News
Learning about Google Thailand
Ariya Banomyong, the first country business manager for Google Thailand which set up its first office in Bangkok on July 1, explains the company's corporate culture and its strategic priorities for the Thai market at the "CEO Perspectives" forum held by the College of Management Mahidol University (CMMU) recently. The Nation's Pichaya Changsorn reports
First of all, says Ariya, Google’s culture is “bottom up”. “My boss in Singapore hasn’t told me what to do. And this is the same everywhere in the world. It’s the way we work.”
Everything at Google has been created by the engineers and people at Google, who come up with innovations daily, he said. There is also the so-called “dog food” concept, which means staff will be the first to trial every product before it is launched to consumers.
Ariya also shared his own experience in going through the “very meticulous” recruitment process, which included no less than five interview sessions.
“They spent a lot of time getting to know who I was as an individual, not as a professional or [about my] career. Obviously they want to recruit the best talents. [But] the reason is Google is a very flat organisation. Half of staff at my office don’t report to me, but report directly to [their bosses] in Singapore. And we still have to be able to work together as a team.”
This “no frame” work culture explains why Google has given importance to knowing its job candidate as an individual, he said.
Second, Google embraces a very open culture. “We don’t care what’s a problem. We care what’s a solution.”
Third, Google believes in team players. Ariya said he had never found an overconfident person at Google.
Fourth, Google looks for people who are “Googley”. The new media company works in a very casual environment. At the Sydney office where Ariya took an orientation course, some staff wore shorts or sales people wore diapers to meet their clients at a consumer product goods company.
The 37-year-old executive explains some of his “Googley” side that might have convinced Google to choose him.
“The interviewer asked me, ‘Do you know how many people are making phone calls to each other at this moment?’ I replied, I would use the search engine [to find out the answer]. This was, perhaps, the reason why they hired me,” said Ariya, smiling.
Ariya said Google kept things very “googley”. For example, Gmail was created because some engineers at Google “were just having coffee and came up with an idea to have Gmail”.
Ariya also spoke about Google’s famous “20-per-cent rule” that encourages its staff to spend 20 per cent of their time on something company-related that interests them personally. This does not have to be a specific project. An engineer, for example, may want to join a sales team for 20 per cent of his working time. At Google’s Singapore office, there is a German who has moved to work there for one year just because he wanted to have some experience in Asia. Changing a team member is something easier said than done for many companies where “taking my guys” is typically a contentious issue, he said.
Google was essentially a media company because 98 per cent of its revenues were derived from advertisements. About one-third of the world population or 2 billion people are now online. Thailand is on par with the world’s average with about one-third of its population, or about 25 million people, surfing the Internet. The Internet population has been growing rapidly – by a double-digit figure -especially during the past three years.
“Thailand has the highest search inquiries in Southeast Asia and this is an important reason why we opened our office in the country,” he said.
Nonetheless, if Google is compared to a shop, there was already a lot of visitors or “traffic”, but there were still a shortage of “shops”. Online advertisements account for a mere 1 per cent of media spending in Thailand, which totals about Bt100 billion.
Google has set itself four missions for the Thai market. First, make sure everyone throughout Thailand can access relevant information. Second, develop innovations and products for Thailand and Thais. For instance, Google has recently introduced its first TV commercials to the Thai market as part of its bid “to bring people from offline to the online world”.
The third aspect is to support the development of more Thai-language content on the Internet. Despite being the 20th largest country by population, Thai content represents just 1 per cent of online Internet content. Last, to assist Thai businesses to establish themselves and grow online. Google has introduced a programme called “Thai businesses go online” for small- and medium-sized enterprises. There were 3,000-4,000 SMEs joining the recent inauguration of the programme at the Queen Sirikit National Convention Centre.
Ariya also spoke about Google’s “users come first” policy. While it seems that every company has also been praised for its customer-centricity, “users come first” is really a fundamental business principle of Google.
“We walk the talk. If you look at our page, it’s plain and simple. The philosophy behind the page is that everyone from anywhere in the world, we want you to access the information and get out of the page as fast as possible.
“This is weird compared to others. We give you the search results you want. If you look for cars, you won’t see other things which are irrelevant to cars.”
Ariya, a former chief commercial officer of diversified Thai telecom giant True, said mobile Internet was a very big trend worldwide with Google searches through mobile devices increasing five fold during the past two years.
A key driver has been the launches of many smart phones such as iPhones, Blackberries and Android phones, which have reshaped the mobile network market from a very price-sensitive one.
Smart phones now account for 70 per cent of the phone market in Singapore and 25 per cent in Thailand, he said.

