Google Processes 158,548 Searches Every Second, Here’s How Much It Adds Up to in Just One Year!

Google publicly shared its data for the first time since 2016 to reveal that Google sees more than 5 trillion searches annually. In 2016, Google announced that the platform processes more than 2 trillion searches annually, and now it has grown to 5 trillion, reflecting a 150% increase since 2016. Google also mentioned that the volume of commercial queries has also increased ever since the release of AI Overviews.

Google hasn't shared the data in any numbers to give us any idea about how much that volume has increased. Now that Google has updated its figure that it is getting 5 trillion queries annually, it means that there are 158,548 queries made per second on Google. This means 9.5 million queries per minute, 571 million per hour and 14 billion in a day. This adds up to 417 billion queries per month, which makes more than 5 trillion queries per year.

In 1999, Google used to get 3 million searches per day, which was about 1 billion queries annually, which jumped to 14 billion annual queries in 2000, as per John Battelle's book, “The Search”. From 2001 to 2003, Google used to get more than 55 billion searches on the platform, and this jumped to 73 billion from 2004 to 2008 (because of inconsistent data). In 2009, Google reported getting 1 billion searches per day, while there were no updates from Google about its annual searches for 2010 and 2011. Google reached 1.2 trillion annual searches from 2012 to 2025, which touched 2 trillion from 2016 to 2024.

With the rise of AI models like ChatGPT, Google’s dominance in the search market is being tested. While these tools change how people access information and often provide direct conversational responses, Google continues to manage trillions of queries annually, reinforcing its role in global information flow. By sharing these massive search volumes, Google emphasizes its scale and significance. However, as AI technology evolves, Google’s dominance might face a shift in the near future.

Chart Credit: Irfan Ahmad

Year	Google Searches (per year in billions)	Details
1999	1 billion	Based on 3 million searches per day, as reported by John Battelle in his book, “The Search.”
2000	14 billion	Based on 18 million searches per day for the first half and 60 million for the second half.
2001–2003	55+ billion	Based on reports from Google Zeitgeist during these years.
2004–2008	73 billion	Based on 200 million searches per day in 2004, with "billions" reported in subsequent years.
2009	365+ billion	Based on a Google blog post mentioning over 1 billion searches per day.
2012–2015	1,200 billion (1.2 trillion)	Based on 100 billion searches per month (2012) and 3 billion per day (2015).
2016–2024	2,000+ billion (2 trillion+)	Based on Google confirming it handles "trillions" of searches yearly.
2025	5,000+ billion (5 trillion+)	Based on internal Google data reported in a blog post on AI, personalization, and future shopping.

Time Frame	Search Volume
Every second	158,548
Every minute	9.5 million
Every hour	571 million
Every day	14 billion
Every month	417 billion
Every year	More than 5 trillion

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Consumers Are Hitting ‘Unsubscribe’, Here’s Why Brands Are Losing Them

Optimove conducted a survey of 329 U.S. consumers to understand what content tactics cause consumers to unsubscribe from brands. The results reveal that excessive messaging, lack of personalization, and irrelevant promotions are key reasons people opt out.

The most common reason for unsubscribing is seeing the same promotion too often. Fifty-four percent of respondents said they unsubscribe when brands repeatedly push the same offer. Generic content that lacks personalization is another issue, with twenty percent opting out when messages feel impersonal and irrelevant.

Irrelevant promotions are also a major factor. Thirteen percent of respondents said they unsubscribe when brands send offers that do not match their interests or past purchases. Another thirteen percent said they opt out when brands communicate too frequently, even if the content is relevant.

More than half of the respondents, fifty-seven percent to be exact, have switched to a competitor multiple times after feeling bombarded by excessive marketing messages. All this shows, personalization is more important than ever, with seventy-five percent of consumers emphasizing its value. This is a sharp increase from last year's fifty-four percent, showing a growing expectation for brands to deliver tailored experiences.

Seventy percent of consumers have unsubscribed from at least three brands in the past three months due to message overload. More than one in three, thirty-six percent, have unsubscribed from six or more. While eighty-one percent are more likely to open emails that match their interests, sixty percent say they often receive messages at the wrong time. Poor timing can reduce engagement and make marketing efforts feel intrusive.

Fifty-nine percent of respondents trust brands that use AI for personalization, but concerns about data privacy remain. Thirty-two percent of consumers worry about how their data is used. While AI-driven marketing can improve engagement, the report highlights the need for brands to be transparent and give consumers control over how often they receive messages.

