Google, CIA Look into Future

Google and In-Q-Tel, an investment vehicle which forms part of the CIA, have both been revealed as backers of Recorded Future, a company tracking and analysing Web content to report on trends and make predictions about future events.

The search giant made the injection, said to be just under ten million dollars and roughly matching that of In-Q-Tel, via its Google Ventures investment division in 2009. Although there is no suggestion that the two organisations are working together, those fearing Big Brother-like state and corporate control of information will no doubt find plenty to worry about in the news.

Recorded Future collects data from tens of thousands of web sites, blogs and Twitter accounts and analyses relationships between people, organizations and events, using its 'temporal analytics engine' to spot hidden links based on subject matter and extrapolating them into the future using a measure of online 'momentum', to predict where and when events such as expansion, mergers and acquisitions might happen.

In-Q-Tel, run as a not-for-profit venture capital firm with the sole aim of keeping the CIA equipped with the latest in IT, has already shown an interest in other web analytics providers. Last October, the organisation commissioned social media monitoring firm Visible Technologies to provide it with social media monitoring tools; it is also an investor in WPP / Omniture subsidiary Visual Sciences.

Web sites: www.recordedfuture.com and www.iqt.org .

All articles 2006-23 written and edited by Mel Crowther and/or Nick Thomas, 2024- by Nick Thomas, unless otherwise stated.