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Bab·y·lon [noun] : In the Book of Revelation, the name of a whore who rules over the kings of the earth and rides upon a seven-headed beast. “Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and of the Abominations of the Earth.”—Revelations 17:5
Internet giant Yahoo! announced on November 10, 2013, that it won’t end its revenue sharing contract with Israeli Babylon, despite Google terminating its similar contract on November 30.
Google provided above 40% of Babylon’s revenues during the second quarter of 2013; Yahoo! provided over 30%, which amounts to almost $20 million.
Leaving Babylon CEO Alon Carmeli
Mystery Babylon – When Jerusalem Embraces The Antichrist
Google and Yahoo face more urgent issues
The Yahoo! Style Guide
Babylon is the largest company in what is mockingly known as the Israeli Download Valley,* or in a more serious term the field of directing users. Israel has conquered several internet and information-technology niche markets. This is true to the extent that most American citizens are unwillingly sharing their secrets with the State of Israel.
I reviewed Babylon a few months ago in Microsoft Strikes Israeli Software after the American giant limited the activity of Babylon and similar companies on its browsers. Google decision was the result of pressure coming from users of its browser Chrome that correctly understood they were being robbed by Babylon.
“But, they are just nice kids translating stuff!”
On paper, Babylon looks like an inoffensive provider of online dictionaries. In the screenshot reproduced below, one can see the home page featured in many Bolivian internet kiosks. It is a Babylon search page, designed to look like a Google search page; note the odd code appearing in its address line (a long string of nonsense numbers and letters serving as directives to the company’s server, in contrast look at the address of this page), that’s the first sign something is wrong.
The second sign appears while using it; the computer reacts slowly since it is busy sending data to its Babylonian masters. This happens despite Bolivians being unable to spend money on the web; Bolivian money is not a free floating currency and thus it is banned by the international financial system. This search page is defined as a default in the user’s browser while installing Babylon’s dictionary.
Since the page looks like Google’s, few users realize that their home page has been replaced, or that they had clicked on a button asking for this change while installing the dictionary. “Same, same” they say to themselves and begin telling Babylon everything about themselves. The following week, they buy a book named “French Cooking;” a few days later—so that they won’t suspect the link between the events—they get a pamphlet advertising a French restaurant near their home. In thanks for the blunt violation of privacy, the Babylonian masters in Israel get a few silver coins.
Babylon Dictionary Screenshot
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This is done through the customization of web-searches through the manipulation of one of five assets: home page, searches in the URL bar, searches in a third-party installed toolbar, a new page tab and the page landed on after typing in a wrong URL. These are monitored by Babylon and similar services.
Eventually, this leads to sales and these companies get commissions on them. Last year, Microsoft blocked this evil scheme, now Google follows.
Babylon Search Page | Google Copycat | Note the Babylon Toolbar
In Waze of Israel: Google Beats Facebook, I described a related company which had managed to create a surveillance and coordinating application. It is great for coordinating the move of several independent agents in a foreign country.
8200 Companies
Looking from outside, most Israeli companies mentioned in this article seem to be unrelated. Yet, it is not a secret that most key people in them are former Unit 8200 soldiers. Most of them openly boast about this. This SIGINT unit is the largest in the IDF and specializes in surveillance. It has formal relations with CAZAB. This is not random.
Unit 8200 Listening Post near Lebanon
Surveillance Countermeasures: A Serious Guide To Detecting, Evading, And Eluding Threats To Personal Privacy
Engineers who had developed applications for 8200, often adapt them to the civilian environment. Over the years, this has created what is known as the Israeli Hi-Tech market described in this article. Often this is done with the blessing and help of their military unit. After all, these applications provide valuable data for those persecuting others. Where a person connects to the web, what he does, with whom he communicates. All provided willingly by the victim of the State.
Babylon’s Death?
Following Google discontinuation of the contract with Babylon, the latter has only one significant customer. Babylon claims that Yahoo! told it “Following actions implemented by the company to correct defects, Yahoo! does not intend to suspend or cancel the agreement between the two companies.” Yahoo! has not reacted publicly.
Babylon announced that it would be more cautious in how it acquired new users in the future, coordinating and maintaining full transparency in its relations with Yahoo!. In other words, the company indirectly acknowledged violating us.
Yet, CEO Alon Carmeli is leaving the company, after saying that he has “exhausted his role.” Today, November 11, Babylon appointed its CFO Shanit Pe’er Tsfoni as its new CEO. She had not said yet how she plans to solve the crisis.
Showing the situation’s seriousness, internet software distributor IronSource, an emerging force in Download Valley, put merger talks with Babylon on hold at the end of October, saying that it will await further developments regarding Babylon’s contract with Yahoo!. “We’re waiting to see what will happen with Yahoo!’s investigation and how the findings will affect its relations with Babylon,” IronSource CEO Tomer Bar Zeev said.
Mr. Carmeli, Babylonian Master of Online Translation, how do you say “failure” in Hebrew?
Mr. Tov Roy is one of the frequent contributors for The 4th Media.
Notes
*Mocking Silicon Valley, other players in the Israeli Download Valley are Waze, Perion, the manager of the IncrediMail, Smilebox and SweetIM brands, VisualBee, Montiera, Fried Cookie Software, WebPick, Linkury, Bundlore, iBario and KeyDownload. These are Israel’s Weapons of Mass Distraction.
Another niche market is far more dangerous. An offshoot of Golden Pages, the Israeli business phone directory company, Amdocs develops, implements and manages software and services for business support systems, including billing, customer relationship management, and for operations support systems. If your phone company is AT&T, BT Group, Sprint, T-Mobile, Vodafone, Bell Canada, Telus, Rogers Communications, Telekom Austria, Cellcom, Comcast, DirecTV, Elisa Oyj, TeliaSonera or O2-Ireland, then Israel has access to much of your communications and bills, including credit cards numbers.
Also important in this context is Check Point, a provider of software and combined hardware and software products for IT security, including network security, endpoint security, data security and security management. In other words, the supermarket near your home probably uses products from this giant to secure its transactions. Israel has access to all of them. This apparently innocent company got so rich that its CEO sits in a penthouse office atop Tel Aviv’s highest tower.
See Waze of Israel: Google Beats Facebook for a detailed description of how one of this companies operates as more than a spying device allowing to coordinate agents on the field.