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Google responds to the Mocality blog post

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Re: Google responds to the Mocality blog post

#11

Post by Steko »

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…

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

That's what he wants you to take it to mean but that's likely not accurate. If no Google employees were involved I'd expect a quote that said so and this doesn't.

I have confidence that Google employees were not involved with the fraud aspects of what occurred here but that's not the same thing as saying that this project was 100% contractors. Indications are actually the opposite, see mocality's post* and the project's website http://www.kbo.co.ke/ ("managed by Google").

* http://blog.mocality.co.ke/2012/01/13/google-what-were-you-t...

Re: Google responds to the Mocality blog post

#12

Post by mbreese »

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…

Funny, I take this to mean that they aren't quite sure what happened yet. However, they are investigating and trying to figure out what happened, and trying to get out in front of this PR-wise.

Re: Google responds to the Mocality blog post

#13

Post by brudgers »

swombat wrote: post #5

Well, that deserves a +1. Kind of amazing, I thought it would turn out it was an unconnected company.

Mocality's post didn't have the hallmarks of linkbait and based on their description of their business model (patient, capitalized, appropriate to the local) and the sophistication of their honeypot strategy, there was an air of legitimacy.

It was hard to see an upside from them making a false claim - e.g. a flood of unique visitors from around the world would hardly add value to their business (probably more likely to just crash their servers).

In addition, it is hard to see much of a downside for Google, they are still partnering with the biggest bank, largest mobile provider, and the manager of Kenya's top level domain - anyway there's already one Microsoft for people to hate and how much of a hit on eyeballs is a story about screwing over a small company in Africa really going to cause?

This was a rational business decision of the sort that's made everyday by large multinational companies.

Re: Google responds to the Mocality blog post

#14

Post by sp332 »

cpdean wrote: post #9

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…

Not quite right. Kenyan businesses opt-in to listing on Mocality, for free.

The Google employees called up businesses on the list, claimed that Mocality was owned by Google, and tried to upsell some web pages.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3460033

"I’d like you to meet Douglas. On this call (first 2 minutes) you can clearly hear Douglas identify himself as Google Kenya employee, state, and then reaffirm, that GKBO is working in collaboration with Mocality, and that we are helping them with GKBO, before trying to offer the business owner a website (and upsell them a domain name). Over the 11 minutes of the whole call he repeatedly states that Mocality is with, or under (!) Google."

Re: Google responds to the Mocality blog post

#16

Post by a-priori »

cpdean wrote: post #9

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…

Yup, that's pretty much it. The important part is the last bit: they claimed that there was a partnership between Google and Mocality, and used that lie to extract payment from Mocality's clients.

Re: Google responds to the Mocality blog post

#17

Post by kenjackson »

brudgers wrote: post #7

> "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 rel…

I hope Google isn't that tone deaf. Jobs got a lot right, and one of them is at the VP-level you don't have excuses. The janitor can have excuses, but if this is under your watch -- it's under your watch.

I felt like Google played dumb with the drug ads thing and didn't really hold people accountable (Page was hardly rebuked) -- here they need to come down hard to show that they're serious about "Don't be evil" -- or is that just a useful motto when you're the young underdog.

Re: Google responds to the Mocality blog post

#18

Post by leak »

alphadog wrote: post #3

So what happens next? Realistically I don't think there's any legal action they can take - can they? Also, how does Google "make this right" with them?

As far as legal action, Google employees violated Mocality 's Terms & Condition so maybe legal action is possible.

Re: Google responds to the Mocality blog post

#19

Post by AznHisoka »

brudgers wrote: post #13
swombat wrote: post #5

Well, that deserves a +1. Kind of amazing, I thought it would turn out it was an unconnected company.

Mocality's post didn't have the hallmarks of linkbait and based on their description of their business model (patient, capitalized, appropriate to the local) and the sophistication of their honeypot strategy, there was an air of legitimacy. It was hard to see an upside from them making a false claim - e.g. a flood of unique visitors from around the world would hardly add value to their business (probably more likely…

This also reminds me of what AirBnB did with CraigsList. You're right - it's done everyday. And let's face it... will anyone remember a month from now?

Re: Google responds to the Mocality blog post

#20

Post by AznHisoka »

kenjackson wrote: post #17
brudgers wrote: post #7

> "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 rel…

I hope Google isn't that tone deaf. Jobs got a lot right, and one of them is at the VP-level you don't have excuses. The janitor can have excuses, but if this is under your watch -- it's under your watch. I felt like Google played dumb with the drug ads thing and didn't really hold people accountable (Page was hardly rebuked) -- here they need to come down hard to show that they're serious about "Don't be evil" -- or…

Not sure why people ever believed that Don't be evil propaganda. You can hand out all those cute Google t-shirts, pens, give free lunches, give free massages, give mom's good maternity, etc.. doesn't really matter..

You're a business and a public one at that... that means you'll do anything for profit, just like every other company.

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