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Microsoft confirms Call of Duty DLC discounts with Xbox Game Pass now dropped in favour of reward points
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Microsoft confirms Call of Duty DLC discounts with Xbox Game Pass now dropped in favour of reward points

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Microsoft has confirmed it’s dropped Call of Duty DLC discounts through Game Pass, with subscribers instead earning reward points.

As spotted by CharlieIntel last week, Game Pass Ultimate members could previously receive a 10 percent discount on Call of Duty add-on content. However, this discount has since been removed alongside Microsoft’s decision to increase the price of its top tier subscription.

In a statement shared with Eurogamer, Microsoft has now confirmed the removal of this discount, adding the change isn’t specific to Call of Duty.

The “Best Deal in Gaming” Just Keeps Getting Worse Watch on YouTube

“This is not specific to any one game and reflects all games and DLC purchases,” a Microsoft spokesperson said.

“Instead of a discount on the purchases, Ultimate and Premium subscribers will earn 10 percent and 5 percent – respectively – in points when purchasing select games and add-ons from the Game Pass library. Ultimate members continue to have 20 percent discount on select games from the Game Pass library. On top of that, all Rewards members will earn points when shopping games and add-ons on the Store, while Premium and Ultimate subscribers will earn even more, 2x and 4x respectively.”

Full details on the rewards programme can be found on the Microsoft website.

A further change has been made to the programme, though. Users are now no longer able to directly redeem earned points towards Xbox Game Pass subscriptions. Instead, you’ll need to earn enough points for a gift card in a denomination sufficient to cover the cost of the subscription, and use this to purchase.

Last week, Microsoft announced an increase in price of its Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription along with a shake of its tiers.

While it includes benefits such as Fortnite Crew and Ubisoft+ Classics, the subscription now costs 50 percent more than before. This change to DLC discounts is another alteration that will impact subscribers for the foreseeable across DLC packs for all games.

The changes to Game Pass come despite Microsoft making record revenue from subscriptions last year.



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Russell Adler walks in front of an oil fire.
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Black Ops 6 On Game Pass Cost Microsoft $300 Million In Lost Sales

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Last year’s Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 was the first entry in the hit multiplayer military shooter to launch day-one on Game Pass in what reportedly turned out to be an expensive experiment for Microsoft. According to Bloomberg, making the game available for free to paid subscribers on console and PC cost the tech giant $300 million in lost sales of the 2024 best-seller. That data point adds some interesting context to Microsoft’s controversial decision to hike the price of Game Pass Ultimate by 50 percent this week.

A defining feature of Game Pass was the decision early on to release first-party games like Forza Horizon 5 and Halo Infinite on the service day-and-date. Bloomberg reports that this move was “controversial internally” due to the likelihood of cannibalizing sales of big games that take a lot of time and money to develop. The Verge reported last year that a similar debate arose around the decision of whether to put Call of Duty on Game Pass or not.

The former long-time head of Activision, Bobby Kotick, went on record during the 2023 FTC trial over Microsoft’s acquisition of the company saying that he didn’t think adding games like Call of Duty to subscription services made “commercial sense.” “I have a general aversion to the idea of multi-game subscription services,” he said at the time. “Maybe part of it is being in Los Angeles and having large, big media companies move their content to these subscription streaming services and the business results have suffered.”

But following the acquisition, Microsoft did exactly that. According to Circana’s U.S. market data, sales of 2024’s Black Ops 6 were 23 percent higher than Modern Warfare 3 sales over the same period, but 82 percent of those sales were on PlayStation compared to Xbox and PC. Subscription gaming services also saw a 16 percent jump year-over-year following the release of Black Ops 6.

If the move cost the company $300 million in lost sales, Microsoft would have needed around 15 million players to subscribe to Game Pass Ultimate for one month to make that up, or just 1.25 million over the course of an entire year. The numbers would be more dramatic for the even cheaper Game Pass PC tier where Call of Duty is also now available day-and-date. The price hikes this week change that math. Now, even if Black Ops 7 saw a similar drop in sales, Microsoft would need only 10 million new sign-ups for Ultimate in November to fill the gap, or just 834,000 over the length of a year.

