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571Google, what were you thinking? by Stefan

[Updated (22:00 GMT 14-1-2011): Google has apologized]

I’m very proud of the business that we’ve created here at Mocality, but I’m especially proud of two things:

1. Our crowdsourcing program. When we started this business, we knew that (unlike in the UK or US,

where you can just kickstart your directory business with a DVD of business data bought from a

commercial supplier), if we wanted a comprehensive database of Kenyan business, we would have

to build it ourselves. We knew also that if we wanted to build the business quickly, we’d have to

engage a lot of Kenyans to help us. So we built our crowd program that utilises M-PESA (Kenya’s

ubiquitous Mobile Money system) to reward any Kenyan with a mobile phone who contributes entries

to our database, once those entries have been validated by our team. Over two years, we’ve paid out

Ksh. 11m (over $100,000) to thousands of individuals, and we have built Kenya’s most

comprehensive directory, with over 170,000 verified listings. Personally, I regard the program as one

of THE highlights of my 18 year career on the internet.

2. From day 1, we aimed to target all Kenyan businesses, irrespective of size. As a result, for about

2/3rds of our listed businesses, Mocality is their first step onto the web. That’s about 100,000

businesses that Mocality has brought online.

Please bear these two facts in mind as you read what follows.

Our database IS our business, and we protect and tend it very carefully. We spot and block automated

attacks, amongst other measures. We regularly contact our business owners, to help them keep their

records up-to-date, and they are welcome to contact our call centre team for help whenever they need it.

In September, Google launched Getting Kenyan Businesses Online (GKBO). Whilst we saw aspects of their

program that were competitive, we welcomed the initiative, as Kenya still has enough growth in it that every

new entrant helps the overall market. We are also confident enough in our product, our local team, and our

deep local commitment that we believe we can hold our own against any competition, playing fair.

Shortly after that launch, we started receiving some odd calls. One or two business owners were clearly

getting confused because they wanted help with their website, and we don’t currently offer websites, only a

listing. Initially, we didn’t think much of it, but the confusing calls continued through November.

The Forensic analysis

What follows is necessarily a little technical. I’ve tried to make it as clear as I can, but two definitions may help

the lay reader:

IP Address – the numerical id by which computers identify themselves online.

User-Agent - When a browser requests a page from a webserver, it tells the server what make,

model, and version of browser it is, so that the webserver can serve content tailored to that browser’s

capabilities. Webservers keep a log of both these details for every page requested, allowing us to do

interesting detective work.

If you’re not interested in the technical details, you can always jump straight to the Conclusion.

At the start of December we analysed our server logs to look for a common pattern for the businesses that

had contacted us with these confused calls. We found a single IP/ User-Agent combination that had

accessed all these businesses:

IP Address: 41.203.221.138

User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux i686) AppleWebKit/535.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/14.0.835.186 Safari/535.1

The user agent is unusual for Kenya: the stable version of Google Chrome released on 20 September 2011,

13 Jan

2012



Links

Add Business for FREE

Agent Program

Contact Mocality

Sign in to Mocality

Terms and Conditions

running on 32-bit Linux. With the exception of this IP, it barely appears in our logs.

We looked up the ownership record for 41.203.221.138 via WHOIS.

% Information related to '41.203.220.0 - 41.203.221.255'

inetnum: 41.203.220.0 - 41.203.221.255netname: Fixed_Wimax-Fiber-Rollout-Central-Kenyadescr: Fixed Wimax and Fiber Roll out for Central Kenya Regioncountry: KEadmin-c: OC406-AFRINICtech-c: OC406-AFRINICstatus: ASSIGNED PAmnt-by: ONECOM-MNTremarks: Wimax and Fiber Roll out for Central Kenya Regionsource: AFRINIC # Filteredparent: 41.203.208.0 - 41.203.223.255

So a Kenyan ISP. But how were they accessing us? We did some analysis.