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

U.S. Warns: EU’s Digital Crackdown Might Be the End of Free Expression Online!

The head of the FCC is slamming the EU’s Digital Services Act as a threat to censorship while calling it incompatible with America’s free speech ideology.

Brendan Carr did not hold back while swinging at the EU’s content moderation rules. He added how the law poses a serious risk to the region as well due ot excessive regulations related to free speech. Such censorship arising from the DSA is incompatible with the usual free speech ideology that America is built on, he shared.

Tensions continue to go strong between America and the EU have hit a new high ever since President Trump returned to power and his administration bashed the tech laws in the country as overseas extortion.

Now, the country’s capital has unleashed a new threat for taxes as their reply to the EU’s taxes and fines on American companies. The news comes as the region increases probes on Big Tech over antitrust breaches and rules for moderating content online. This entails Facebook, Instagram, as well as X.

The Trump admin has been very clear since day one about how it will speak up against discrimination and also defend the nation’s interest of American companies. In this way, free speech continues to be in retreat as he argued about the COVID-19 pandemic giving governments a major excuse for tighter controls. This was all while Trump was praised for his effort to reverse the issue.

Now Carr is certainly a top pick for Trump, who has been in charge of leading America’s telecom and vowing to fight off any censorship of social media. He’s certainly digging down deep and asking tech giants about details linked to reconciliation with the Digital Services Act and where it lies in terms of free speech. America is clear that it will not tolerate anyone silencing users’ free speech rights or calls for censoring data.

As per the EC spokesperson, the DSA isn’t only about censorship. It has important rules against censorship, and it’s surprising how many are talking about such accusations that it feels are false and baseless.

The main aim right now has to do with digital laws and how they are quintessential for protecting users’ rights. It needs apps to determine the risks linked to freedom of expression, adding that there’s nothing in the Digital Services Act that forces apps to get rid of lawful material.

Image: DIW-Aigen

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UK Opens New Investigation Against TikTok, Reddit, and Imgur for Privacy Concerns Related to Processing Minors’ Data

The leading UK privacy watchdog just shared how it’s carrying out an investigation against TikTok, Reddit, and Imgur due to serious privacy concerns linked to processing kids’ data.

The country’s Commissioner’s Office for data revealed how it’s now getting into the depths of how the app utilizes kids’ information to roll out recommendations that might give rise to dangerous and explicit material that’s easily visible on feeds.

Meanwhile, separate investigations were rolled out for both Reddit and Imgur, which investigate how they’re using the personal data linked to UK kids to determine the exact age. Such investigations are an integral part of the efforts to determine how companies protect kids. Moreover, it’s a stage that they investigate to see if any data protection laws were violated.

The office claims that if any such evidence was found that these organizations broke the law, then they will be penalized. So the scrutiny is only to see if they are abiding by the data protection rules. The UK says that it has a strong responsibility to keep all kids safe online. And this can only happen if such social media apps are offering the right services and sticking to the regulations that hold them accountable.

The news comes after a study was shared by the ICO which found that more than 42% of all parents in the country felt helpless about limited control over sharing videos online. This includes the amount of data that social media apps collect about kids.

Media outlets asked the respective apps for comments on the subject but failed to hear back. Meanwhile, the privacy watchdog did penalize social media giant TikTok with a fine of $15.9M in April 2023. It says the company violated laws including those related to collecting data of kids below 13 without consent from parents. Then in 2020, the app enabled nearly 1.4M young kids in the UK to utilize the app despite rules stopping them from generating accounts.

Currently, the ICO is examining data violations linked to data protection rules to make sure the firms roll out digital services that keep kids’ privacy safeguarded at all times. If that’s revealed through evidence of breaches made by the companies, then the ICO will sit with them before making the final verdict.

Image: DIW-Aigen

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School Phone Ban Gains Support but Gen-Z Says It's a Step Too Far

According to a survey conducted among 2,000 American by Talker Research, most respondents think that cell phones should be banned at school, with 71% being in favor of it and 29% opposing it. Texas is going to vote for a mobile phone ban in educational institutions because many Americans are concerned that mobile phones are affecting the learning and well-being of students. 54% of the respondents said that mobile phones should be banned in elementary schools because young students using phones is concerning. 49% said that mobile phones should be banned in middle schools while 45% said that mobile phones should be restricted in high schools.

