Business

Google has about 1,200 employees in England and made £395 million in revenue there last year (that’s just under $620 million). It did, however, only pay £6 million in taxes in England last year. Unsurprisingly, that’s not sitting well with a number of British politicians and according to The Independent, Google could face a more formal investigation into its tax schemes by next spring. Google bases its international operations in Ireland, where corporations pay a tax rate of just 12.5%. Using a legal tax loophole called “Double Irish,” the company can move a large chunk of its UK profits to Ireland and then Bermuda. There, of course, the company pays even less tax. According to the Independent, Google’s Irish subsidiary basically employes Google UK as an agent. Because of this, Google’s UK revenue goes straight to Ireland. The Irish headquarter then pays Google UK a 10% fee and, “once costs have been deducted,” that’s all Google UK pays taxes on. It’s worth noting that the £6 million...

Josh Constine is a technology journalist who specializes in deep analysis of social products. He is currently a writer for TechCrunch. Previously, Constine was the Lead Writer of Inside Facebook, where he covered Facebook product changes, privacy, the Ads API, Page management, ecommerce, virtual currency, and music technology. Prior to writing for Inside Facebook, Constine graduated from Stanford University... ? Learn More Since The Oatmeal draws comics like 5 Ways To Fight A Crack Whore, the kids down in Mountain View figured they could play a joke on him. This summer the artist wrote that Google+ comment threads sound like *crickets*, poking fun at the social network’s lack of engagement. He also criticized not being able to “set up a fancy profile URL so I don’t have to link people to http://plus.google.com/blergasdf1234 thimbleturdorgasm99meatpoopypoop xv9donkeypie ” — a made-up, ridiculously long string of random characters. Yep, you saw a “turd orgasm 99 meat poopy poop” in the...

Oh, this is going to get juicy real quick. U.S. District Judge William Alsup is demanding the names of any writers who have a paid relationship with Oracle or Google. The demand came today in the ongoing lawsuit between the two companies in their dispute over the Android OS. Alsup wrote he is concerned that the parties and/or their lawyers may have hired or paid journalists, commentators or bloggers who then commented on the case. The order was filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. Alsup writes: “Although proceedings in this matter are almost over, they are not fully over yet and, in any event, the disclosure required by this order would be of use on appeal or on any remand to make clear whether any treatise, article, commentary or analysis on the issues posed by this case are possibly influenced by financial relationships.” Oracle and Google must turn over the names by August 17. The controversy is enveloping Florian Mueller, one of the more incendiar...

Google just launched live traffic info for Bogotá, Panama City and San Jose (Costa Rica). In addition, Google is also bringing its real-time traffic data to 130 smaller cities in the U.S., including Kalamazoo (Michigan), Portland (Maine) and Tuscaloosa (Alabama). For the most part, this feature relies on data Google gets from Google Maps and Google Navigation users who share location data with the company. As Android becomes more popular and as more users use their phones for directions as they are driving, Google obviously gets more data. Thanks to this, it can now show live traffic for side roads and arterial roads that don’t typically see as much traffic as a highway or major urban area, for example. In addition to these new cities, Google also says it has expanded its live traffic coverage around the world, including in parts of “Brazil, Canada, China, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Mexico, Russia, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.” Google first launched this live t...

Google’s tools for tracking the upcoming U.S. election later this year mostly focus on the presidential election. It’s no secret that Google – thanks to its various advertising services – also makes a good amount of money from the various political campaigns that compete in smaller contests, including the 435 races for seats in the House of Representatives this year. This year, thanks to the recent redistricting of many congressional districts, quite a few of these races are very different from just two years ago and many districts now include new media markets that can make reaching voters hard. Today, Google launched a new tool that allows political campaigns to simply select their district and ensure that their ads are shown only within their district. This tool, says Google, allows campaigns to “quickly and easily target their search, display, mobile and video ads solely within that particular district’s border.” Google says it “built a sizeable team” that’s helping candidates w...

Anthony Ha is a writer at TechCrunch, where he covers media, advertising, and startups. Previously, he was a staff technology writer at Adweek, worked as a senior editor at the tech blog VentureBeat, and was also a reporter at the Hollister Free Lance, where he won awards from the California Newspaper Publishers Association for breaking news coverage and writing.... ? Learn More Blake Commagere, who’s probably best known for building early, popular Facebook apps like Zombies and Vampires (hey, remember those?), has started a new company called MediaSpike to tackle one of the big problems he faced as a developer: Integrating sponsored product placements into the games. Commagere says those placements were one of the most effective and popular ways to monetize — in fact, when some of those campaigns ended and the sponsored content disappeared, “Users would actually complain.” On the other hand, he says that managing the process was “incredibly difficult.” Without any tools to help wi...

