VC-backed company just killed my EU trademark for a small OSS project

> In a statement, Microsoft said “using Azure for the storage of data files of phone calls obtained through broad or mass surveillance of civilians in Gaza and the West Bank” would be prohibited by its terms of service.

Why would it be against their terms? Literally all the western nations’ governments (US, UK, others that share intelligence relationships with the US) all use cloud platforms for their work, which definitely includes surveillance of people. But it’s a problem when Israel does it? Microsoft and Amazon literally built private cloud platforms to serve sensitive government needs like this.

cma · 11h ago

In the US it is supposed to be foreign surveillance or domestic with a warrant. For Israel this is domestic without a warrant since they have occupied or otherwise broadly controlled Gaza for many decades.

Foreign surveillance from someone with little power over you is different than an Orwellian system domestically.

SilverElfin · 11h ago

Gaza has been independent for a while though. Israel left in 2005 or so and Hamas came into power soon after, voted in by the residents of Gaza willfully. And there has been a long history of rocket attacks and other terrorism since then.

Anyways, the US, UK, and EU aren’t any different. Snowden revealed all the warrantless surveillance going on against their own people.

g8oz · 10h ago

Gaza was never independent by any meaningful metric. Ground, air and sea access are all controlled by Israel.

Water and electricity have to come from Israel. Attempts to install solar panels resulted in them being bombed. Israeli officials control food deliveries as well. Years ago a document was leaked showing how they tracked caloric intake of Gaza residents to make sure that they are not "overfed".

Gaza was and is an open air prison. Trying to understand the conflict from the lens of the usual "2 countries beefing" will lead to faulty analysis. Gaza has been occupied since 1948 and Israel is the occupier.

t0lo · 11h ago

There is definitely some truth in that, but also there are many links between hamas and the likud party in terms of funding and there haven't been elections held in gaza since circa 2007

cma · 6h ago

A blockade where they couldn't export, but they could export labor to work for Israeli settlements as day laborers. That's similar to slavery and not any kind of independent state.

Aliabid94 · 11h ago

Because 1) this is not their own citizens they are surveilling and 2) Israel is committing genocide according to many (most?) international and human rights orgs, which would make Microsoft an accomplice

SilverElfin · 11h ago

The US, UK, EU, and Australia all surveil non citizens. It isn’t an issue for any one of them. They don’t even care that they’re doing warrantless surveillance of their own citizens.

t0lo · 11h ago

Considering microsoft disabled the emails of people who spoke out about palestinian human rights this is quite transparently a saving face tactic. They've been wilfully complicit at every step of the way.

userbinator · 12h ago

It's just another attempt at virtue-signaling.

gamma42 · 11h ago

Two smartest Hacker News commenters.

t0lo · 11h ago

Anddd flagged :) I wonder who by.

oriettaxx · 4h ago

exactly, and why

vFunct · 10h ago

I don't understand why any company would even HIRE a person that killed a child, and yet, you have all these tech companies happy to hire Israelis.

It's really not a good look for Microsoft/NVidia/Google/Apple/etc.. to hire people that have killed children. Like, how quickly do you want to destroy your brand reputation by hiring Israelis? Do these companies not understand that young people are against Israel at a 10:1 ratio?