This week’s Game Pass overhaul shows Microsoft is essentially continuing to back off its original day-one commitment. Game Pass Premium is the same price Game Pass Ultimate was a few years ago, but will only get first-party Xbox games a year after they’re out and it’s not guaranteed to get Call of Duty games at all. This might not be the last major change we see to the service in the near future, either. The company is reportedly testing a “free” ad-supported tier that will be exclusively cloud gaming and could keep raising prices on the higher tiers if it thinks a core audience will stick around.

Bloomberg reports that Microsoft CFO Amy Hood has “asked Xbox to find other ways to increase profit.” Instead of growing its share of the gaming market, the company now seems content to extract more from those already paying it.



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As Microsoft lays off thousands and jacks up Game Pass prices, former FTC chair says I told you so: The Activision-Blizzard buyout is 'harming both gamers and developers'
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As Microsoft lays off thousands and jacks up Game Pass prices, former FTC chair says I told you so: The Activision-Blizzard buyout is ‘harming both gamers and developers’

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As Microsoft slashes jobs and raises prices, former US Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan has taken to X to say that the company’s actions since completing its acquisition of Activision Blizzard in 2023 is pretty much what the FTC warned would happen when it opposed the deal.

Khan, you may recall, was head of the FTC when it challenged Microsoft’s proposed acquisition of Activision Blizzard, a convoluted process that didn’t formally end until May of 2025—almost two years after the deal closed.

“Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision has been followed by significant price hikes and layoffs, harming both gamers and developers,” Khan wrote on X. “As we’ve seen across sectors, increasing market consolidation and increasing prices often go hand-in-hand.


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“As dominant firms become too-big-to-care, they can make things worse for their customers without having to worry about the consequences.”

Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision has been followed by significant price hikes and layoffs, harming both gamers and developers. As we’ve seen across sectors, increasing market consolidation and increasing prices often go hand-in-hand. As dominant firms become… https://t.co/FoI50tlEsLOctober 3, 2025

Well, when you’re right, you’re right, and it’s hard to argue that Khan wasn’t right on this one. The FTC filed a lawsuit to block the deal in 2022 over concerns that the impact of the proposed acquisition was “reasonably likely to substantially lessen competition and/or tend to create a monopoly in both well-developed and new, burgeoning markets” if it was allowed to go through.

Microsoft and Activision, of course, insisted otherwise: Bobby Kotick, then the CEO of Activision Blizzard, said in a July 2023 statement that the merger “will benefit consumers and workers,” and also “enable competition rather than allow entrenched market leaders to continue to dominate our rapidly growing industry.”

The deal was closed in October 2023, even though the FTC’s legal action against it was still pending, and it’s been one shitty thing after another since then. Just a few months after the deal was sealed, Microsoft laid off 1,900 workers at Activision Blizzard and Xbox, and cancelled the studio’s long-awaited survival game; then in September 2024, another 650 people were shown the door. That was followed by the layoff of 9,000 more employees across Microsoft in July 2025, a spot of unpleasantness that also saw multiple game cancellations, the closure of The Initiative, and knock-on impacts on other studios, even as Xbox boss Phil Spencer said the company’s gaming business “never looked stronger.”

Meanwhile, in case you hadn’t heard, the cost of Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass also jumped significantly this week. Which is actually the second price hike for Game Pass since the Activision Blizzard deal was concluded: The FTC had some harsh words for the previous (and, ironically, much smaller) price increase in July 2024.

Khan was replaced as chair of the FTC in January 2025 by incoming president Donald Trump, so her comments on X don’t carry any regulatory weight. But even if this is a hollow I-told-you-so, I’d say it’s a well-earned one.






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Microsoft says its "trying to reinforce" Xbox Game Pass price increases "by adding more value"
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Microsoft says its “trying to reinforce” Xbox Game Pass price increases “by adding more value”

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Microsoft says it “understand[s] price increases are never fun for anybody” following its decision to raise the prices of Xbox Game Pass tiers.

Speaking to The Verge, Microsoft director of gaming and platform communications Dustin Blackwell said that it is “trying to reinforce” its offerings by “adding more value to these plans” alongside the price increases.

“It’s something we don’t take lightly, and we’re listening to the feedback of players and the community to try and provide them with more of what they’re asking for.”

Earlier this week, the firm announced it was increasing the most expensive tier of Game Pass, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, from $19.99/£14.99 to $29.99/£22.99 per month.

It also announced rises of Xbox Game Pass Standard – renamed Xbox Game Pass Premium – and PC Game Pass.

Blackwell noted the price increases reflected additional content added to the service, specifically its Ultimate tier.

