Alleged Israeli Spy Firm Heavily Targeted Starlink Users, Reuters Reports

An Israeli ad tech firm accused of covert tracking appears to have made Starlink users a priority target, Reuters reported Tuesday, citing six people familiar with the matter.

What the researchers found

According to Reuters, researchers at TrendAI, the research arm of Japanese cybersecurity firm Trend Micro, concluded that a company called Discover-Tech was among the largest sources of ads delivered to Starlink customers, and that those ads were probably being used to pinpoint users’ locations or monitor them. TrendAI found the firm ranked first among bidders for Starlink ad traffic in over 100 countries, including places where Starlink is banned or restricted.

TrendAI’s October 15 report labeled the culprit only as “Shadow-Earth-79.” Reuters’ sources said that codename refers to Discover-Tech, and five of them said executives pulled the name over legal worries. The report said the buyer led ad purchases in Syria, Libya, Yemen and South Sudan, markets where genuine Western ad demand is “effectively zero.”

Separately, Citizen Lab and the ad security firm Confiant named Discover-Tech outright and said it gave Israeli surveillance vendors, including the U.S.-blacklisted spyware maker Candiru, a route into major ad platforms. Google, Comcast and others have since cut the firm off, Reuters reported. SpaceX and Discover-Tech did not answer Reuters’ requests for comment.

Commentary by Kacee Allen: A pattern America keeps forgetting

This section is opinion and analysis from Kacee Allen and the Network. It is not news reporting.

The Starlink findings remain allegations. Discover-Tech has not been charged with anything, and no one has publicly tied it to the Israeli government. But Americans should not have to guess at the larger context, because the public record already shows that Israel has spied on the United States before.

Jonathan Pollard. A U.S. Navy intelligence analyst, Pollard was convicted in 1987 of passing large amounts of classified information to Israel and sentenced to life in prison. He was paroled in 2015 after 30 years.

Ben-Ami Kadish. In 2008, the Justice Department announced that this former U.S. Army engineer at New Jersey’s Picatinny Arsenal pleaded guilty to conspiring to act as an unregistered agent of Israel. Prosecutors said he gave classified documents, some on U.S. missile defense, to an Israeli consular official between 1980 and 1985. According to Reuters, that handler also ran Pollard. Kadish was fined $50,000 and served no prison time.

Larry Franklin. In 2006, this former Pentagon analyst was sentenced for disclosing classified information to an Israeli diplomat and two lobbyists from a pro-Israel group. To be precise: Franklin was not convicted of spying, charges against the lobbyists were dropped, and his sentence was later cut to probation. Lawful lobbying is not espionage, and the two should never be confused. But the case shows how classified material moved through channels that should have been closed.

One man got life, another a fine, a third probation. Kadish’s role surfaced more than two decades later. That is not a record of consistent deterrence.

The question Kacee Allen keeps asking is simple: why is foreign spying on Americans treated as a diplomatic embarrassment instead of a national security threat? Allies spy. Putting America first means saying so plainly and responding the same way no matter whose flag is on the operation, whether the country is a rival or a friend.

If the Reuters reporting holds up, Congress should demand a briefing on whether Americans, troops or government personnel were tracked through Starlink ad traffic. Federal agencies should treat real-time ad bidding as the intelligence channel it has become. And Washington should make clear that friendship does not buy a pass to spy on U.S. citizens.

Editor’s note: The news sections rely on Reuters’ exclusive by Raphael Satter (Oct. 27, 2026), read through syndicated copies on Investing.com and Al-Monitor because Reuters blocked direct access, plus Reuters’ Oct. 15 report and Citizen Lab’s research. The Network has not independently confirmed TrendAI’s attribution, which rests on anonymous sources. The commentary section is opinion. Its historical cases come from BBC News and Reuters (Pollard), the Justice Department and Reuters (Kadish), and the Associated Press via NBC News (Franklin).