Exclusive: Google has negotiated deepening the relationship during the war in Gaza.

Google provides cloud computing services to the Israeli Ministry of Defense, and the tech giant has negotiated deepening its partnership during Israel’s war in Gaza, a company document viewed by TIME shows.

The Israeli Ministry of Defense, according to the document, has its own “landing zone” into Google Cloud—a secure entry point to Google-provided computing infrastructure, which would allow the ministry to store and process data, and access AI services.

Project Nimbus is a controversial $1.2 billion cloud computing and AI agreement between the Israeli government and two tech companies: Google and Amazon. Reports in the Israeli press have previously indicated that Google and Amazon are contractually barred from preventing specific arms of the Israeli state using their technology under Project Nimbus. But this is the first time the existence of a contract showing that the Israeli Ministry of Defense is a Google Cloud customer has been made public.

Google recently described its work for the Israeli government as largely for civilian purposes. “We have been very clear that the Nimbus contract is for workloads running on our commercial platform by Israeli government ministries such as finance, healthcare, transportation, and education,” a Google spokesperson told TIME for a story published on April 8. “Our work is not directed at highly sensitive or classified military workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence services.”

  • tsonfeir@lemm.eeEnglish
    1035·
    6 months ago

    Anyone who supports Google supports Israel.

    So, how many of you are ditching Gmail?

    Yeah, that’s what I thought.

      • tsonfeir@lemm.eeEnglish
        111·
        6 months ago

        Yet it gets downvoted… bro. If what you’re saying is true, I would expect the opposite outcome.

        It just boils down to thoughts and prayers.

        • livus@mander.xyzEnglish
          2·
          6 months ago

          If what you’re saying is true, I would expect the opposite outcome

          I don’t see why you would expect upvotes for snidely implying the worst about people in here though.

          I’ve almost de-googled and came here when I saw the crosspost was in this community especially because I was hoping for discussion on degoogling.

          • tsonfeir@lemm.eeEnglish
            11·
            6 months ago

            So have one and don’t focus on me? Seems like a waste of your time to just get a kick in.

            • livus@mander.xyzEnglish
              2·
              6 months ago

              I didn’t downvote you personally (I only downvote spam), I was just pointing out the flaw in your logic, in passing.

              • tsonfeir@lemm.eeEnglish
                2·
                6 months ago

                I appreciate a person who doesn’t mash a downvote for no reason. Still, I’ll die on this anti-Google hill.

                • livus@mander.xyzEnglish
                  2·
                  6 months ago

                  Totally with you on the important part, which is everyone needs to de-google now.

    • normalexit@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      6 months ago

      I’ve been thinking about it for a long time. I’ll probably never be able to completely separate due to the number of accounts linked to it, but I’ve been eyeing Proton or similar paid privacy focused offerings.

        • tsonfeir@lemm.eeEnglish
          1·
          6 months ago

          People can also use that single required Google account for YouTube without participating in services beyond that.

      • tsonfeir@lemm.eeEnglish
        212·
        6 months ago

        Now we know why using provider specific SSO over email is a bad thing. You could put the effort into it, or you support Israel. 🤷‍♂️

    • Dariusmiles2123@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      1·
      6 months ago

      I’m sending this article to my girlfriend to convince her to ditch her Gmail account.

      Not sure it’s gonna work 😅

      On Lemmy, I’m almost sure only a few use Gmail because everyone is kind of tech savvy.

      Ditching YouTube is more complicated, but ditching Gmail is easy.

      • S_204@lemm.eeEnglish
        21·
        6 months ago

        The hilarity of thinking people here are tech savvy because they have an app is pretty cute to me. This place is slightly less accessible than Reddit but it’s hardly difficult to navigate around.

      • tsonfeir@lemm.eeEnglish
        1·
        6 months ago

        Fortunately, there are lots of options. A suggestion: have her buy a cheap domain name, so she can take her email address to any service. Forward the gmail and slowly change over.