Of the 65,851 requests, there were 33,261 requests to a Business Profile page, i.e. accessing the contact

details for a business.

Further details:

No evidence of automated scraping, this appears to be a team of humans.

Since 3 Nov, requests originate from a WIMAX connection in Nairobi (41.203.221.138). Prior to that,

various addresses.

Business profile requests are referred by Mocality search result pages having 100 results/page

Peak rates are 2500 pages per day (1.73 per minute)

The User-Agent originated from many different IPs starting on 4 September, started scraping on 12

October, abrubtly stopped on 29 October, resumed on 3 November from the Safaricom Wimax IP.

Pattern of access is mainly 8am-6pm Weekdays, a few hours on Saturday, and never Sunday.

No other non-robot (IP,User-Agent) combination has such a pattern of activity at that scale (2500/day).

So a person or (judging by the access rate) team of people were systematically accessing our database,

during office hours, and it looked like they moved into a new office over the weekend at the start of November.

But who were they, and what were they doing?

The Sting

We decided to find out. We made some changes to the site:

For visitors from the 41.203.221.138 address, we changed the code to serve slightly different content

10% of the time.

Instead of the real business phone number, we served a number that fed through to our call centre

team, where the incoming calls would also be recorded. Our team were briefed to act like the

business owners for the calls.

We switched the new code on December 21st.

When we listened to the calls, we were beyond astonished.

Results

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.

Between 10am and 1pm on December 21st, we received 6 others just like it (from 5 different Google Kenya

employees) before switching back to normal service. We estimate that this team were calling 20-25 Mocality

business per hour, since 7 calls over 3 hours, only 10% of calls redirected: 7*10/3= 23.3. calls/hour)

On all calls, the same script is followed – A Google Kenya employee calls a Mocality business and tries to

deceive them into signing up for their competing product, by claiming that we are working together.

It gets worse: Here’s a complete transcript ( with translation of the kiSwahili portions) of a another call, in

which the caller goes further, claiming that Mocality engages in bait-and-switch practices to try and charge

businesses upto Ksh. 20,000 ($200) for their listings. Mocality has never and will never charge for listings.

The irony: on the same call, the caller tries exactly that tactic for GKBO’s hosting fees.

I have redacted the details (except first name) of both parties on the call, and highlighted key sections in

YELLOW.

What happened next?

Having gathered our evidence, and needing to wait for transcription and translation (as parts of the

conversations were in kiSwahili (the local East African language)) of the recordings , and feeling pleased with

detective work, we had a lovely Christmas break. I started writing this blog post.

So that we had the latest stats on our return to work, we re-analysed the logs, on Monday 9th January.

There were no further accesses from the IP address 41.203.221.138 after 4pm 23rd December. Co-

incidence? or had someone realised we were onto them?

However, there were some NEW strange messages from business owners- they’d apparently been

contacted by a call centre in India with the same promise of a website.

So we reran the whole analysis. We quickly identified a new IP/User-Agent combination.

Results (2)

We found another IP address and User-Agent that accessed two businesses that had been contacted:

IP Address: 74.125.63.33

User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/535.7 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/16.0.912.63 Safari/535.7

WHOIS Information

NetRange: 74.125.0.0 - 74.125.255.255CIDR: 74.125.0.0/16OriginAS:NetName: GOOGLENetHandle: NET-74-125-0-0-1Parent: NET-74-0-0-0-0NetType: Direct AllocationRegDate: 2007-03-13Updated: 2007-05-22Ref: http://whois.arin.net/rest/net/NET-74-125-0-0-1

OrgName: Google Inc.OrgId: GOGLAddress: 1600 Amphitheatre ParkwayCity: Mountain ViewStateProv: CAPostalCode: 94043Country: USRegDate: 2000-03-30Updated: 2011-09-24Ref: http://whois.arin.net/rest/org/GOGL

OrgAbuseHandle: ZG39-ARIN



OrgAbuseName: Google IncOrgAbusePhone: +1-650-253-0000OrgAbuseEmail: [email protected]: http://whois.arin.net/rest/poc/ZG39-ARIN

OrgTechHandle: ZG39-ARINOrgTechName: Google IncOrgTechPhone: +1-650-253-0000OrgTechEmail: [email protected]: http://whois.arin.net/rest/poc/ZG39-ARIN

These new accesses were coming directly from Google’s network.

