The state of Google

In 2010, Google’s servers were compromised by you-know-who. Thousands of Chinese and Tibetan activists were successfully targeted, and Google itself took a hit. Along with other Western IT firms, Google had vast amounts of advanced research and intellectual property stolen. That’s when Google went over to the dark side.

Although Google had been in talks of an undisclosed nature with the National Security Agency (NSA) before its network was compromised, the Chinese breach fast-tracked the relationship. Almost immediately, the NSA was brought in to harden Google’s digital perimeter. The NSA, while generally regarded as the most technically adept entity on earth and a natural choice to secure Google’s defences, is also known to take a casual view of personal privacy and judicial oversight. The courts were assailed with requests for the NSA and Google to disclose the nature of their relationship. To this day, both organisations refuse to comment other than making perfunctory noises about national security, and “just trust us”.

There have been other troubling developments. Google has become cosy with the CIA, the state department and the White House, mostly in service of executive chairman Eric Schmidt’s political ambitions. At this point Google is so intertwined with Washington, you’d need a Venn diagram just to keep up. It gets

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