Google was the first internet company to fully leverage this insight and build a business on the data that people leave behind. By early 2018, Google’s parent company, Alphabet, had85,050 employees, working out of more than 70 offices in 50 countries. Snapchat, Twitter, Facebook, Lyft and Uber have all built multi-billion-dollar businesses on top of Google’s ubiquitous mobile operating system. With insiders plying their trade, Google’s expansion into the world of military and intelligence contracting took off. Google servers supplied critical services to the Pentagon, the CIA and the state department, just to name a few.

Source: The Guardian December 20, 2018 06:00 UTC