Member Avatar for canadafred

Well looks like Google (the company whose corporate motto is "Do no evil") was implicated by the Snowden leak as vastly co-operating with other Internet companies and the American government to find and collect as much international private data as possible about as many foreigners as posiible. Things like telephone calls made, emails sent and recieved, social network activities, web searches and subsequent web page visits ...).

My question is about money. How much money was Google paid to spy on us for the Americans. Surely this incredibly heartless corporation did not barder our private lives out of the goodness of its heart. This spying by Google goes way back too, long before they captured all our home network passwords with their Google maps mobile, long before they introduced "personalised" search to tack search history, videos watched, web pages visits ... bad Google. This is only the tip of the iceberg. The implications about Google's obvious breach of public trust and even more damaging revelations about the search engine's covert activities will surely follow.

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Quick summary and answer to the money question (what asked): the Snowden disclosures in early June 2013 exposed programs like PRISM and related collection efforts; journalists published classified slides showing how U.S. agencies got data from many services and from the network itself. This is the origin of the concerns raised here and the links people have posted. (theguardian.com)

Short answer: there is no public, verifiable evidence that Google was paid to “spy” on users in the sense of a commercial pay-for-data arrangement. Google’s public response in June 2013 denied any backdoor access and said the company responds to lawful requests; the legal framework most often cited for PRISM-style collection is Section 702 of FISA, under which providers can be compelled to turn over data in specific, court‑authorized ways. That legal/oversight context is important when parsing the leaks vs. the rumor of corporate payola. (europe.googleblog.com)

Important nuance: some Snowden documents and later reporting show the NSA used other techniques (for example MUSCULAR, a joint NSA/GCHQ program) that intercepted traffic between providers’ data centers without the companies’ cooperation, and reporting also documents government agreements and operational funding for access to backbone or foreign partner infrastructure. Those are different mechanisms than “the government cut Google a check to sell user data.” Google and other firms responded by hardening encryption and changing internal practices. (arstechnica.com)

If the goal is to reduce exposure: enable two‑factor authentication, review and limit Google Web & App Activity and ad‑personalization settings, use end‑to‑end encrypted messaging for sensitive conversations, and adopt basic encryption/privacy hygiene (HTTPS, strong passwords, minimal data retention). For step‑by‑step guides and threat‑modeling, see the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Surveillance Self‑Defense resources. (eff.org)

Notes: and raised the original links — those are useful primary reports. If anyone wants help finding specific court orders, public filings, or the PCLOB report that explain Section 702 and how companies are treated under the law, post which document you want and the exact question (legal authority, technical method, or practical mitigation).

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Member Avatar for Dani

Hey Fred, would you happen to have a link to the news source handy?

Member Avatar for happygeek

This report covers things with more clarity than most methinks:

Member Avatar for canadafred

Here's a better article from Canadian news perspective "... An internet scouring program, code-named PRISM, allows the NSA and FBI to tap directly into the servers of major U.S. Internet companies such as Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and AOL ..." Why the Canadian governement is now trusting google with more sensitive data is beyond me, (recently allowing the corporate spies to bring their equipment into our parliament buildings to "take pictures"). Maybe I'm ranting a bit but Google's got to go. It's got no business in the forreign spy trade. It's a frieking search engine.

Edited by canadafred because: spelling
Member Avatar for Alex Thompson

Really informative one..

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