Tag Archives: Google

xkcd

In case you hadn’t noticed, Google upgraded and minimalised its already minimal homepage this week. And that’s not all.

Google+ is the company’s most ambitious effort yet to keep Web users and advertising dollars from straying to social networking sites.

The Internet search giant, whose goal is to organize information, will try to organize people with a social networking service designed to rival the growing influence of Facebook Inc. The project, which Google has been quietly working on for months, has been championed by Google co-founder Larry Page, who, even before taking over as chief executive in April, made social networking a priority.

Google Making Another Attempt At Social Networking (LA Times)

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KidJ-2H0nyY

The Google Body Browser from Google Labs: It’s basically Google Earth for the human body. You’ll need WebGL support.

Please don’t just use it to examine the winky-zones in greater detail. Like we did.

Lifehacker

Google has been accused of saving billions of dollars in tax payments by channelling its money through low-tax countries.

Guess who’s among them?

Ireland’s strategy of offering tax incentives to attract multinationals allows companies to shift income out of the country with minimal tax consequences.

Google’s corporate tax rate in the US is 35%. Overseas, it drops to a mere 2.4%.

Google declares that much of its foreign revenue comes from Ireland.

To steer clear of an Irish withholding tax, payments from Google’s Dublin unit are funnelled through Bermuda. But they don’t go directly to Bermuda.

No. First they’re detoured via the Netherlands, because Irish tax law exempts certain royalties to companies in other EU- member nations. This Amsterdam-based subsidiary lists no employees.

It’s called a ‘Dutch Sandwich’.

Inevitably, the US will tell Ireland to plug this loophole.

At which point Google may well take its business elsewhere.

Google 2.4% Rate Shows How $60 Billion Lost to Tax Loopholes (Bloomberg)

Alarming rumours from the IT department.

Apparently, Google Chrome is a bit ‘hit and miss’ when it comes to displaying embedded YouTube videos.

Is this true, Chromers? Are you missing out on the lolz? Haven’t you seen the monkey riding the pig backwards? Please let us know.

Also, WTF? Google, dude, you own YouTube. Get your shizzle togizzle.