support or contact from MPs.Speaking to GB News, Mr Burghart said: "I'm very sorry to hear that, I will go and talk to the team about that once I get off air."I can only just send her my deepest condolences for what's what's happened to her family. It must be incredibly difficult."WATCH ABOVE.