Google employees and human rights groups have raised concerns about the tech giant’s purchase of an Israeli start-up in an unprecedented $32bn deal.
Google on Tuesday announced the all-cash acquisition of Wiz, an Israeli cloud security firm which was founded by former members of Unit 8200, an elite Israeli army cyber-espionage and surveillance unit.
The deal comes with the Google already facing internal and external pressure over its controversial Project Nimbus contract, through which along with Amazon it provides cloud computing and AI services to the Israeli government and military.
A spokesperson for No Tech for Apartheid, a coalition of Google and Amazon workers campaigning against the companies’ involvement with Israel, said Google was “playing with fire” by buying Wiz.
Paul Biggar made a great summary about how these “acquisitions” serve to get Israeli spies into American tech companies. Those spies then use their powers for Israel.
I’m convinced my old company was complicit in this to some degree. It was a start up with absolutely silly funding for a bunch of products (b2c and b2b) that were aimed to hoover up personal information under the guise of gaming.
For some reason we were told to start an office in Tel Aviv and to specifically hire devs from unit 8200.
As if Google isn’t already crammed with Israeli spies. In fact, that’s probably why an Israeli company just got a sweetheart buy out from Google! This is just a continuation of a pre-existing issue Google already had.
It also puts $4billion directly into the Israeli tax bank for some much needed genocide funding.
Also isn’t that valuation way overblown so they can send billions in tax to Israel, behind the facade of a “deal”.
Google’s on: “Let’s see how EVIL we can get”
I did not know they had a new slogan
I’m still using Gmail, mostly cause of how much of a hassle it is to change to a new email address. Shit like this is really making me find motivation to switch.
When you do eventually switch, I’d recommend getting your own domain and using an email address at that domain, so that your email address becomes independent of your email provider. It will make it easier to switch again in future should you need to, because you can keep the same email address and use it with a new provider.
