The information-gathering capacities of the new internet firms brought them into both collusion and competition with government. Google claimed to predict the onset of flu season better than the Centers for Disease Control. SWIFT, the Brussels-based financial telecommunications company, could generate precise measures of total economic activity in a society by using the data from the bank transfers it handled. When pundits sought new ways to harass Russia, they often suggested denying its banks access to SWIFT’s services. Google and SWIFT were private companies—yet their regulatory and public
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