This shows that many people are aware that children of different ages have different mobile phone needs and it is important to know how much mobile phone use is required in educational institutions for the students to use it in educational settings. A lot of respondents were on the same page about mobile phones being a distraction for the youngest students and they do not even need them in educational institutions.

78% of the respondents are in favor of mobile phone restrictions because they are the biggest distraction for students, 72% are in favor because they do not want students to spend too much on devices and 47% want to stop cyberbullying. 45% of the respondents also said that they do not want students to use AI for their answers and that's why mobile phone restriction is necessary. The people who showed the strongest opposition to this ban suggestion are unsurprisingly Gen-Z, with 41% opposing mobile phone restriction in educational institutions while 26% of Baby Boomers opposed it. Gen-Z have grown around technology that's why this ban may be much harder on them while the generation who didn't have smartphones during their school times may not oppose it that much.

54% of the respondents who have children going to school support a mobile phone ban for all students, while 40% of parents who have children in elementary schools support the ban at that level only. 39% of parents with children in middle school and 34% of parents with children in high schools support the mobile phone ban at respective levels. There were only 19% of parents who are in favor of a complete ban on smartphones in schools while 56% of the respondents are in favor of allowing mobile phone usage in specific settings and times in schools. 11% also said that mobile phone usage should be allowed for educational purposes in school hours while 8% also said that students should have unrestricted access to their mobile phones.

The survey also looked at technological ways to stop mobile phone usage and 54% were in favor of blocking cell phone signals during school hours, but 28% opposed it. People who are in opposition to the mobile phone ban in schools (58%) are mostly concerned about parent-child communication and this shows that mobile phones are also being seen as a safety tool by some people. 27% of the respondents said that children have a right to their devices while 13% are in favor of specific policies around mobile phone use in schools.

Image: DIW-Aigen

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Google AI Overviews Are Secretly Killing Top Pages While Boosting Hidden Ones

According to a study by Terakeet, web pages that are included in Google’s AI Overviews (AIO) gain more traffic, but webpages that do not appear on AI Overviews experience no clicks. The transactional and top-ranked queries get 3.2 times more clicks when they are included in Google’s AI Overviews while informational queries which are lower ranked get 2 times more clicks. Similarly, lower-ranked transactional queries and top-ranked transactional queries get 3.6 times and 3.2 times more clicks respectively as compared to webpages which get excluded by AI Overviews.

The study also found that webpages benefited from Google AI Overviews regardless of the intent. For informational queries, AIO reduces traffic for the top 1-2 positions but increases traffic for lower-ranked 3-10 positions. Webpages for transactional queries get an increase in traffic no matter what their position is on the first page of search results.

This shows that AI Overviews are changing the search behavior by reducing the traffic for top pages so businesses shouldn't only rely on SERP positions now. Adi Srikanth, Senior data scientist at Terakeet, says that AI Overviews is significantly harming some webpages but it is also becoming advantageous to others.

All in all, the presence of AI Overviews completely changes how web traffic behave in search engines and their results pages. This is why education tech company Chegg is suing Google by saying that AI Overviews has negatively impacted the traffic and revenue of their webpage.

Image: DIW-Aigen

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Apple's Siri Upgrade Delayed to 2027 Amid Technical Setbacks and Leadership Struggles

Apple's ambition to reinvent Siri with more natural, upgraded, human-like conversations faces tougher obstacles than anticipated. The long-awaited transformation might not arrive until iOS 20 in 2027, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.

The upcoming iOS 18.5 update will introduce large language model-powered AI enhancements to Siri. But instead of replacing the old system, the upgrade will work alongside it. This split design could limit how fluid and consistent Siri feels in everyday use. The real breakthrough that is combining basic tasks with smarter, context-aware capabilities, was initially planned for iOS 19.4. Now, that milestone appears out of reach for Apple's usual June software reveal at WWDC.

Apple isn't alone in facing these hurdles. Amazon's Alexa overhaul has followed a similar path, requiring a full system rebuild to merge legacy features with AI intelligence. That effort is only just entering early access for select devices.

Apple's situation comes with extra pressure. Engineers inside the company reportedly say its AI models are already straining against technical boundaries. Shortages of the hardware needed to train better models have made progress even slower. Meanwhile, leadership struggles and staff departures have added to the setbacks, all while competitors press forward with faster, more capable AI systems.

The delays raise bigger questions about Apple's role in the AI race. The company built its reputation on polished, seamless products, but in this fast-moving tech space, catching up might not be enough.

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