Business & Tech
Google Holds Conference Amid Controversy; SimplyHired.com Sees Huge Growth
In this week's tech news roundup, we bring you the latest developments of Mountain View companies.
Every week, Mountain View makes news with technology developments, discoveries and sometimes controversies.
Today, Mountain View Patch brings you “Bits and Bytes,” where we’ll relay the past week’s news highlights from our backyard giants, start-ups and small businesses alike.
It has been a great year for SimplyHired.com, which announced that traffic to its website has grown by more than 50 percent over last year. Revenues have also doubled. The company plans to do some hiring of its own, by doubling its workforce over the next year to support the success of its business.
Mobile apps continue to create controversy for Google. The company, along with competitor Apple Inc., went before Congress this week to discuss apps that provide the location of DUI checkpoints. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) called for these apps to be removed from the marketplace immediately. Both Google and Apple said they would look into whether these apps violate their terms of service.
Google was involved in another controversy this week when Facebook Inc. was publicly chided for what has been seen as an attempt to smear the search giant through the use of the public relations firm Burson-Marsteller. Facebook attempted to highlight Google's collection of data from social networks and has been criticized for doing so without full transparency.
PayNearMe announced a partnership with 7-Eleven and Ria Financial Services that will allow people without credit or bank accounts to pay bills and transfer money at 7-Eleven locations. The transactions cost less than Western Union money transfers and enable online shopping without a credit card for participating retailers like Amazon.com.
Symantec Corp., which includes the Norton and VeriSign brands, posted strong quarterly results this week leading to a 4 percent increase in its shares on Nasdaq. As of Thursday, shares were higher than they have been for nearly three years.
Google hosted its annual I/O Conference this week at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. A series of announcements were made at the event, including the availability of Chromebooks this summer, new tools for Android developers and an invitation-only beta music service.
