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Google Caught Misbehaving By Kenyan Startup
An anonymous reader sends in an interesting story from Mocality, a company that painstakingly built a business directory in Kenya. When they discovered that somebody was systematically harvesting the contact information they'd collected (and after a few very odd phone calls from confused Kenyan business owners), they set up a sting to see what was really going on. They swapped out the phone numbers listed for a few businesses with phone numbers in their own call centers, and then waited to see who called. Mocality was shocked to discover it was Google Kenya, who falsely claimed a business collaboration with Mocality, and then lied about Mocality's business practices.
Is there any proof that this is actually google and not someone impersonating a google employee?
Oh please, you really want to defend Google's fraud on small companies? Google as a whole is responsible for what the company does. This was outright fraud by Google and they need to be called upon it and not defend that it was just Google Kenya + Google India doing it.
Compare and Contrast with News Corp's News of the World Phone Tapping/Hacking/Listening to Voicemail scandal which went all the way up to Murdochs Dragon-in-chief.
That was something that was endemic and part of the corporate culture and was rightfully put down in the face of it. An enquiry is underway to see if it permeated any of the other newspapers under the control of News Corp.
If said Phone Hacking was actually only an isolated incident, or restricted to one or two reporters, they would rightly be fired and the company investigated (indeed, that's what was done, and it revealed more shenanigans). The same is true in the case of Google Kenya.
If it's restricted to one or two people, or (as a multinational) restricted to one country, then Googles reputation as a whole would be tarnished by this, and potentially the excising of an entire branch of it's overseas operations, but I'd say it'd be unfair to call for a tarring and feathering of Schmitt, followed by a public castration of the board of directors.
It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for being subtle.