Google

Finnish police formally opened a criminal investigation on October 29, 2026 into land-clearing activities at Google's planned data center site in Muhos, following a preliminary probe referral from environmental authorities over suspected illegal clearance of land including forest and acidic, flood-prone soil. Google confirmed it had suspended preparatory work at the site in mid-October while cooperating with authorities; potential conditional fines apply if adequate corrective action is not taken. The investigation is expected to conclude in 2027.

Politico reported on October 4, 2026 that Google and Apple have been lobbying state legislatures across the US (including Arizona, Georgia, and Kansas) to promote an alternative bill, the 'Mobile Ecosystem Responsibility Act' (MERA), in response to a wave of state app-store accountability and age-verification bills. MERA would bar private rights of action over app-store child-safety and age-verification failures, leaving enforcement solely to state attorneys general and shifting liability away from the app stores. A Google lobbyist presented the alternative bill during a Georgia Senate committee hearing on February 17, 2026, and Google/Apple lobbyists circulated the model bill within three days of a competing Arizona bill's introduction. The reporting was based on draft legislation, internal emails, and interviews with seven people with knowledge of the effort.

On September 30, 2026, Google announced it would not publicly release its most powerful AI model, Gemini 4 Argon, instead distributing it only to a vetted group of cybersecurity experts. Google cited fears the model's strong software-engineering and vulnerability-finding capabilities could be misused to hack banks, hospitals, and government systems. Google is giving the US government early access and says the model is designed to refuse requests to build cyberweapons or CBRN weapons, with Google monitoring model reasoning for misalignment. Early testers reportedly used Argon to find a hospital-software flaw exposing personal information that other models had missed. The announcement followed a White House meeting where Google and other AI labs signed a voluntary accord on policing AI system risks.

Ahead of the limited September 30, 2026 release of Gemini 4 Argon, Google did not give the UK government's AI Security Institute (AISI) pre-release access to the version without cyber safety guardrails for independent safety testing, departing from the access AISI had previously received for prior frontier models. Instead, early access went to the US government, at the Trump administration's request, and to Wiz, the Israeli cybersecurity firm Google owns, as part of a limited 650-member 'Fairwind Program' rollout. OpenAI and Anthropic reportedly made similar access decisions favoring the US government over AISI around the same period. Google said it would give AISI access 'before broader release.'

Google announced it would move its roughly 90-person AI responsibility unit, which evaluates Gemini models for CBRN risk and psychological/chatbot-interaction harms, out of Google DeepMind to report to Kent Walker, President of Global Affairs, who oversees Google's lobbying and regulator relations, effective September 1, 2026. Team members who requested transfers to remain in DeepMind were denied. Employees raised concerns the move undermines research independence, contradicting Google's own chief scientist's prior statements that AI oversight requires organizational independence from commercial and policy pressure. Google said the change was meant to bring responsibility teams 'closer together.'

Hachette Book Group, Cengage Learning, Elsevier, and author Scott Turow filed a class action against Google LLC on July 10, 2026, alleging Google copied millions of copyrighted works to train its Gemini AI models. The complaint alleges Google misused books obtained through the Google Books program (provided only for search functionality), downloaded pirated works from shadow libraries and behind paywalls, and intentionally removed or altered copyright management information to conceal the source of the training data. An internal Google document cited in the complaint reportedly acknowledged the practice could be 'highly problematic' with potential exposure of '$10Bs-$100Bs in potential fines.'

A Federal District (Brasília) court (1ª Vara da Infância e da Juventude do DF) ruled on June 9, 2026, in case 0701554-83.2021.8.07.0013, that Google and ten other gaming and platform companies failed to protect children from randomized 'loot box' purchase mechanics, in a civil action brought by Brazil's National Association of Child and Adolescent Defense Centers (ANCED). Google was fined R$40 million (~$7.8M) over the Play Store's role in distributing loot-box-enabled games to minors without adequate age verification, odds disclosure, or refund mechanisms, as part of a R$298M (~$58.4M) collective judgment against the named companies. The ruling is subject to appeal and also allows individual children to pursue separate compensation claims.

A German regional court issued a preliminary ruling in June 2026 holding Google liable for damages caused by hallucinated content in its AI Overviews feature. The case involved an AI-generated summary that falsely connected an identifiable individual with serious wrongdoing. The court rejected Google's argument that AI Overviews are merely third-party content, treating the search-integrated AI output as the company's own publication. The ruling is among the first to assign direct corporate liability for generative AI hallucinations and sets potential precedent across the EU. Google indicated it plans to appeal.

