FX.co ★ Google Employees Arrested After Protesting Against Nimbus Deal

Nine Google employees were detained on Tuesday night after conducting an eight-hour sit-in protest at the tech giant's New York and California offices. This protest was a response to Google's participation in Project Nimbus, a contract with the Israeli government valued at $1.2 billion. This contract sees Google and Amazon Web Services providing the Israeli government with cloud computing and artificial intelligence services.

During the protest, New York-based employees occupied the communal area on the tenth floor of the Chelsea office, while employees at the Sunnyvale, California site occupied the office of Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian. Activist group No Tech for Apartheid broadcasted the protest live, presenting themselves as a voice for tech workers opposing business dealings with Israel.

The trigger for these demonstrations was a TIME report revealing Google's cloud computing service provision to the Israeli Ministry of Defense. As per the report, Google offered the ministry a 15 percent discount on consultancy fee under the Nimbus framework of the contract, accounting for over $1 million in payments to Google.

Since its inception in 2021, Project Nimbus has seen continued internal resistance at both Google and Amazon. Anna Kowalczyk, Manager of Google Cloud's external communications, clarified in an email to The Verge that Project Nimbus is unrelated to the Israeli military. Kowalczyk explained that the Nimbus contract covers services provided on Google's commercial cloud for Israeli government departments, provided they adhere to Google's Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy. She stressed that Google's work on these projects does not involve information or efforts related to weapons or intelligence services.