Google, Alphabet’s flagship brand, is the world’s dominant search engine and one of the most widely used digital service providers. Through products like Google Search, YouTube, Maps, Gmail, and Android, it shapes how people access information, navigate cities, and communicate online.
Google’s business model rests on surveillance capitalism: the collection of user data, behavioral tracking, and algorithmic profiling to fuel targeted advertising. For everyday users, this means products that feel free but are paid for with personal data.
Google’s complicity in state violence is direct. It provides AI and cloud services to the Israeli government and military through Project Nimbus, while maintaining large R&D hubs in Israel that embed the company in occupation infrastructure. Human rights groups and Alphabet workers alike point to Google as a frontline enabler of surveillance states and digital repression.
Google is rated High Impact because it wields global technological and economic power to sustain systems of surveillance, occupation, and human rights violation. Its supply chains and globe-spanning digital platforms contribute indirectly to broader environmental footprint, but the core of its harm lies in Political Complicity. By contracting Project Nimbus with the Israeli state, Google knowingly enabled services that a major internal report anticipated could facilitate surveillance of Palestinians and expansion of settlement infrastructure. These risks were flagged before signing yet Google proceeded, dismissing worker resistance and terminating dozens of employees who protested internally.
In Human Rights Violations, Google has been cited for internal suppression of dissent from Palestinian and Arab workers, retaliatory dismissals, and pushing out activists under the "No Tech for Apartheid" campaign. Its technology enables tools allegedly used in target discrimination and data collection of civilians.While Google's AI operations contribute to high energy use, its most direct harms relate to political complicity and digital infrastructure used for apartheid and state repression.
Google controls search, maps, email, and Android, making avoidance nearly impossible. Resistance starts by reducing dependency: use DuckDuckGo or Ecosia for search, ProtonMail, Fastmail, or Tutanota instead of Gmail, and Signal over Google’s messaging apps. Even small moves, like blocking ad tracking, limiting YouTube use, or refusing Google Docs as default, chip away at Alphabet’s monopoly power.
For work tools, shift from Google Workplace to LibreOffice, a nonprofit-backed suite compatible with Microsoft Office.
Replace Individual products with better alternatives:
Docs switch to Notion
Sheet switch to Airtable
Drive switch to BOX
Forms switch to TallForms
Slides switch to Canva
Gmail switch to Fastmail, Proton Mail
Google search switch to Ecosia, Duck Duck Go,