Overview
- The Guardian reported that 2021 Project Nimbus contracts allegedly require Google and Amazon to send coded payments to Israel when they comply with overseas legal requests for Israeli data.
- The report describes a signaling system based on country dialing prefixes, with examples including 1,000 shekels for the United States and 3,900 shekels for Italy.
- The leaked terms reportedly include a 100,000-shekel transfer as a failsafe to indicate compliance when a gag order bars standard notification.
- An Amazon spokesperson told Engadget the company follows a rigorous process for lawful orders and said it has no processes to circumvent confidentiality obligations.
- Engadget said it requested comment from Google and the Israeli government but reported no public responses, and the report also claims Microsoft balked at some terms and lost the bid in part for that reason.