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.”

  • adONis@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    7 months ago

    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.

    • warmaster@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      7 months ago

      Google Maps is impossible. They have more info on places and traffic based routing. There are no real alternatives.

      • livus@mander.xyzEnglish
        1·
        7 months ago

        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

        • Akasazh@feddit.nlEnglish
          1·
          7 months ago

          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.

        • ilmagico@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          7 months ago

          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.

          • 0x0@programming.devEnglish
            2·
            7 months ago

            waze is awesome for traffic info, although (it hink) it’s israeli-made and now owned by google.