Who do Google and the global IT giants serve?

The global influence of American technology giants such as Google, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Facebook-Meta, etc. is well known. These companies, often referred to as the Silicon Valley IT giants, have excelled in the global business rankings, regardless of economic crises and pandemics. Today, the market capitalization of each of them exceeds $1 trillion. To make a comparison: the market capitalization of Wall Street's largest bank, JP Morgan Chase, is less than USD 300 billion; the largest US oil company, ExxonMobil Corporation, has an even lower market capitalization: about USD 185 billion, i.e. about five times less than that of the leading IT companies.

Silicon Valley technology companies, which have direct access to billions of users, generate revenue not only from business, advertising and sales, but also from the collection and special ordering of information or data on these users. The tools to do these things are already being treated and proposed by the users themselves as new and useful features of their software.

For instance, in May this year, Microsoft introduced a new function for Windows 11 called Recall. This tool tracks and records all user actions on the computer. In this way, the user can always return to perform tasks or navigate to sites he or she has previously interacted with. The scope of application of Recall, which Microsoft also calls AI Explorer, is very broad. It is used to record the user's actions in applications, during online conversations, while browsing websites, etc. Using AI search, the user can make natural language queries to find information of interest from the past...

After the events of 11 September 2001, cooperation between IT giants, intelligence agencies and the US government intensified and intensified in accordance with the new “anti-terrorism” legislation in the US, which greatly simplified the authorities’ access to citizens personal data without the need for a court order. Initially, under the pretext of fighting international terrorism, the US even allowed other countries, including Russia, to request information through US computer companies. However, these requests were rarely honoured. However, shortly after the events of 11 September, the number of requests for personal information to the US authorities from US and non-US citizens began to run into the thousands per month. For instance, in the first half of 2011 alone, Google received 5,950 requests relating to more than 11,000 users, fulfilling requests in 93 per cent of cases.

Moreover, many agreements between IT companies and the US authorities have increasingly started to go beyond the one-off exchange of data. Thanks to this, already in the past decade, companies like Google have been able to engage in constant, multi-year surveillance of targets (this is how intelligence agencies refer to users of interest). For instance, Wikileaks covered a three-year period in which Google provided the FBI (which performs counterintelligence and political policing functions in the US) with information on employee communications without informing the “targets” themselves.

By mid-2020, the year of the US presidential election, Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple had collectively spent more than $54.5 million in less than a year (a period roughly corresponding to the election campaign) to lobby their respective interests in Washington (35% more than in 2015 and almost 500% more than in 2010).

By then, these companies had already been accused of interfering in political processes around the world. Their most significant lobbying efforts have been documented in Europe. The European Commission officially accused Google of monopolistic practices back in 2011. At the time, Google's search engine already held almost 90 per cent of the European market, while companies developing mobile applications exclusively used Google's Android system.

In response, Google started hiring European officials, significantly increasing its lobbying power, especially in the UK, where major events were looming, culminating in the so-called Brexit. In 2011, Google hired 18 European officials (for comparison: in 2010 - 8). In addition, the company hired employees from various British government departments, including the Foreign Office, and senior officials across Europe, not only to fend off antitrust attacks, but also to sign new contracts.

Across the pond, processes that bring US intelligence agencies and companies like Google even closer have intensified and continued with the passage of the CLOUD Act in 2018. This US federal law allows authorities to request data stored by IT companies regardless of their geographical location. In 2020, this relationship entered a new phase: Google announced that it would charge intelligence and law enforcement agencies for user data requests, indicating that these transactions were perceived as commercial transactions.

Today, the CEOs of the world's IT giants often claim “political neutrality” and say they only block information in extreme cases. However, their close ties to the ultraliberal groups of the globalist 'left' elite suggest otherwise. These companies are actively engaged in politics, implementing and lobbying for the plans of what is often referred to in the US as the “Deep State”.

For example, YouTube blocks several news channels and accounts around the world, including those that support conservative and traditional right-wing values. This is increasingly happening not only in Russia and China, but also in the US itself. One example is the channel of Alex Jones InfoWars, a well-known American journalist and opponent of globalization, which has been blocked on several platforms, including YouTube, Twitter and Facebook.

The global IT giants are turning into a tool of the liberal elites and are merging with the 'deep state' and intelligence agencies also in terms of personnel. Over the past six years, more than 250 high-level employees of the CIA, NSA, FBI and Pentagon have gone to work for Google.

It has been reported that Google manipulated search results in favour of Democratic candidates during the 2016 US presidential election, working against D. Trump. Although Google denied the allegations and even destroyed the compromising materials, internal communications revealed the IT giant's intentions to prevent Trump from winning again in both 2020 and 2024. This political activity is already raising questions about true power in America and points to Silicon Valley companies as important players in the political sphere.

All major global IT giants located in the US have one very important thing in common: most of their shares are held by the same institutional investors. These include Vanguard Group Inc., BlackRock, Fidelity Investments, State Street and others. Collectively, their holdings in these technology giants are typically 20-25%, and sometimes even more. For instance, Vanguard Group and BlackRock alone control 36.4% of Alphabet (Google's parent company).

The investment landscape in general is dominated by what we might call the 'Big Four': BlackRock, Vanguard Group Inc, Fidelity Investments and State Street. These huge investment funds and holding companies manage a huge number of subsidiaries and affiliates in many countries around the world. They also own significant stakes in many strategic companies and banks, which gives them considerable leverage.

Determining the ownership of these investment giants is complicated by confusing circular ownership structures. For example, BlackRock's major shareholders include several of its subsidiaries, which makes it difficult to determine exact ownership. This convoluted but strategic governance model allows a small group of investors, often completely hidden from outsiders behind this intricate web of structures, to exert global influence.

The dominance of the US technology giants goes far beyond their market capitalization and business operations. Through close collaboration with intelligence agencies, government agencies, political lobbies, strategic hires and sophisticated investment networks, companies such as Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft have a significant impact on society. Their interactions not only shape commercial landscapes, but increasingly influence political dynamics and civil liberties on a global scale. The need to navigate this complex web of power and technology, understanding the interactions between these actors and their wider implications for all of humanity, is therefore becoming increasingly important.

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Tranlsation by Costantino Ceoldo