Alphabet shareholders vote Friday on Proposal 11, a resolution backed by a coalition of more than 40 investors led by Zevin Asset Management who collectively manage $1.15 trillion in assets. Norges Bank Investment Management, the world's largest sovereign wealth fund, announced support for the proposal against Alphabet management's wishes.
The resolution seeks a report evaluating how governance gaps could allow Google's products to facilitate "surveillance, censorship, profiling, and targeting in contexts of governmental overreach," citing Project Nimbus—Alphabet's $1.2 billion cloud computing contract with the Israeli government—as an example that "may not align with [Alphabet's] data governance principles."
Investors say the core concern is whether Alphabet has visibility into how its tools are used once governments deploy them and whether the company would intervene if it found evidence of misuse. The push reflects broader scrutiny over government AI use, including deals struck by OpenAI and Google with the U.S. Pentagon that have sparked concerns over autonomous weapons and mass surveillance.
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