News
Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding, But Still Accounting 48% Search Revenue

Google is so closely associated with its key product that its name is a verb that signifies “search.” However, Google’s dominance in that sector is dwindling.
According to eMarketer, Google will lose control of the US search industry for the first time in decades next year.
Google will remain the dominant search player, accounting for 48% of American search advertising revenue. And, remarkably, Google is still increasing its sales in the field, despite being the dominating player in search since the early days of the George W. Bush administration. However, Amazon is growing at a quicker rate.
Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding
Amazon will hold over a quarter of US search ad dollars next year, rising to 27% by 2026, while Google will fall even more, according to eMarketer.
The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the forecast.
Lest you think you’ll have to switch to Bing or Yahoo, this isn’t the end of Google or anything really near.
Google is the fourth-most valued public firm in the world. Its market worth is $2.1 trillion, trailing just Apple, Microsoft, and the AI chip darling Nvidia. It also maintains its dominance in other industries, such as display advertisements, where it dominates alongside Facebook’s parent firm Meta, and video ads on YouTube.
To put those “other” firms in context, each is worth more than Delta Air Lines’ total market value. So, yeah, Google is not going anywhere.
Nonetheless, Google faces numerous dangers to its operations, particularly from antitrust regulators.
On Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Google must open up its Google Play Store to competitors, dealing a significant blow to the firm in its long-running battle with Fortnite creator Epic Games. Google announced that it would appeal the verdict.
In August, a federal judge ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly on search. That verdict could lead to the dissolution of the company’s search operation. Another antitrust lawsuit filed last month accuses Google of abusing its dominance in the online advertising business.
Meanwhile, European regulators have compelled Google to follow tough new standards, which have resulted in multiple $1 billion-plus fines.

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Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding
On top of that, the marketplace is becoming more difficult on its own.
TikTok, the fastest-growing social network, is expanding into the search market. And Amazon has accomplished something few other digital titans have done to date: it has established a habit.
When you want to buy anything, you usually go to Amazon, not Google. Amazon then buys adverts to push companies’ products to the top of your search results, increasing sales and earning Amazon a greater portion of the revenue. According to eMarketer, it is expected to generate $27.8 billion in search revenue in the United States next year, trailing only Google’s $62.9 billion total.
And then there’s AI, the technology that (supposedly) will change everything.
Why search in stilted language for “kendall jenner why bad bunny breakup” or “police moving violation driver rights no stop sign” when you can just ask OpenAI’s ChatGPT, “What’s going on with Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny?” in “I need help fighting a moving violation involving a stop sign that wasn’t visible.” Google is working on exactly this technology with its Gemini product, but its success is far from guaranteed, especially with Apple collaborating with OpenAI and other businesses rapidly joining the market.
A Google spokeswoman referred to a blog post from last week in which the company unveiled ads in its AI overviews (the AI-generated text that appears at the top of search results). It’s Google’s way of expressing its ability to profit on a changing marketplace while retaining its business, even as its consumers steadily transition to ask-and-answer AI and away from search.
Google has long used a single catchphrase to defend itself against opponents who claim it is a monopoly abusing its power: competition is only a click away. Until recently, that seemed comically obtuse. Really? We are going to switch to Bing? Or Duck Duck Go? Give me a break.
But today, it feels more like reality.
Google is in no danger of disappearing. However, every highly dominating company faces some type of reckoning over time. GE, a Dow mainstay for more than a century, was broken up last year and is now a shell of its previous dominance. Sears declared bankruptcy in 2022 and is virtually out of business. US Steel, long the foundation of American manufacturing, is attempting to sell itself to a Japanese corporation.
SOURCE | CNN
News
2024 | Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