Google just announced yet another batch of services it plans to discontinue in the near future. Most of these are relatively obscure products that probably didn’t have a large amount of traction. In this round, Google is shutting down three products, as well as a number of company blogs that had become redundant or just weren’t updated very frequently. The products include Google Apps for Teams, Google Listen and Google Video For Business. This round of shutdowns comes just a few weeks after Google also closed relatively popular services like iGoogle and Google Video. Google launched Google Apps for teams in 2008 and the tool allowed businesses and schools to use non-email services like Google Docs without having to sign up for a Google email address. This service, Google said today, was not as useful for people as [it] originally anticipated” and starting September 4, Google Apps for Teams accounts will be turned into personal Google Accounts. Google Listen started as a Google Labs ...

Today in the tech news rumor mill: A source close to Google tells us that the company has put a stop to all acquisitions related to Google+, at least until the end of this year. This source also tells us that Google is wary of both growing the Google+ team right now and providing the product with any additional resources until January. The Google+ project itself is not on hold but, if this rumor is indeed correct and Google is cutting back on expanding the team’s resources, this could be an indication that Google+ isn’t doing quite as well as the company’s glowing public comments would indicate. It’s worth noting that, according to our source, the traditional Google+ Hawaii trip, is apparently still on the schedule. Last year, the company invited 450 Google+ employees to Maui for an “offsite” meeting in September. The same team also decamped to Hawaii to celebrate the launch of Google+ in June 2011. Google has made a number of acquisitions to bolster Google+ since June 2011. This yea...

Josh Constine is a technology journalist who specializes in deep analysis of social products. He is currently a writer for TechCrunch. Previously, Constine was the Lead Writer of Inside Facebook, where he covered Facebook product changes, privacy, the Ads API, Page management, ecommerce, virtual currency, and music technology. Prior to writing for Inside Facebook, Constine graduated from Stanford University... ? Learn More Wildfire, just acquired by Google, isn’t a social ads company. It relies on its partner Adaptly for access to ads APIs for Facebook and other sites. That means Google may buy Adaptly or another ads company any minute now. Otherwise Google will have to split the profits of social ads Wildfire will continue to sell through Adaptly. As Facebook Sponsored Stories and Twitter’s promoted products are taking off, being the middleman between brands and social networks is become quite lucrative and its only sensible that Google would want to own a social ads API tool and/or...

Chris Velazco is a mobile enthusiast and writer who studied English and Marketing at Rutgers University. Once upon a time, he was the news intern for MobileCrunch, and in between posts, he worked in wireless sales at Best Buy. After graduating, he returned to the new TechCrunch to as a full-time mobile writer. He counts advertising, running, musical theater,... ? Learn More Here’s hoping you weren’t planning on using one of Google’s Nexus Qs any time soon — the company has just revealed to pre-order customers that it has postponed the device’s consumer launch because users wanted more out of the curious little orb. That said, Google’s tiny media streamer has been unceremoniously yanked from the Google Play store. All interested consumers can do now is give the company their email address for future updates on the situation, as there’s no word yet on when Google expects that full-blown launch to take place. Thankfully, there’s a silver lining to be found here: anyone who already pre-o...

Josh Constine is a technology journalist who specializes in deep analysis of social products. He is currently a writer for TechCrunch. Previously, Constine was the Lead Writer of Inside Facebook, where he covered Facebook product changes, privacy, the Ads API, Page management, ecommerce, virtual currency, and music technology. Prior to writing for Inside Facebook, Constine graduated from Stanford University... ? Learn More Google has just bought social marketing software developer Wildfire, which lets brands serve marketing and ad campaigns on Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube and LinkedIn. Wildfire has grown to 400 employees over the last four years and now serves 16,000 customers. Several sources and blogs say the sale price was around $250 million. The acquisition will allow Google to provide advanced software and services to brands who want to run contests, sweepstakes, branded games and more on Google+. Wildfire will still operate as a marketing tool for brands on G...