The IP address 74.125.63.33 made 17,645 requests (15,554 to BusinessProfile.aspx). Activity really kicked

off on 22 December 2011, with 8 different user agents mostly running Chrome on Linux: The top 3 are :

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/535.7 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/16.0.912.63

Safari/535.7 11249 64.268982

Mozilla/5.0 (Ubuntu; X11; Linux x86_64; rv:9.0.1) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/9.0.1 4247 24.264412

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/535.2 (KHTML, like Gecko) Ubuntu/10.04

Chromium/15.0.874.106 Chrome/15.0.874.106 Safari/535.2 1000 5.713306

Search for “tag=mo.request 74.125.63.33″ from 20 December 2011 to 9 January 2012. Found 17,049

requests

On 10th January, we re-enabled the Sting code. Again, within a couple of hours, we’d received calls from the

new call centre to our dummy numbers.

Here is Deepthi, from Google India. On this call, you can hear her talking about her partnership with Mocality,

and offering us a free website.

It looks like Google has now outsourced the Getting Kenya Businesses Online operation to India!

Conclusion

Since October, Google’s GKBO appears to have been systematically accessing Mocality’s database and

attempting to sell their competing product to our business owners. They have been telling untruths about

their relationship with us, and about our business practices, in order to do so. As of January 11th, nearly 30%

of our database has apparently been contacted.

Furthermore, they now seem to have outsourced this operation from Kenya to India.

When we started this investigation, I thought that we’d catch a rogue call-centre employee, point out to Google

that they were violating our Terms and conditions (sections 9.12 and 9.17, amongst others), someone would

get a slap on the wrist, and life would continue.

I did not expect to find a human-powered, systematic, months-long, fraudulent (falsely claiming to be

collaborating with us, and worse) attempt to undermine our business, being perpetrated from call centres on

2 continents.

Google is a key part of our business strategy. Mocality will succeed if our member businesses are

discoverable by people via Google. We actually track how well our businesses place on Google as a key

metric, and have always regarded it as a symbiotic relationship. We are in the business of creating local



Kenyan content that Google can sell their adwords against. More than 50% of our non-direct traffic comes via

Google (paid or organic). For us, the cost of going elsewhere is NOT zero.

Furthermore, we spend a very significant sum on advertising with Google Kenya. I wouldn’t be surprised if we

are one of their largest local customers, between Mocality and our sister site Dealfish.co.ke.

Kenya has a comparatively well-educated but poor population and high levels of unemployment. Mocality

designed our crowd sourcing program to provide an opportunity for large numbers of people to help

themselves by helping us. By apparently systematically trawling our database, and then outsourcing that trawl

to another continent, Google isn’t just scalping us, they’re also scalping every Kenyan who has participated in

our program.

I moved to Africa from the UK 30 months ago to be CEO of Mocality. When I moved, Kenya’s reputation as a

corrupt place to do business made me nervous. I’ve been very happily surprised- until this point, I’ve not done

business with any company here that was not completely honestly conducted. It is important for global

businesses to adapt to local cultural practice, but ethics are an invariant. As a admirer of Google’s usually

bold ethical stance around the world, to find those principles are not applied in Kenya is simply… saddening.

Someone, somewhere, has some questions to answer.

These are my personal top 3:

If Google wanted to work with our data, why didn’t they just ask?

In discussions with various Google Kenya/Africa folks in the past, I’d raised the idea of working

together more closely in Kenya. Getting Kenyan businesses online is precisely what we do.

