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Oracle funding dark money group Internet Accountability Project to fight big tech

  • The Internet Accountability Project calls itself a conservative non-profit advocating for tougher privacy rules and stronger antitrust enforcement
  • Oracle donated between US$25,000 and US$99,999 last year to the project, as part of a battle it has been waging against rivals like Amazon and Google

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Oracle's headquarters at Redwood Shores, California. Photo: Handout
Bloomberg

When the Internet Accountability Project popped up late last year and joined the growing crusade against big tech, the non-profit group refused to say who was financing it.

Turns out, at least one of its benefactors is Oracle.

Oracle donated between US$25,000 and US$99,999 last year to the internet project, according to a new political-giving report Oracle posted on its website. The group calls itself a conservative non-profit advocating for tougher privacy rules and stronger antitrust enforcement against the internet giants.

The IAP financing is just one part of an aggressive, and sometimes secretive, battle Oracle has been waging against its biggest rivals, including Amazon.com. and Alphabet’s Google.

Oracle spent years fighting to unseat Amazon as the front-runner for a lucrative Pentagon cloud contract, which was awarded to Microsoft in October.

The Redwood City, California, company has also been locked in a decade-long legal dispute with Google, claiming the search-engine giant violated Oracle copyrights by including some Java programming code in the Android phone. Oracle acquired Java’s developer, Sun Microsystems, in 2010.

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