The Wall Street Journal reports that smartphones have turned into spies and tech companies are required to help the Chinese government "hunt down criminal suspects and silence political dissent." These companies include Alibaba, Tencent, and Baidu. Their technologies are being used to create cities that are wired for surveillance. "Unlike American companies, which often resist U.S. government requests for information, Chinese ones talk openly about working with authorities," explain reporters Liza Lin and Josh Chin.  The report goes on to explain how Alibaba has data on hundreds of millions of Chinese citizens who use the company's services to shop online, …

For some uses, searching YouTube for “how to have” is autocompleting with suggestions such as “how to have s*x with your kids” and “how to have s*x kids,” Buzzfeed News reports. A YouTube spokesperson tells BuzzFeed that the matter is under investigation. “Google -- YouTube's parent company -- has previously received criticism for controversial autocomplete results,” Buzzfeed notes.

Google, an Alphabet subsidiary, has bought a plot of land in southern Denmark near a planned Apple data center, according to Reuters. The news agency reports that in January, Facebook announced plans to build a data center in Odense, which is located in central Denmark. The country could become the next hotbed for tech based on the activity by some of the largest players.

Google just updated its job listing search feature to include additional details about open positions. “Salary information, location settings and application choices can now be added to display directly in search along with the job posting,” Search Engine Land reports. “Google says it is also displaying all of the websites where applicants can apply for a job if the position is listed in multiple placed across the web.”

It may make more sense to understand the relationship between Google and news publishers before accusing the search giant of stealing search advertising revenue. Speaking to the Society of Editors, Google UK Chief Ronan Harris on Sunday night admitted to hearing many people have said Google and Facebook "ruthlessly" steal advertising revenue that publishers hope to acquire online. "That analysis just isn’t right," since the majority of Google revenue comes from search advertising, which is a market news publishers don't participate in, he said, according to The Drum.

Bing advertisers now have a way to gain insights into how often their ads serve up for exact keywords.  Exact match impression share (EM IS) allows advertisers to see the percentage of impressions their advertisements receive for queries that match, exactly, the keywords in Bing Ads.  Existing IS metrics measure the percentage of eligible impressions marketers received for all searches. Claire Lee explains how to use the IS tool and find the exact match IS. 

Conductor has released data on the top brands and publishers dominating organic search in 2017 -- and it might not be the companies most frequency that come to mind. Macy’s, Dick’s Sporting Goods and Nordstrom tied for first place heading into the holiday season for winter clothing. Amazon took the fourth spot, followed by Burlington Coat Factory, The North Face, Pinterest, JCPenny, L.L.Bean, and Columbia. 

AutoNation said Thursday it inked a partnership with Google to produce self-driving cars. The dealerships will provide maintenance and repairs for Google's self-driving fleet of cars. Waymo, the self-driving car division, only supports Chrysler Pacifica, but the agreement also will support other models as they become available.