“[Game Pass Ultimate] will now include access to more than 400 titles globally, this includes the majority of our partners who want to continue to bring their future games to Xbox Game Pass,” he noted.

“We’re also now giving access to more than 75 day one releases each year. That’s a 50 percent increase over the day one titles we provided last year.”

Last week, Microsoft also announced it would be bumping up the prices of its Xbox Series X|S consoles for a second time in the United States.

Costs will rise from between $20 and $70 across its hardware range.



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Nearly a third of all gaming PCs are still running Windows 10, even as Microsoft prepare to kill it
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Nearly a third of all gaming PCs are still running Windows 10, even as Microsoft prepare to kill it

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It must have been a stressful few days for Microsoft. Game Pass changes nobody likes, admitting the first Xbox-branded handheld costs a thousand bucks, having to tell the Israeli military that they need to see other people. Yeesh. No wonder they’re so intent on blowing off steam by taking a scythe to Windows 10 security updates this month, a move that will effectively end official support for the operating system.

With previous Windows version cutoffs, this would have been standard circle-of-life stuff. One system perishes, another is nourished with its bone meal. Except Windows 10 remains in use by millions of PC owners and players, mere days before its scheduled slaying on October 14th.

The exact proportion depends on who you ask, but it’s always a chunky one. The most recent Steam hardware survey puts Windows 10 usage at 32%, showing a strong affinity for the older OS even while most respondents (63%) are on Windows 11. Meanwhile, per The Register, Statcounter’s random sample of assorted web users suggests that just over 40% of all PCs have stuck with Windows 10. That’s barely behind the Windows 11 figure of 49%.

By comparison, Windows 8 and 8.1 merely accounted for 4% of PCs shortly before they had their security updates binned in January 2023, according to Statcounter. So there’s evidently something unusually compelling about Windows 10 – or, perhaps, something offputting about Windows 11 – that’s keeping it disproportionately popular in its final hours. I’ll attest to that, actually. While, as current custodian of the RPS Rig, I’ve long had it running the latest version, I remain too accustomed to the Win10 interface to budge from it on my personal PC.

Sadly, there’s more to this than UI comparisons and market share pie charts. As The Reg point out, it’s one thing to leave unpatched security vulnerabilities on a handful of weirdo Windows 8 holdouts, and another thing entirely to wilfully put millions upon millions of Windows 10 users at risk. For an example of the kind of weakness that would go unfixed, this past June, Microsoft were forced to close a Secure Boot vulnerability that would allow malware wielders to disable your PC’s other security tools before seizing control of the OS. That’s the same Secure Boot, of course, that Battlefield 6 and Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 are making a mandatory system requirement.

There may be other, less dire but more widely-spread consequences, too. Capcom, for instance, recently warned that multiple recent Monster Hunter games might cease to work on Windows 10 after the 14th.

It wouldn’t be surprising to see a last-minute tilt towards Windows 11, as users realise they’ve run out of procrastination time. I’ll be switching over myself, though that’s mainly because I use this rig for work and Ian Games Network said I had to. If you’re determined to stand by Windows 10, the closest thing to a concession that Microsoft will offer is the Windows 10 ESU (Extended Security Updates) programme, where you can get a year of extra updates for free, no strings attached, if you live in the European Economic Area. If not, you can still enrol by either a) backing up your Windows 10 PC, b) spending 1,000 Microsoft Rewards points, whatever those are, or c) just bunging Microsoft your local equivalent of $30 USD in cash. No, that is not a joke. Well, in a sense it is. Just not the funny kind.



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Data breach
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US Air Force investigating data breach caused by Microsoft SharePoint issue

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  • US Air Force investigating SharePoint breach exposing PII and PHI across its systems
  • Chinese-linked groups exploited SharePoint flaws
  • Microsoft and US authorities are actively investigating the scope and impact of the breach

The US Air Force is reportedly investigating a potential data breach caused by a Microsoft SharePoint issue.

A report from The Register revealed the Air Force Personnel Center Directorate of Technology and Information issued a data breach notification shared on social media.

“This message is to inform you of a critical Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and Protected Health Information (PHI) exposure related to USAF SharePoint Permissions,” the warning reads. “As a result of this breach, all USAF SharePoints will be blocked Air Force-wide to protect sensitive information.”


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The Register reported Microsoft Teams and Power BI dashboards should also be blocked since they access SharePoint, but this information is unconfirmed at this time.