Who authorised this? Until we uncovered the ‘India by way of Mountain View’ angle, I could have

believed that this was a local team that somehow forgot the corporate motto, but not now.

Who knew, and who SHOULD have known, even if they didn’t know?

Stefan Magdalinski

Nairobi, Kenya

[email protected]

+254710103500

Update (22:00 GMT 14-1-2011): Google hasapologized.

Google has apologized to Mocality, both online and more directly - I personally received a couple of calls from

Joe Mucheru, their Sub-Saharan Africa Lead.

I appreciate the speed and honesty with which Google and Joe reacted to this, but there’s a number of points

I want to highlight:

My 3 questions above are key to understanding what happened, and I keenly await the outcome of

Google’s internal investigations.

The most serious issue is not the trawling of our database, it is the behaviour of the Google

representatives on the calls.

The real test is what action Google takes to remedy the damage done, the openness with which they

explain how this went so wrong, and what steps they take to ensure this never happens again, in any

country, to any startup.

Apparently, the calls were made by a 3rd party vendor. I can see how this was the case for the activity

we saw in Kenya, but the Indian activity seemed to come from Google’s own network. I know (from

friends who are Googlers) how preciously that network is guarded. How was a 3rd party given access

to it?

And because people keep asking, no, we have not taken legal action (at this point).

Stefan

This entry was posted on Friday, January 13th, 2012 at 8:02 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any

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571 Responses to “Google, what were you thinking?”

OLUNIYI D. AJAO says: January 13, 2012 at 8:28 am

I am stunned! “Do No Evil” indeed.

Reply

SIJOFSIJOIJFDS says: January 14, 2012 at 8:01 am

Define what is evil. Poltician thinks it’s evil if money wasn’t involved in politics. A rabid internet user thinks

it’s evil that money is involved with politics. So next time you ass-hats are going to say “google doesn’t do

evil”, please have the ****ing courtasee TO DEFINE YOUR DEFINITION OF “GOOD” AND “EVIL, BECAUSE

IT’S OBVIOUSLY VARRIES FROM INDIVIDUAL, YOU DUMB

**********************************************************

Reply

SIJOFSIJOIJFDS says: January 14, 2012 at 8:04 am

Replace “Google doesn’t do evil” with “do no evil”

Reply

ANGEL says: January 14, 2012 at 6:01 pm

Shut yer pie hole, clown.

Reply

PA says: January 14, 2012 at 10:03 pm

Evil is like porn – you know it when you see it.

Reply

GOGO | INNOVATE AFRICA PROJECT says: January 16, 2012 at 7:16 pm

Oluniyi,

I’m stunned that you’re stunned.

Google has shown that they’re willing and able to abide by having different sets of rules for different

parties in their conduct with search ranking parameters, and even in their competitive conduct a la

YouTube and intellectual property.

Yes, we all admire (and use) their technology, but startups and upstarts, especially in Africa would do well

to assume darker competitive impulses from our friends in technology. Companies that do “lethal

damage” to innovative startups like mocality, actually do mortal damage to much larger ecosystems of

innovation and change than even they may realize.

I’m taking this much more personally than even Stephan seems to be taking it, and I for one, feel that an

apology is not enough! I will be waiting with bated breath for an explanation/reason and a systemic

corporate resolution that I feel will assure us that other upcoming brands in other countries will not face

this sort of anti-competitive assault.

Gogo Erekosima

African Innovation Project



Reply

STEPHEN MUCHOKI says: January 13, 2012 at 8:42 am

Not the best of a gesture for hard earned content by the small website. Ideally Google is taking everything that

small website had worked so hard to create. Many nights of designing directories and gathering content

wasted.

Reply

IPALEI KELVIN says: January 13, 2012 at 8:43 am

..As much as i love google they went alittle overboard here.

Reply

ANONYMOUS says: January 13, 2012 at 2:37 pm

“..As much as i love google they went alittle overboard here.”

