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.”
Once upon a time they had Don’t be evil in their code of conduct.
They still do.
You can interpret that as better or worse, as you see fit.
I’m almost degoogled, in the sense that no penny goes to them.
- I use Fastmail for mail/calendars
- Revanced/Smarttube for YT (no ads, no money)
- Immich instead of Photos
The only thing I can’t really get rid of, is Google Maps.
Google Maps is impossible. They have more info on places and traffic based routing. There are no real alternatives.
I like Here We Go (used to be Ovi). Its realtime traffic is pretty good.
@warmaster@lemmy.world
@Linkerbaan@lemmy.world @ad_on_is@lemmy.world
yeah, I tried osmand, but the UI is just “meh”
I like magic earth. It hasn’t all of the data, but you can help it by using street complete.
It hasn’t fully replaced Google maps, but for navigation to an address it works pretty well.
You could try organic maps.
The UI is better than Osmand and it’s better than Google maps for trail running, but it doesn’t have traffic info, making it unusable for driving in populated areas.
I love osmand for outdoor activities, recording hikes and bike rides, they actually have better info on trails than google maps (though there are specialized outdoor apps that are even better, usually paid). The UI has a lot of features and it’s not the easiest to navigate, but I love it exactly because it has all those features. Searching for places used to be a nightmare, but it got better. It even works with Android Auto (not sure abt Carplay for Apple folks).
So, what is it missing? Traffic info. And that’s why I still have Google maps.
waze is awesome for traffic info, although (it hink) it’s israeli-made and now owned by google.
The search is still bad, imho… If I search for a place, osmand doesn’t show the address in the list. So, I’d have to go through each of the items to find the one that I’m looking for.
organic maps (foss) and magic earth (proprietary) are pretty good
gone the days of “Don’t be Evil”. Now, it’s “Where’s my profit google.”
Can’t be “don’t be evil” with capitalism.
Exactly. Maximizing shareholder value is an inherent conflict of interest.
some degoogle resources (there are more):
https://github.com/tycrek/degoogle
https://github.com/Wuest3nFuchs/Degoogle
btw I like https://poketube.fun
Good lists… too bad they’re on Microsoft’s GitHub instead of CodeBerg.
Surprised… no one.
Now that’s one good reason to go back to Google. Also buy more of their stock. Iran, pali’s daddy, just fafo’d.
I saw a documentary recently where they show how virtually all the worlds brands are owned by BlackRock as the largest shareholder.
BlackRock has 4 major shareholders: Rothschild’s, Du Pont, Rockefeller and one other I forgot. Rothschild’s holds the larger share.
The same Rothschilds who boast about creating the state of Israel.
Whatever you use, Apple, Google, Coke, Pepsi, Amazon, Boeing, Airbus, whichever car you can name, they basically own it. And all your money goes to them.
It’s near impossible to escape their grasp. So don’t waste your time unless you self host at home or find truly independent alternatives.
Woof. That website is a trip. I suggest everyone check it before you believe anything in this comment. It all seemed fishy and then I started skimming and got to the anti-mask conspiracy shit.
I thought you were saying it was legit…my god it is insanr
If you (or that website) want to spread this kind of alarmist information, some would say conspiracies, you’d better back it with credible sources for all the claims in there. I read it and saw exactly zero evidence.
Did you not see him type into Yahoo who the major shareholders are of the companies in question? And the results? It was very clear.
Anyone who supports Google supports Israel.
So, how many of you are ditching Gmail?
Yeah, that’s what I thought.
Bro your on lemmy, most people are already de googled, almost all those who aren’t are pretty damn close
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.
You’re probably getting downvowted because you came off like a prick
I’m sorry that calling out passive supporters of genocide makes me look like a prick, I’ll take those downvotes with price.
Its the “yeah thats what i thought”
Well, it is what I thought 😇
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.
So have one and don’t focus on me? Seems like a waste of your time to just get a kick in.
I didn’t downvote you personally (I only downvote spam), I was just pointing out the flaw in your logic, in passing.
I appreciate a person who doesn’t mash a downvote for no reason. Still, I’ll die on this anti-Google hill.
Totally with you on the important part, which is everyone needs to de-google now.
I have. I pay for a non-Google alternative email service.
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.
deleted by creator
People can also use that single required Google account for YouTube without participating in services beyond that.
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. 🤷♂️
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.
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.
Maybe tech savvy isn’t the right word, but grandma and grandpa might end up on Reddit, but not on Lemmy
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.