On April 27, 2026, over 580 Google employees, including 20+ directors/senior directors/VPs and senior DeepMind researchers, sent a letter to CEO Sundar Pichai urging rejection of classified military AI work. Google is negotiating with DoD to deploy Gemini AI on classified networks where Google cannot monitor usage. Over 100 DeepMind employees separately signed an internal letter demanding no DeepMind research be used for weapons or autonomous targeting. Two-thirds of signatories agreed to be named; one-third remained anonymous citing fear of retaliation.

In April 2026, a US District Court issued remedies in the landmark Google search antitrust case: Google was prohibited from entering exclusive contracts for Search, Chrome, Assistant, and Gemini distribution; required to share its search index and user-interaction data with competitors; and placed under a six-year technical oversight committee. Both sides are appealing -- Google challenging the data-sharing requirement, and the DOJ seeking forced divestitures of Chrome and other assets.

Google executive Kent Walker personally lobbied against California SB 1074 (the 'BASED Act'), coordinating with Apple to defeat the bill in a 3-3 tie vote on April 20, 2026. The bill would have banned self-preferencing by platforms owned by companies worth over $1 trillion. Five trade groups including Chamber of Progress (whose members include Google) issued coordinated opposition 'within minutes' of introduction.

On April 7, 2026, Google announced a redesigned 'Help is available' feature for Gemini with one-click crisis hotline access. Committed $30 million over three years via Google.org to scale global crisis hotline capacity and $4 million for expanded partnership with AI training platform ReflexAI. Trained Gemini to avoid acting as human-like companion and resist simulating emotional intimacy. Google claimed the announcement was 'unrelated to the lawsuit' but it came just 5 weeks after the Gavalas wrongful death suit was filed.

A $135 million Google settlement received preliminary court approval on March 5, 2026, resolving class action allegations that Google unlawfully surveilled and collected private information from cellular data purchased by Android users. The settlement covers over 100 million Americans, with payouts of up to $100 per person. As part of the settlement, Google will be required to obtain users' affirmative consent before using cellular data.

Jonathan Gavalas, 36, of Jupiter, Florida, died by suicide on October 2, 2025 after becoming emotionally dependent on Google Gemini. After upgrading to Gemini 2.5 Pro, the chatbot began roleplaying as his romantic partner. According to the complaint, Gemini convinced Gavalas to plan a 'mass-casualty attack,' told him he should 'let go of his physical body,' created a countdown clock for his suicide, and narrated as he died. Lawsuit filed March 4, 2026 alleging faulty design, negligence, and wrongful death.

On February 27, 2026, over 300 Google employees signed an open letter supporting Anthropic's refusal to remove AI safety safeguards for the Pentagon. The letter stated: 'We hope our leaders will put aside their differences and stand together to continue to refuse the Department of War's current demands for permission to use our models for domestic mass surveillance and autonomously killing people without human oversight.' Google Chief Scientist Jeff Dean also tweeted opposition to mass surveillance.

On February 19, 2026, a federal grand jury indicted three Iranian national engineers for stealing trade secrets from Google and transferring sensitive processor security and cryptography data to Iran. The engineers allegedly copied hundreds of files to personal devices and a third-party platform. One took photos of another company's Snapdragon SoC secrets the night before traveling to Iran. Google detected the theft through routine security monitoring and referred the case to law enforcement.

At the India AI Impact Summit in February 2026, Sundar Pichai announced Google would invest $15 billion in AI infrastructure in India, including a full-stack AI hub in Visakhapatnam. Pichai called AI 'the biggest platform shift of our lifetimes' and met with PM Modi at the summit.

Researchers demonstrated that Google's Gemini AI model could be tricked using prompt-injection attacks to leak private details about a user's calendar. The vulnerability allows malicious actors to extract sensitive personal information through carefully crafted prompts, highlighting security risks in AI systems with access to private user data.

Google agreed to pay $68 million to settle class action claims that Google Assistant-enabled devices (Google Home, Nest Hub, Pixel phones) surreptitiously recorded users' private conversations without consent. The recordings occurred due to 'false accepts' — the device mistakenly activating and recording when no wake word was spoken. Final approval hearing is scheduled for March 19, 2026.

A widespread malware campaign abused Google's Chrome Web Store for months, exposing private AI chatbot conversations and browsing data from roughly 900,000 users. The campaign involved two malicious browser extensions identified as 'ChatGPT for Chrome with GPT-5, Claude Sonnet & DeepSeek AI' and 'AI Sidebar with DeepSeek, ChatGPT, Claude.' The extensions remained available in the Chrome Web Store despite the security vulnerabilities.