The GAFAM Reality Index
The next time a CEO stands on a stage unveiling their latest product, and you feel the urge to leap from your seat and hail them like a messiah come to deliver you — stop. Come here first, and see what our honest, independent, hype-free assessment actually says.
The GAFAM Reality Index is our ongoing scorecard of the five companies that shape most of our digital lives: Google, Apple, Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft. It rates each of them, every month, on three kinds of respect — because admiration for what these companies build should never be confused with trust in how they treat us.
Respect for Europe — how each company engages with European rules and users: fines, investigations, whether compliance is willing or forced, and constructive moves like open models or real investment.
- RE51%
Respect for Users — how each treats the people who use it, worldwide: whether the business model sells you a product or sells you; privacy, lock-in, openness, pricing, and any documented harms.
- RU50%
Respect for the Future — how seriously each takes the risks of the AI it builds: the substance of its safety work, its transparency, and whether it ships with caution or with haste.
- RF53%
%
The GAFAM Reality Index September 2026
G
- Respect for Europe35%
- Respect for Users45%
- Respect for the Future55%
- Overall45%
A
- Respect for Europe40%
- Respect for Users60%
- Respect for the Future60%
- Overall53%
M (f)
- Respect for Europe50%
- Respect for Users35%
- Respect for the Future40%
- Overall42%
A
- Respect for Europe60%
- Respect for Users50%
- Respect for the Future50%
- Overall53%
M
- Respect for Europe70%
- Respect for Users60%
- Respect for the Future60%
- Overall63%
Microsoft leads, carried by a business model that sells software rather than attention. Meta trails, weighed down on both its users and the future even as it scores best of the five on Europe. The gap between top and bottom is a full twenty points — a reminder that "Big Tech" is not one thing.
Why We Do It
Because the loudest voice in the room should not be the only one.
Every product launch arrives wrapped in its own marketing, and most coverage simply amplifies it. Someone has to keep a steady, unimpressed record of how these companies actually behave over time — not on the day of the keynote, but across the months, as the fines land, the trials conclude, the products ship, and the promises are kept or broken.
The Index is that record. It exists so that the next time you are asked to be dazzled, you have somewhere to check.
How It Works
The method is deliberately strict, because the discipline is the whole point.
A score moves only when the documented record moves — a fine issued, a verdict reached, a settlement signed, a product shipped. Never an accusation, a rumour, or a mood.
We do not prejudge ongoing trials; we wait for the fact. And when nothing documented has changed, a score does not move, however busy the news cycle — refusing to move a number without cause is as much a part of an honest index as moving one when the cause is real.
These figures are an editorial assessment, not an objective measurement. Respect for Users and Respect for the Future, especially, involve judgements that reasonable people weigh differently, and we show our reasoning in the monthly reports below. This is honest, independent, and hype-free — not neutral, because a genuine assessment cannot be. We revise the scores as the record changes, and we explain every move.
The Monthly Reports
Each month we publish a full update: what moved, what held steady, and the documented reason behind every change. The latest report sits at the top; the archive builds a picture over time of who is earning more respect, and who is losing it.
We are not first. We are right.
The GAFAM Reality Index — September 2026: The Month the Users Lost Ground
The first monthly update to the GAFAM Reality Index: overall down one point to 51%. The whole decline lands in a single dimension — Respect for Users — as Google’s screen-parsing assistant and Meta’s $17 billion child-addiction settlement drag two giants down. Europe and the Future held steady.