Washington — Trump Media, The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will not hear an appeal from social media platform X about a search warrant acquired by prosecutors in the election meddling case against former President Donald Trump.
The justices did not explain their rationale, and there were no recorded dissents.
The firm, which was known as Twitter before being purchased by billionaire Elon Musk, claims a nondisclosure order that prevented it from informing Trump about the warrant obtained by special counsel Jack Smith’s team violated its First Amendment rights.
The business also claims Trump should have had an opportunity to exercise executive privilege. If not reined in, the government may employ similar tactics to intercept additional privileged communications, their lawyers contended.
Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case
Two neutral electronic privacy groups also joined in, urging the high court to hear the case on First Amendment grounds.
Prosecutors, however, claim that the corporation never shown that Trump utilized the account for official purposes, therefore executive privilege is not a problem. A lower court also determined that informing Trump could have compromised the current probe.
Trump utilized his Twitter account in the weeks preceding up to his supporters’ attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to spread false assertions about the election, which prosecutors claim were intended to create doubt in the democratic process.
The indictment describes how Trump used his Twitter account to encourage his followers to travel to Washington on Jan. 6, pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to reject the certification, and falsely claiming that the Capitol crowd, which battered police officers and destroyed glass, was peaceful.
Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case
That case is now moving forward following the Supreme Court’s verdict in July, which granted Trump full immunity from criminal prosecution as a former president.
The warrant arrived at Twitter amid quick changes implemented by Musk, who bought the company in 2022 and has since cut off most of its workforce, including those dedicated to combating disinformation and hate speech.
SOURCE | AP
News
The Supreme Court Turns Down Biden’s Government Appeal in a Texas Emergency Abortion Matter.

(VOR News) – A ruling that prohibits emergency abortions that contravene the Supreme Court law in the state of Texas, which has one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the country, has been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. The United States Supreme Court upheld this decision.
The justices did not provide any specifics regarding the underlying reasons for their decision to uphold an order from a lower court that declared hospitals cannot be legally obligated to administer abortions if doing so would violate the law in the state of Texas.
Institutions are not required to perform abortions, as stipulated in the decree. The common populace did not investigate any opposing viewpoints. The decision was made just weeks before a presidential election that brought abortion to the forefront of the political agenda.
This decision follows the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that ended abortion nationwide.
In response to a request from the administration of Vice President Joe Biden to overturn the lower court’s decision, the justices expressed their disapproval.
The government contends that hospitals are obligated to perform abortions in compliance with federal legislation when the health or life of an expectant patient is in an exceedingly precarious condition.
This is the case in regions where the procedure is prohibited. The difficulty hospitals in Texas and other states are experiencing in determining whether or not routine care could be in violation of stringent state laws that prohibit abortion has resulted in an increase in the number of complaints concerning pregnant women who are experiencing medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms.
The administration cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case that bore a striking resemblance to the one that was presented to it in Idaho at the beginning of the year. The justices took a limited decision in that case to allow the continuation of emergency abortions without interruption while a lawsuit was still being heard.
In contrast, Texas has been a vocal proponent of the injunction’s continued enforcement. Texas has argued that its circumstances are distinct from those of Idaho, as the state does have an exemption for situations that pose a significant hazard to the health of an expectant patient.
According to the state, the discrepancy is the result of this exemption. The state of Idaho had a provision that safeguarded a woman’s life when the issue was first broached; however, it did not include protection for her health.
Certified medical practitioners are not obligated to wait until a woman’s life is in imminent peril before they are legally permitted to perform an abortion, as determined by the state supreme court.
The state of Texas highlighted this to the Supreme Court.
Nevertheless, medical professionals have criticized the Texas statute as being perilously ambiguous, and a medical board has declined to provide a list of all the disorders that are eligible for an exception. Furthermore, the statute has been criticized for its hazardous ambiguity.
For an extended period, termination of pregnancies has been a standard procedure in medical treatment for individuals who have been experiencing significant issues. It is implemented in this manner to prevent catastrophic outcomes, such as sepsis, organ failure, and other severe scenarios.
Nevertheless, medical professionals and hospitals in Texas and other states with strict abortion laws have noted that it is uncertain whether or not these terminations could be in violation of abortion prohibitions that include the possibility of a prison sentence. This is the case in regions where abortion prohibitions are exceedingly restrictive.
Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which resulted in restrictions on the rights of women to have abortions in several Republican-ruled states, the Texas case was revisited in 2022.
As per the orders that were disclosed by the administration of Vice President Joe Biden, hospitals are still required to provide abortions in cases that are classified as dire emergency.
As stipulated in a piece of health care legislation, the majority of hospitals are obligated to provide medical assistance to patients who are experiencing medical distress. This is in accordance with the law.
The state of Texas maintained that hospitals should not be obligated to provide abortions throughout the litigation, as doing so would violate the state’s constitutional prohibition on abortions. In its January judgment, the 5th United States Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with the state and acknowledged that the administration had exceeded its authority.
SOURCE: AP
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