Tech giants team up in anti-snooping effort

Jon Swartz | USA TODAY

SAN FRANCISCO — Silicon Valley foes have become frenemies.

Torched by disclosures that the National Security Agency routinely tapped into their data and spied on people and businesses, some of tech's biggest names have banded together to form what is essentially an anti-NSA coalition.

Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter and Yahoo head the Reform Government Surveillance coalition, announced late Sunday, to rein in the vast tentacles of the NSA and — perhaps — salve the worries of privacy-conscious consumers.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Google CEO Larry Page and Twitter CEO Dick Costolo wrote an open letter to Washington, D.C., in which they "urge the U.S. to take the lead and make reforms that ensure that government surveillance efforts are clearly restricted by law."

"The security of users' data is critical, which is why we've invested so much in encryption and fight for transparency around government requests for information," Page said in a statement Monday. "This is undermined by the apparent wholesale collection of data, in secret and without independent oversight, by many governments around the world. It's time for reform, and we urge the U.S. government to lead the way."

Added Zuckerberg, in a separate statement: "The U.S. government should take this opportunity to lead this reform effort and make things right."

The coalition hopes to limit the federal government's authority to collect user information, protect citizens' privacy and impose more legislative oversight and accountability of organizations such as the NSA.

Each of the participating companies — which include LinkedIn and AOL — have taken technological, legal and public relations steps to assure customers that their personal information is safe, in hopes of preserving their brand names and not losing business in the U.S. and abroad.

"The undersigned companies believe that it is time for the world's governments to address the practices and laws regulating government surveillance of individuals and access to their information," the coalition website says, "We strongly believe that current laws and practices need to be reformed."

But the damage has been done, as outlined by companies such as Cisco Systems and Hewlett-Packard in their recently completed financial quarters. Both hinted that government snooping has spooked overseas customers, undercutting potential sales.

There's no guarantee the NSA, which was able to crack the digital codes of tech companies before, will be less successful in the future, given its enormous resources and information technology prowess.

Still, reassuring the public that sensitive information is safe from the prying eyes of the government is crucial to Google, Facebook and other Internet companies. The surveillance kerfuffle is becoming an ominous asterisk to what has become a data obsession among major tech companies. Nearly every day, Google, Facebook, Microsoft and countless start-ups are carting out new products and services that breathlessly promise to make the most of cloud computing and data.

Indeed, some in the security industry think it hypocritical the same tech companies monetize the data they collect.

It also remains to be seen if a united tech front will have any impact on a federal government bent on collecting information about individuals considered threats in the post-9/11 world, security experts caution.

"Tech company coalitions rarely work, other than to raise awareness, but the real solution here lies in tech companies working with the NSA as opposed to against them," says Siobhan MacDermott, chief policy officer at computer-security firm AVG Technologies.