Google as Pentagon contractor

Tue, Aug 31, 2010 at 4:52 pm

    Google as Pentagon contractor

    Google’s emergence as a major defense contractor was underscored last week when the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency tweaked its Aug. 20 announcement of a sole-source contract to the search giant for visualization services.

    The announcement, reported by Fox News, prompted a Microsoft protest that its Bing Map Server could do the job. The NGA then changed the wording of the announcement–without really changing its meaning. The revised NGA announcement, noted NextGov, “went to great lengths to clarify that only Google Earth meets it requirements.”

    The amount of the NGA contract was not disclosed.

    The revised announcement shows how the government’s geospatial intelligence capabilities are inextricably linked to Google Earth.

    As Fox News’ James Rosen noted:

    “Google Earth came into being only after Google’s 2004 acquisition of Keyhole, a company that was in part funded by In-Q-Tel, the venture capital firm run by the CIA. And those firms, along with Microsoft, tend to purchase their aerial imagery principally from two other companies: DigitalGlobe and GeoEye. Those firms on Aug, 6 received federal contracts worth close to $4 billion each, in order to collaborate on a next-generation satellite that can deliver even more detailed imagery — money that was awarded by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.”

    Will Google’s dependence on secret Pentagon contracts affect its corporate decision-making? How could it not?

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