That was fast. Just a few days ago, Google officially opened registration for the 1 gigabit fiber network it is launching on both the Kansas and Missouri sides of Kansas City. Within just two days, more than 20% of the eligible neighborhoods on the Missouri side have already reached Google’s thresholds for bringing its super-fast fiber network to their “fiberhoods” and quite a few others are just a few signups away from reaching their goals. Things aren’t moving quite as fast in Kansas City, Kansas, though, where the median household income is significantly lower than on the other side of the city. There, only three neighborhoods have met Google’s goals so far and many are still hundreds of signups away from meeting Google’s thresholds for bringing fiber to their houses. When Google officially launched Google Fiber last week, it set up an unusual system for deciding where to roll it out first: the company separated the metropolitan area into “fiberhoods” with 250-1,500 households and...

Jordan Crook studied English Literature at New York University before entering the tech space. Prior to joining TechCrunch, Crook dabbled in mobile marketing and mobile apps as well as doing device reviews for MobileMarketer and MobileBurn. Crook is fascinated with alternative energy production and greentech. She is now a writer for CrunchGear. ? Learn More Ever since I/O and the unveiling of Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, the blogosphere has been measuring Google’s new Nexus 7 tablet. The verdict in almost every case is good, including our very own iPad lover’s take. John and I thus found it only fitting to bring the little 7-inch tablet into the studio for Fly or Die. The tablet, with a 7-inch IPS 1280×800 display, a Tegra 3 quad-core processor, and the latest version of Android, didn’t fail to impress. And the specs have very little to do with it. Sure, that Tegra 3 proc probably contributes quite a bit to the snappiness of the tablet, but the display isn’t anything to write home about, ...

Ryan has spent more than five years covering business, technology, and telecom-related subjects for a variety of publications based in New York and San Francisco. Ryan currently works as a writer for TechCrunch. ? Learn More Earlier this week, Google provided details of its Google Fiber rollout in Kansas City. To hear some blogs tell it, it’s like the heavens will open from above and grant Kansas City blazing-fast Internet and competitive TV packages that will solve all the problems locals have with their current cable provider or ISP. But see, it’s not that easy. Google faces a number of challenges as it transitions to become an ISP. Here’s why Google’s grand experiment laying fiber might not be all the it’s cracked up to be. Don’t get me wrong — from a cost standpoint, Google Fiber sounds pretty amazing. It offer Gigabit speeds at an attractive price point, which other ISPs probably can’t compete with. And it would be great, if it were available today. But rolling out fiber is a co...

Whenever you see the same ad for a shopping site you just visited pop up across the web, chances are that’s not a coincidence but a remarketing effort by that site. These sites often offer users who abandon their shopping carts, for example, a discount to lure them back. The only way to get a hold of them once they have left the site, however, is to target ads to them on other properties around the web. Starting today, setting up these remarketing campaigns is going to get a bit easier for advertisers who use Google Analytics. Google just announced that it is bringing its Google Analytics and Google Display Network closer together to give advertisers an easier to use option to remarket to very specific audiences who have previously visited their websites. This new service, says Google, simplifies the remarketing process and gives its advertisers more flexibility and “new ways to connect with [their] target audience.” Until now, website owners had to use at least two different tags on...

Matt is currently working as a writer for TechCrunch. Matt Burns is a family man first and attempts to be a writer second. Born and raised in the heart of the automotive world, only cars eclipse his love of gadgets. He previously wrote for Engadget and EngadgetHD before moving into the party house that is TechCrunch. He learned the retail... ? Learn More Google is going vertical. In the latest revision of its search page, Google moved the search tools from the sidebar to several drop down menus under the search field. This is just the latest of several notable changes to Google’s core function that also included adding a fully functional scientific calculator to the search page and enabling a handwriting mode in mobile search. This new version is slowly rolling out to users. TechCrunch was first tipped about the layout this morning and I just spied it on my computer a few minutes ago. I’m honestly torn over the new design. On one hand I love the vertical layout. My mind never fully e...

Google’s Project Glass made quite a splash at I/O last month. Besides stunning the audience with a skydiving demo of Glass, Google also allowed those developers who attended the company’s annual developer conference to exclusively pre-order the $1,500 Google Glass Explorer Edition. These first alpha versions of Glass are only scheduled to ship early next year, but according to an email the Project Glass team just sent to everybody who pre-ordered the devices, the company plans to involve this early tester community before the devices ship as well. Google, the email says, will post exclusive content for those with pre-orders on Google+ and also invite them to special events and Google+ Hangouts with the Glass Team. Here is the email: In the first of these private posts on Google+, Google co-founder Sergey Brin notes that he looks forward to ” to hearing about your magical moments with Glass.” He also shared that he is currently testing “a new mode of Glass which automatically takes a ...