Shadow Hosts Google, Apple, Microsoft Who do the world's IT giants serve?

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Probably every first inhabitant of the planet knows the names of the giants of the American IT industry: Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google, Alphabet. They are the giants of Silicon Valley.

These companies are at the top of the global business rankings. Despite the viral economic crisis, the market caps of Microsoft, Apple and Amazon continue to hover above $ 1 trillion for each company. Several other American IT giants have ranged from half a trillion to a trillion dollars.

For comparison: the largest Wall Street bank JPMorgan Chase has a market capitalization of about three times less - it does not reach $ 300 billion, and the capitalization of the largest US oil company Exxon Mobil Corporation is $ 186 billion. these corporations.

Silicon Valley IT companies, having direct access to billions of people, are engaged in business: advertising, selling information they have, collecting it for special orders. And orders for the collection and requests for the information already collected began to come not only from business structures, but also from law enforcement agencies and the special services of the United States.

Active cooperation of IT corporations with the state in the United States began after September 11, 2001, when the Patriot Act was adopted. Then a simplified procedure was introduced for access of American government departments and organizations to personal confidential information from the databases of IT corporations. The FBI, CIA, and other intelligence agencies received such access without a court order, based on a letter of demand.

10 years after 9/11, the number of requests for confidential information on American and non-American citizens from the competent US authorities began to be measured in the thousands every month. So, in the first half of 2011, the authorities sent 5.950 requests to Google about 11,057 users. The company passed the required data 93% of the time. Under the banner of a "common fight against international terrorism," Washington allowed requests to be made to American IT corporations and other states, including the Russian Federation. True, this is only on paper.

In the first half of 2011, 42 requests for data from 47 users were received from Russia. None of them were satisfied. And here is the data from five years ago on requests for the entire 2015 to the address of Google. US government agencies made 12,523 requests regarding confidential data on 27,157 accounts, with 79% of them receiving a satisfactory response. The Russian authorities sent only 257 inquiries concerning 433 users, but only 7% of inquiries received a positive result.

In many cases, the relationship between US IT corporations and the relevant US authorities is not limited to a one-time transfer of information. At the request (or demand) of American government agencies, the IT corporation can conduct constant surveillance of the object for an unlimited period of time. In a letter of request for a one-time receipt of information, there is usually a reminder that you do not need to block the object's account, you should continue monitoring.

In the British press in early 2015, information appeared that the WikiLeaks management went to Google with a demand to explain the long-term transfer of information about the personal correspondence of some of the site's employees to the FBI. According to reports, information on three employees was transmitted over a three-year period.

Julian Assange, head of WikiLeaks, said in the fall of 2014 that Google was engaged in espionage at the request of the FBI, NSA and other American departments. Go ahead. Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple have spent a total of $ 54.5 million lobbying in Washington DC over the past twelve months (from mid-2019 onwards).to mid-2020), up 35 percent from 2015 and nearly 500 percent from 2010.

And here is the story of old Europe. In 2011, the European Commission accused the corporation of abusing its dominant position in the European market. In particular, Google's share of the EU online search market has approached 90%. Also, European mobile app companies exclusively used Google's Android system.

To deflect EU accusations, the company has embarked on a path of buying European officials, hiring them for well-paid positions. In 2011, the company hired 18 European officials, more than double the number in 2010. In Europe, Google paid particular attention to the UK. Since 2005, there have been at least 26 recruited British officials.