Google's Changes: Morning Tech Bytes
NEW YORK (
) --
(GOOG) - Get Report
announced Wednesday it was changing its search algorithm to ensure that bad merchants were not displayed prominently in search results.
The change comes after a recent
New York Times
article highlighted a merchant who was purposely antagonizing customers so they would write negative online reviews, which ended up boosting his ranking in Google search results.
Shares of Google rose 0.9% in pre-market trading Thursday to $569.44.
Verizon
(VZ) - Get Report
said it would launch its
on Sunday in 38 cities, including Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Seattle.
Shares of Verizon were up 0.3% in pre-market trading to $32.45.
Amazon
(AMZN) - Get Report
kicked WikiLeaks off its computer servers after the site released thousands of controversial government documents over the weekend. The WikiLeaks site is now being hosted by servers in Europe.
Shares of Amazon rose 0.1% in pre-market trading to $176.73.
Online video site
Hulu
would consider taking on new investors for global expansion, the company told
The Wall Street Journal
in an interview Wednesday. Hulu's current owners include
Disney
(DIS) - Get Report
, NBC Universal and
News Corp
(NWSA) - Get Report
. The company is weighing an IPO as well, according to reports.
Popular daily deals site
Groupon
announced Wednesday that it had acquired three websites in Asia which serve Hong Kong, Singapore, the Philippines and Taiwan. Groupon is currently in
.
--Written by Olivia Oran in New York.
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