Google works Like NSA by collecting, storing, and indexing user data: Assange

ulian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, has confirmed that Google collects, stores, and indexes people’s data, and is in fact ‘a privatized version of the NSA,’ according to media reports.

“Google’s business model is the spy. It makes more than 80 percent of its money by collecting information about people, pooling it together, storing it, indexing it, building profiles of people to predict their interests and behavior, and then selling those profiles principally to advertisers, but also others,” Assange told BBC.

However, he also admitted that it is not doing anything that is illegal.
The founder argued that Google’s work practices are almost identical to NSA adding that the company has been working with the NSA since at least 2002, in terms of contract.

“They are formally listed as part of the defense industrial base since 2009. They have been engaged with the Prism system, where nearly all information collected by Google is available to the NSA,” he said.

Additionally, at the institutional level, “Google is deeply involved in US foreign policy.”
Assange told BBC that Google has become the most influential commercial organization with its ramifications across every country and every single person with access to Internet.
He further said that the company has tricked people into believing that it is a humane organization and not a big, bad US corporation.
Julian Assange, 43 year old Australian, is staying at the Ecuadorian embassy in London since 2012. The embassy is being watched by British police round the clock who are ready to arrest him should he attempt to leave.
His stay at the embassy has impacted his work, said Assange.

“The 7.3 million pounds (US$12 million) of police surveillance admitted outside this embassy. It is a difficult situation. It is not a situation that is easy for [a] national security reporter. You can’t read sources. It is difficult to meet some of my staff because of that surveillance.”

However, he pointed the brighter side of his restricted movements as well.

“There are no subpoenas, there are no door knocks in the night, unlike [for] other national security reporters. So in some ways there are benefits to the situation,” he noted.

He has been optimistic about the attitude shift that has taken place recently. Britain amended its extradition laws to ban extradition without charges.