“The Department of the Air Force is aware of a privacy-related issue,” an Air Force spokesperson told The Register.

Further information out there is scarce right now, with little information on who the threat actors are and what they sought to achieve.

Obviously, most fingers are now being pointed towards China, following reports in early July 2025 that Microsoft had confirmed three Chinese-affiliated hacking groups exploited vulnerabilities in on-prem SharePoint servers.

The groups, called Linen Typhoon, Violet Typhoon, and Storm-2603, targeted flaws that allowed authentication bypass and remote code execution, which enabled them to steal sensitive data such as MachineKey information.

These exploits affected at least two US federal agencies and numerous other organizations globally. The situation is being actively investigated by both Microsoft and US authorities.

However, we should also not forget Russian state-sponsored groups, who have the skills and the infrastructure to pull this kind of attack off, and have done so in the not-too-distant-past, as well.

Previously, Microsoft faced US government fire over its lax cybersecurity approach, which even forced it to change how it operated – let’s see if this time it is any different.

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Microsoft increases price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, despite record subscription revenue last year
Game Updates

Microsoft increases price of Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, despite record subscription revenue last year

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Microsoft has increased the price of its Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription, along with a shake up of its tiers.

Game Pass Ultimate will now cost $29.99 / £22.99 per month. It includes access to over 75 day one releases a year, Microsoft stated in a new Xbox Wire post, as well as Fortnite Crew and Ubisoft+ Classics. Cloud gaming is also set to receive a boost in quality, and there’s a new Rewards programme too.

The price change comes with a change to the existing tiers. These are as follows:

  • Game Pass Essential ($9.99, £6.99, €8.99/month) – offering 50+ games across PC, console, and cloud
  • Game Pass Premium ($14.99, £10.99, €12.99/month) – offering 200+ games across PC, console and cloud
  • Game Pass Ultimate ($29.99, £22.99, €26.99/month) – offering 400+ games across PC, console and cloud

Day one game releases are only included in the Ultimate tier. The Essential tier is the smallest, curated library of games. Current Standard subscribers will be automatically upraded to the Premium tier.

PC Game Pass will remain available, will include Ubisoft games, and will continue to receive day one games. Its price has also increased – it will now cost £13.49 / $16.49.

Image credit: Microsoft

The Game Pass shake up comes alongside a change to Microsoft Rewards. From today, users will no longer be able to directly redeem Rewards points for Xbox Game Pass subscriptions.

Instead, you’ll need to redeem your points for a gift card in a denomination sufficient to cover the cost of the subscription, and use this to purchase.

Last month, ID@Xbox boss Chris Charla discussed the current state of Game Pass with Eurogamer, stating this year marks Xbox’s “largest investment in Game Pass to date”.

“Last year, we worked with over 50 teams to sign their first Game Pass deal,” he said. “This year marks our largest investment in Game Pass to date, and we remain focused on delivering the most exciting and diverse catalogue in gaming.”

Charla’s comments follow criticism of the service, amid debate around how subscription services cannibalise direct sales of games, as well as questions on whether Game Pass is profitable.

This increase in the price of a Game Pass subscription would certainly indicate it’s not as profitable as Microsoft would wish it to be. That’s despite the subscription hitting almost $5bn in annual revenue last year, as Microsoft overall saw an 18 percent increase in revenue to $76.4bn.

It also comes just days after a hardware price hike in the US, with Xbox consoles now costing between $80 and $130 more.

Check our Xbox Game Pass guide for all the details on the games available.



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Microsoft hikes price of Xbox Game Pass by 50% "to offer more flexibility, choice, and value to all players"
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Microsoft hikes price of Xbox Game Pass by 50% “to offer more flexibility, choice, and value to all players”

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Microsoft is raising the price of its subscription service Xbox Game Pass, with its most expensive tier, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, increasing from $19.99/£14.99 to $29.99/£22.99 per month.

Xbox Game Pass Standard — now rebadged as Xbox Game Pass Premium — has increased from $11.99/£9.99 to $14.99/£10.99 a month, and its most affordable tier, formerly known as Core but now renamed Xbox Game Pass Essential, costs $9.99/£6.99. The cost for PC Game Pass has similarly been increased from $11.99/£9.99 to $16.49/£13.49 per month.

