Google Employees Arrested After Protesting Against Nimbus Deal

(RTTNews) - On Tuesday night, nine Google employees were arrested after they staged an eight-hour sit-in at the company's offices in New York and California. The employees were protesting against Google's involvement in Project Nimbus, an Israeli government contract worth $1.2 billion that covers cloud computing and artificial intelligence services from Google and Amazon Web Services.

During the sit-in, workers in New York occupied the common area of the Chelsea office's 10th floor, while employees at the Sunnyvale, California campus took over Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian's office. The protest was broadcast live by the activist organization No Tech for Apartheid, which claims to represent tech workers who are against doing business with the State of Israel.

The latest protests were triggered by a TIME story that revealed Google is providing cloud computing services to the Israeli Military of Defense. According to the report, Google gave the defense ministry a 15 percent discount on consulting fees because of the "Nimbus framework" as per the contract, and the ministry had paid Google more than $1 million for consulting services.

Since its announcement in 2021, Project Nimbus has faced ongoing internal protests at Google and Amazon. In response to the protests, Anna Kowalczyk, the manager of Google Cloud's external communications, stated via email to The Verge that Project Nimbus has nothing to do with the Israeli military.

Kowalczyk clarified that the Nimbus contract is for workloads running on Google's commercial cloud by Israeli government ministries, who agree to comply with Google's Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy. She also added that Google's work is not directed at highly sensitive, classified, or military workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence services.