Data Privacy

Google will no longer divulge information to participants in its ad auction about the type of content on a website or page where an ad could appear, the Alphabet Inc. company said in a blog post Thursday.

Google’s top health and cloud executives said the company isn’t misusing health data from one of the biggest U.S. health-care providers, pushing back against news reports that have triggered criticism from lawmakers and prompted a federal inquiry.

The documents portray company executives plotting how to convince the public they were serious about improving privacy protections even while their real goal was to snuff out competition.

The state says it demanded information from the social media giant in June for an investigation launched last year and that the company’s response has been “patently deficient.”

Employees said they discovered the company was creating a new tool that would automatically report staffers who create a calendar event with more than 10 rooms or 100 participants.

Lawmakers made it clear that they are skeptical that Facebook should be trusted with the tremendous power it has amassed over 2.7 billion global users.

The software can scan footage including from closed-circuit television to automatically match faces and license plates to a police database and pick out suspects in a crowd.