Microsoft says the increase comes as it expands its offering, with Fortnite Crew (valued at $11.99/month) and Ubisoft+ Classics (valued at $7.99/month) added to its Ultimate library, as well as enhanced Xbox Cloud Gaming streaming quality and access to over 75 day one releases a year, including Call of Duty: Black Ops 7.

“Our goal with Game Pass has been clear: deliver unmatched value, benefits, and a deep library of games for our players,” the company said. “Since launching in 2017, we’ve steadily grown our subscriber and creator satisfaction – and today, creator participation and player engagement in Game Pass are at an all-time high. But we have the opportunity for Game Pass to help more players find the creators and games they love.

“We know not everyone wants the same thing in their Xbox experience, so we’re evolving Game Pass to offer more flexibility, choice, and value to all players, whether you love day one releases, discovering hidden gems, or playing across multiple devices and screens and across Xbox consoles, Xbox on PC, and Xbox Cloud.”

Some players responding to the news online to check their subscriptions or cancel are reporting issues loading the website or app.

The price increase follows last week’s announcement that a second price increase for Xbox Series X|S consoles in the United States, rising from between $20 to $70 across its hardware range, was on the way.

The price hike also comes just days after new research showed that in August 2025, Xbox players played an average of 5.7 different titles compared to 3.7 titles played by PlayStation users.



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Microsoft jacks the price of Game Pass Ultimate up to $30 a month

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Microsoft has announced some major changes for Game Pass. It’s rebranding some of the tiers, which should make it a little easier to keep tabs on what games and features are available on Game Pass across Xbox consoles, PC and cloud gaming.

However, there is a painful price increase here. The high-end plan, Game Pass Ultimate, now costs $30 per month — 50 percent more than the previous $20 per month. and there’s no annual or quarterly option available to make that sting less.

That means the price of a Game Pass Ultimate membership has nearly doubled in 15 months. Microsoft previously raised the price from $17 to $20 in July 2024. The latest change now means that, at $360 per year, Game Pass Ultimate is now more than twice as expensive as PlayStation Plus Premium, which is currently $160 on an annual plan.

Microsoft recently announced a price increase for its Xbox Series X/S consoles as well. The systems will be more expensive to buy in the US starting this Friday. Also, pre-orders for the ROG Xbox Ally handheld just went live, with Microsoft confirming that the higher-end model would cost $1,000. PC Game Pass is going up from $12 per month to $16.50 too. It’s getting really expensive to be an Xbox fan, folks.

A breakdown of the Xbox Game Pass tiers.

(Xbox)

In fairness, along with a price increase, Microsoft is expanding Game Pass Ultimate in other ways. It’s adding more than 45 games to that tier today, including a whole bunch of Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry titles, as well as other Ubisoft games. That’s due, in large part, to Microsoft adding Ubisoft+ (which costs about $16 per month) to Game Pass Ultimate today.

On November 18, Ultimate members will get Fortnite Crew as part of their subscription. That gives players access to the Fortnite battle pass, 1,000 V-Bucks added to their account each month and other perks. That usually costs $12 per month, so the Game Pass Ultimate price increase might actually work out in some Fortnite players’ favor — if they ever stop playing it long enough to check out other games and get more value for their $30 per month.

Microsoft also notes that Ultimate subscribers will be able to play more than 75 day one games (i.e. those that join the service on their release day) every year across Xbox consoles, PC and Xbox Cloud Gaming. That works out to at least six per month, on average. The Ultimate library now includes more than 400 games, including titles from EA Play.

As part of these changes, Xbox Cloud Gaming is officially out of beta and Ultimate subscribers have access to what Microsoft claims is its highest-quality streaming option with the lowest wait times. They’ll be able to earn up to $100 worth of rewards per year by playing games too.

Microsoft can talk up the new Ultimate features as much as it likes, but there’s no denying that a 50 percent price increase is a heck of a jump. Of note, games news curator Wario64 pointed out that the Game Pass cancellation web page appears to be overloaded:

There are changes afoot on the other two main Game Pass tiers. Standard subscribers are moving over to Premium, and Game Pass Core members will be on an Essential plan. (Essential and Premium are the same names PlayStation uses for the base and high-end PS Plus plans, fact fans.) Those tiers aren’t getting price increases, as Premium will run you $15 per month and Essential is still $10.

Premium and Essential now include PC games. The Premium plan includes more than 200 games, all of which are playable on consoles and PC. Microsoft added more than 40 to the Premium library today, including Diablo IV and Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2.

