Over 1,600 Google Employees Ask Sundar Pichai To Stop Selling Services To Police

The civil unrest in the US is far from over. Tech companies have shown their support for the movement by providing financial aids and announcing what they¡¯re doing to make the world equal for all.

Reuters

Amidst this, Google¡¯s employees are signing an internal petition asking Sundar Pichai to stop ceiling its tech and services (like GSuite/Cloud services) to the police departments.

As reported first by CNBC, the letter with the headline ¡°No Police Contracts,¡± has been circulating since a week now and has been signed by over 1,600 Googlers.

The letter is asking Sundar Pichai to take ¡®real steps¡¯ to take down racism and that profiting off racism with its business contracts needs to come to an end.

The letter said, ¡°We¡¯re disappointed to know that Google is still selling to police forces, and advertises its connection with police forces as somehow progressive, and seeks more expansive sales rather than severing ties with police and joining the millions who want to defang and defund these institutions¡±.

The petitioners list that how they¡¯re disappointed to know that Google tools and services are aiding law enforcement to track down immigrants with drone surveillance through Gradient Venture¡¯s financial and technical investments.

They also point out how Google proudly advertises New York-based Clarkstown Police Department as a featured Google Cloud user -- a department that has been sued several times for illegal surveillance of ¡®Black Lives Matter; movement.

Reuters

They claim Google is profiting off the racist systems and they feel Google is a part of the problem.

They added, ¡°We want to be proud of the company we work for. We want the company we build to speak to our values and how we want to show up in the world. We have a long way to go to address the full legacy of racism but, to begin with ¡ª we should not be in the business of profiting from racist policing. We should not be in the business of criminalizing Black existence while we chant that Black Lives Matter.¡±