Google responds to the Mocality blog post

peterb wrote: post #4

He chose his words carefully. He didn't say this was done by Google employees, but "a team of people" working on a Google project. Google is usually straight-forward when they screw up. I'm curious to see what actually happened.

I take this to mean that they were Google contractors, or other representative third party.

In any case, I feel like an apology is insufficient here - it sounds like what these guys have done has significantly harmed the reputation of Mocality, perhaps in an irreversible way. I'm not usually one to leap on the "payday from big company" bandwagon, but IMO Google needs to do more to make this right than simply apologizing and firing.

Re: Google responds to the Mocality blog post

#7

Post by brudgers » Fri, Jan 13, 2012, 8:34 PM UTC

>"We’re still investigating exactly how this happened, and as soon as we have all the facts, we’ll be taking the appropriate action with the people involved."

Dear Google,

Last I checked, you have been in the business of finding other people's digital information on the web, aggregating it, and offering it up as your product for more than a decade. For the past several years, your business model has increasingly relied upon encouraging web users to add more content to the web - Google+ upon which this post appears being but the latest example.

If Mocality is correct in its claim that Google did not approach them about using their data, then it is hard to see how what has happened could be a surprise. Such naivety about the way the web works is simply not credible.

The persons responsible for this are not in Africa or India. They are the people responsible for oversight; they in the executive offices at the Googleplex - and I suspect that most of the regret is that this time you were caught in the honeypot.

Re: Google responds to the Mocality blog post

#8

Post by michaelcampbell » Fri, Jan 13, 2012, 8:37 PM UTC

potatolicious wrote: post #6

peterb wrote: post #4

He chose his words carefully. He didn't say this was done by Google employees, but "a team of people" working on a Google project. Google is usually straight-forward when they screw up. I'm curious to see what actually happened.

I take this to mean that they were Google contractors, or other representative third party. In any case, I feel like an apology is insufficient here - it sounds like what these guys have done has significantly harmed the reputation of Mocality, perhaps in an irreversible way. I'm not usually one to leap on the "payday from big company" bandwagon, but IMO Google needs to do more to make this right than simply apologiz…

Maybe they will, when they know the facts from all concerned. Seems a bit premature to do anything of substance just yet.

Re: Google responds to the Mocality blog post

#9

Post by cpdean » Fri, Jan 13, 2012, 8:43 PM UTC

tl;dr (kinda skimmed, correct me if I'm wrong)

Mocality is a Kenyan business that gathers and aggregates information about the businesses in Kenya to improve the economic state of the country through information infrastructure.

Google (or, apparently, a group contracted by Google) was mining their data and in turn (effectively) selling it. They were undercutting Mocality while at the same time claiming that they had previous arrangements with Mocality to do so.

Re: Google responds to the Mocality blog post

#10

Post by badclient » Fri, Jan 13, 2012, 8:43 PM UTC

Oh hey, let's use this bad story about google to drive some traffic to google+.