Julian Assange discovers Google’s given MONEY to EFF

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+Comment Silicon Valleys biggest companies are an essential part of both the US states data-processing operation and a barely controllable element in American foreign policy, says WikiLeaks fugitive Julian Assange in his latest interview.

Talking to Pando Daily (from the Ecuadorian embassy in London), Assange dubs Google, Facebook and Apple "surveillance barons", which is not a new observation. He also highlights the US states reliance on the internet giant to increase American "soft power" abroad:

Google perceives that its overlapping networks should include networks of traditional US soft power, hard power, and networks in other countries where it is either collaborating with the establishments of those countries or if it feels it doesnt have an in with the elite of the other countries, it brings in the people that might one day replace it.

Assange also criticises Googles network of digital rights groups - for being tame and domesticated, which means Google rarely comes under scrutiny. Google funds over 150 academic departments, think tanks and "citizens groups", offering them advertising, analytics help and fund-raising tools and often hard cash. The support for these organisations helps shape the policy agenda to one that doesnt disrupt Googles business.

The problem is that a lot of groups that would normally criticize Google, the nonprofits that are involved in the tech sector, are funded directly or indirectly by Google. Or by USAID. Or by Freedom House. Google and its extended network have significant patronage in the very groups that would normally be criticizing it, says Assange. Its the nature of organizations. They dont like to bite the hand that feeds them.

Assange singles out the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which received more than half of its annual income from just one of a series of controversial "cy pres" class action payouts*. The out-of-court payments over privacy breaches saw university departments and groups enriched by Google and Facebook, while the individuals who brought the class action didnt receive a penny.

The EFF is a great group, and theyve done good things for us, but nonetheless it is significantly funded by Google, or people who work at Google, says Assange.

Although hes now known as a notorious conspiracy theorist, Assange has found a conspiracy hidden in plain view.

But a better indicator of Google's influence is not when money changes hand, but when it doesn't. Take for example, the implications of the CJEUs Gonzalez ruling, which upheld that Google wasnt exempt from European data protection law, and which confirmed that individuals have the right to ask for links to old and irrelevant information to be removed from Google.

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Julian Assange discovers Google's given MONEY to EFF