Spyware’s Odd Targets: Backers of Mexico’s Soda Tax

NSO Group and the dozens of other commercial spyware outfits that have cropped up around the globe over the past decade operate in a largely unregulated market. Spyware makers like NSO Group, Hacking Team in Italy and Gamma Group in Britain insist they sell tools only to governments for criminal and terrorism investigations. But it is left to government agents to decide whom they will and will not hack with spying tools that can trace a target’s every phone call, text message, email, keystroke, location, sound and sight. The discovery of NSO’s spyware on the phones of Mexican nutrition policy makers, activists and even government employees raises new questions about whether NSO’s tools are being used to advance the soda industry’s commercial interests in Mexico.