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Google responds to the Mocality blog post

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Re: Google responds to the Mocality blog post

#61

Post by kenjackson »

Tichy wrote: post #56
acqq wrote: post #43

So Nelson Mattos ( http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/people/per... ) confirms that what Mocality diagnosed is correct: - there are people inside of Google, working for Google, that manually accessed web data of Mocality and then phoned Mocality clients making fraudulent claims about Mocality and practically trying to extort the money from the clients. Note that those in Google can't be "just some loca…

Is it? At the most some team inside went rampant and will probably be fired. Aren't there bound to be some black sheep in any organization with 1000s of members? The notion that Google needs to scam some African directory service for profit just seems ridiculous.

The notion that Google needs to scam some African directory service for profit just seems ridiculous.

For real, right? Next thing they'll tell us is that Google would assist companies in displaying illegal drug ads in the US for profit. This is Google we're talking about. Have people already forgotten their motto is "Don't be evil"? You can't have that motto and do evil stuff -- it wouldn't be consistent.

Re: Google responds to the Mocality blog post

#63

Post by pbhjpbhj »

AznHisoka wrote: post #20
kenjackson wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>that means you'll do anything for profit, just like every other company.

As a company director I repudiate this so hard.

Most companies? Most-probably. Every company? Not at all.

Re: Google responds to the Mocality blog post

#64

Post by acqq »

Tichy wrote: post #56
acqq wrote: post #43

So Nelson Mattos ( http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/people/per... ) confirms that what Mocality diagnosed is correct: - there are people inside of Google, working for Google, that manually accessed web data of Mocality and then phoned Mocality clients making fraudulent claims about Mocality and practically trying to extort the money from the clients. Note that those in Google can't be "just some loca…

Is it? At the most some team inside went rampant and will probably be fired. Aren't there bound to be some black sheep in any organization with 1000s of members? The notion that Google needs to scam some African directory service for profit just seems ridiculous.

Have you noticed that at first Kenyans were the ones that called Kenyan clients, but from one point on the people from India took over?

Mocality recorded the calls, the MP3 files are linked in their original post:

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

Douglas, Kenyan, so local:

https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/mocality-wordpress/audio/...

Deepthi, Indian:

https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/mocality-wordpress/audio/...

It obviously can't be just "some team" when it spans minimum two continents, some small bad guys in Kenyan team are certainly not able to move the "local" operation to India.

Re: Google responds to the Mocality blog post

#65

Post by pbhjpbhj »

jrockway wrote: post #45
napierzaza wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but I don't think they can spin it as a "rogue team" really. If it is a team inside Google. That's Google's fault. It doesn't matter whether it's Google's fault because they have poor oversight or too much freedom or because they hire people who are criminal.

Google is not 100% perfect. If things aren't broken, you're not trying hard enough to push the envelope. The cost of innovation is failure. In other words, this doesn't surprise me. And it doesn't bother me, either.

It doesn't bother you if Google, the company, is committing crimes?

The cost of innovation isn't becoming a crook.

Re: Google responds to the Mocality blog post

#66

Post by neuroelectronic »

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.

straight-forward when they got caught would be more correct.

Re: Google responds to the Mocality blog post

#67

Post by jrockway »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #65
jrockway wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is not 100% perfect. If things aren't broken, you're not trying hard enough to push the envelope. The cost of innovation is failure. In other words, this doesn't surprise me. And it doesn't bother me, either.

It doesn't bother you if Google, the company, is committing crimes? The cost of innovation isn't becoming a crook.

No, some regular person at Google behaved unethically. If Google locked down their employees enough to prevent this (which I doubt is even possible), then they wouldn't be able to do anything good either. You're saying: one mistake in a tiny branch office, entire global company goes out of business.

Re: Google responds to the Mocality blog post

#68

Post by Steko »

acqq wrote: post #49
Steko wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 wa…

> I have confidence that Google employees were not involved with the fraud aspects of what occurred here How come, when Google India was obviously involved, looking at the post that you link as well?

I just had a hard time coming to grips with the idea of a billionaire company committing outright fraud for ten dollar domain names.

The fraudsters may well have been Google employees and/or contractors. I think Willful at metafilter put it best [1]:

I worked at Google for a few years. My experience is that it's like any other huge multinational corporation in that there are regional teams that get more or less supervision. They're also somewhat hamstrung in that in certain regional hiring situations, they have to focus on getting someone who can speak the local language over getting someone of their normal standard of ethics and acceptable background.

As a result I saw people working in Google who did evil things, pure and simple, especially in the more obscure markets to reach their sales targets. When they were caught they were fired, when they didn't and succeeded as a result, they were promoted.

This type of thing will always happen. Thinking it won't is a bit childish. It's Google's official response and subsequent actions that defines their culture.

[1] http://www.metafilter.com/111590/Do-Not-Much-Evil#4128023

Re: Google responds to the Mocality blog post

#69

Post by acqq »

Steko wrote: post #68
acqq wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I have confidence that Google employees were not involved with the fraud aspects of what occurred here How come, when Google India was obviously involved, looking at the post that you link as well?

I just had a hard time coming to grips with the idea of a billionaire company committing outright fraud for ten dollar domain names. The fraudsters may well have been Google employees and/or contractors. I think Willful at metafilter put it best [1]: I worked at Google for a few years. My experience is that it's like any other huge multinational corporation in that there are regional teams that get more or less super…

> they have to focus on getting someone who can speak the local language

So, for you it's just some small "regional team" when they stop calling from Kenya, after speaking local language, and then some people from Google India take over?

(*) http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3462983

Re: Google responds to the Mocality blog post

#70

Post by Eliezer »

kenjackson wrote: post #61
Tichy wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it? At the most some team inside went rampant and will probably be fired. Aren't there bound to be some black sheep in any organization with 1000s of members? The notion that Google needs to scam some African directory service for profit just seems ridiculous.

The notion that Google needs to scam some African directory service for profit just seems ridiculous. For real, right? Next thing they'll tell us is that Google would assist companies in displaying illegal drug ads in the US for profit. This is Google we're talking about. Have people already forgotten their motto is "Don't be evil"? You can't have that motto and do evil stuff -- it wouldn't be consistent.

You seem to have good and evil confused. Speaking as someone who's just ordered a number of meds online, helping me find the meds I need is "good". Trying to hinder this activity and censor it for stupid damn reasons is "bad".
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