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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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Reform UK student president condemns 'violent censorship' as left-wing groups target university group
January 30 | 2026
The president of a Reform UK student society has hit back at protesters against his group, accusing them of "violent censorship" on GB News.Students for Reform President Dylan Caddick, who studies at Sussex university, opened up on the People's Channel, admitting he was worried for his own safety, as well as that of his peers.Speaking about the action, Mr Caddick said: "They set up various groups and secret chats to plot against us. "Many people were saying, 'throw eggs, throw tomatoes at us'. "So we had to stay behind the scenes a bit because just for our own safety, to make sure things were okay, because I have to put me, my committee and our members first to make sure everyone is safe, because there's so many people out there who are after us."In a statement, the Student Union said it is "required by law" to remain politically neutral, and cannot endorse or oppose any political parties".Sitting down for an exclusive interview, GB News' Connie Shaw asked: "What is your response to students who say that Reform UK or your society is fascist? Because that is the accusation that they love to throw that word around. What do you think about those accusations?In response, the student said: "I mean, it's completely false. It's quite crazy to see because these sorts of people, they don't even understand who we are as people. "If you actually meet us, go to our event, you'll see everyone's from a wide range of backgrounds, all sorts of people and all sorts of supporters, and as well the sort of actions these people were taken. "They're taking fascist actions against us. They're wanting violent censorship of us. They want to scare us off campus. All these sort of tendencies they've used are basically mirroring fascist tendencies. "And we support the university's values. We do not want to cause any issues. We do not want to scare these students."He added his opponents were "completely opposed to freedom of speech". WATCH THE FULL INTERVIEW ABOVE
WATCH: Nigel Farage says he is 'very nervous' about Keir Starmer's relationship with China
January 30 | 2026
Nigel Farage has declared he is "very nervous" about the UK's relationship with China.Speaking to GB News, the Reform UK leader said: "I'm very, very nervous about the extent to which China has effectively spied on us, stolen many of our industrial secrets. "I'm worried about the extent to which they've infiltrated using money, British universities, we must be cautious about the relationship."But I think what the Keir Starmer trip shows you is that his mindset is where we were ten years ago. Ten years ago, David Cameron thought China was the great future for this country. Everything's changed in that last decade. Keir Starmer hasn't."WATCH ABOVE.