The company said that Xbox-published games will hit the Premium tier within a year of their release, but not that doesn’t include Call of Duty titles. This tier includes in-game perks for the likes of League of Legends, Call of Duty: Warzone and Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege X, as well as the option to stream some games you own via the cloud and the ability to earn up to $50 per year in rewards.

As with the other two tiers, the Essential plan now includes “unlimited cloud gaming” (though perhaps with longer wait times), online multiplayer access and in-game perks for certain titles. It has a library of 50-plus games and the ability to earn up to $25 in annual rewards through playing games.



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Microsoft block Israel's access to Azure and genAI tech used to surveil millions of Palestinian phone calls, according to report
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Microsoft block Israel’s access to Azure and genAI tech used to surveil millions of Palestinian phone calls, according to report

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Amid a consumer boycott of their Xbox business, Microsoft are apparently ending the Israeli military’s access to certain Azure cloud and generative AI technologies used to surveil Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. As reported by the Guardian, one of the publications who originally exposed the surveillance project, the company told Israeli officials last week that spy agency Unit 8200 had violated Microsoft’s terms of service by storing records of civilian phone calls and other data on Azure servers.

Microsoft’s vice-chair and president Brad Smith allegedly informed staff of the termination of the Unit 8200 partnership in an email sent on Thursday 18th September, shared with the Guardian. In that email, he said that Microsoft had “ceased and disabled a set of services to a unit within the Israel ministry of defense”, including cloud storage and AI services. “We do not provide technology to facilitate mass surveillance of civilians,” the email continues. “We have applied this principle in every country around the world, and we have insisted on it repeatedly for more than two decades.”

The Guardian also cite another email from a senior Microsoft executive to Israel’s ministry of defence, sent late last week, in which the executive noted that “[w]hile our review is ongoing, we have at this juncture identified evidence that supports elements of the Guardian’s reporting.”

Microsoft confirmed that they had supplied technology and services to the Israeli military during the latter’s current Gaza offensive this May, following an investigation of the alleged use of Microsoft genAI models to facilitate airstrikes, among other operations.

A protest by Microsoft staff at the company’s headquarters in August 2025. | Image credit: No Azure For Apartheid / Rock Paper Shotgun

In August this year, a joint investigation by the Guardian, +972 Magazine, and Local Call found that Microsoft had worked with Unit 8200 specifically to create an “indiscriminate new system” for gathering data on Palestinians, including a sizeable pool of non-combatants. For context, according to alleged leaked Israeli military intelligence, around 83% of the tens of thousands of Palestinians reported killed in the current conflict’s first 19 months were civilians.

The reporting inspired the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions organisation to launch a campaign against Microsoft’s gaming business. Microsoft workers have been openly protesting against their employer’s involvement with the assault on Gaza since early 2024.

Back in May, Microsoft insisted that they had found “no evidence” that their technology was being used to target or harm Palestinians, following a review carried out by an unnamed third party. In August, a spokesperson announced that they would carry out another review, while insisting that “[a]t no time during this engagement has Microsoft been aware of the surveillance of civilians or collection of their cellphone conversations using Microsoft’s services, including through the external review it commissioned.”

Image credit: No Azure For Apartheid / Rock Paper Shotgun

The Guardian claim that as much as 8000 terabytes of intercepted calls were being held in Azure datacentres in the Netherlands as part of the Microsoft/Unit 8200 partnership. The paper adds that Unit 8200 appear to have swiftly moved the data elsewhere in the wake of their reporting. Israel now allegedly plan to transfer it all to Amazon’s Web Services cloud platform – neither Amazon nor the Israel Defense Forces have responded to the Guardian’s request for comment.

The reported partial divestment from Israel doesn’t reveal which “elements” of the Guardian’s reporting Microsoft have corroborated as part of their review. Microsoft continue to have a wider commercial relationship with the Israeli armed forces. They are also far from the only big overseas technology company to have significant dealings with Israel’s military, before and during the current invasion and destruction of Gaza – an Associated Press investigation in February also mentions Google, Amazon, Palantir, Cisco, and Oracle. A UN special rapporteur has accused western tech firms at large of being complicit in an “economy of genocide”.

We recently interviewed a number of developers, including former Microsoft worker Abdo Mohamed, about their participation in the internal No Azure for Apartheid movement and the wider BDS action against Microsoft.



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