A little overboard? Really?

Such actions are criminal in nature, and can get those who planned them (in the US) sent to JAIL.

Reply

IN US says: January 13, 2012 at 11:03 pm

Talk about Teflon! This is the same company that “accidentally” was snooping on open WIFIs while

“mapping” streets *all over the world*. Their Chrome browser insists on HTTPSing to mother ship in

CA (and just try to get it to stop ..) and now they are ghettoizing the web with their +.

Just because they /say/ “do no evil” and use primary kindergarden colors in their logo pleased do not

be lulled into an infantile mindset.

Reply

CRISSA says: January 14, 2012 at 7:43 am

…Except none of the things you listed are evil. Sure, they can be used for evil, but who would think

that mapping open networks would be evil? You wander through the city and hey, there’s a coffee

shop and hey, there’s the SJFreeDowntownWIFI and there’s the Mountain View free wifi… It’s not

evil. It’s called unintentional effects.

This article is about actual evil, not unintentional. Don’t conflate the two, it weakens your point.

Reply

YUNIVERSE says: January 13, 2012 at 10:10 pm

I’m sure you meant well, but “alittle overboard” is understatement indeed. They should really find out who

was responsible for this action and by the evidence provided in this blog, it’s got to be someone quite

high.

Google should really look into this and see if there are other breaches of privacy and malpractices.

Reply



KENC says: January 14, 2012 at 12:53 am

That was a little understatement there.

Reply

KELVIN says: January 13, 2012 at 8:47 am

This is very sad. I always though and held Google in the most positive light. Disappointed!

Reply

ALISTAIR says: January 13, 2012 at 12:45 pm

Kelvin, you must be kidding, or naive.

If you use Google services (search, apps, news, email, youtube, etc.) then they undoubtedly have more

data on you than anyone else. Even without using the apps, with every page that serves a Google advert,

they know when you hit it, what site, what type of content, how often you go back, etc. They have the

potential to be *very* nasty!

Reply

ANDY says: January 13, 2012 at 3:54 pm

That does not mean anything in the light of what has happened with Mocality. People compromise

their privacy to Google and get more value addition in return. That’s a personal choice.

But what Google has done here is outright criminal. Waiting for someone from Mountain View to

preach their PR-crafted apology soon

Reply

MATTHEW POIRIER says: January 13, 2012 at 4:26 pm

Yeah, this isn’t even something google is doing by virtue of its sheer size. This is something a

two-bit bullshit SEO scammer would do. It boggles my mind.

Reply

BOB SMITH says: January 13, 2012 at 7:01 pm

Alistair,

Just because they have the potential to be evil doesn’t mean they inherently are. No doubt, if they had

approached their business with anything but doing good, they wouldn’t have the success they do now.

Once a company goes public, the founders loose a lot of control. They have been caught with their

pants down here without a doubt, but what isn’t clear is whether or not this was a sanctioned action by

corporate and how they will atone for this mistake now that it’s public.

In the big picture, Google is a really positive company for its size. They’re carbon neutral for crying out

loud. Google produces all the power it consumes from solar panels. Apple on the other hand puts up

suicide nets to prevent workers from killing themselvs…in the world of evil companies, there are one

or two in the line ahead of the big G.

Pick your poison.

I’ve sent this post to a contact at Google’s Mtn View campus. I suspect there will be a response fairly



soon.

Reply

MAYHAPS says: January 14, 2012 at 1:16 am

What is the relevance of Apple here? This is about a nasty thing Google has done. Stick to the

point and don’t insult victims further with apologist drivel that doesn’t even have the decency of

relevance.

Reply

KATRINA PAYNE says: January 14, 2012 at 8:47 pm

Relevance?! Wait what?

Apple is one of Google’s direct competitors in a LOT of fields. Between, Chrome Browser,

Android OS, Chrome Tv and interface development… about the only thing Google has Apple

doesn’t is a search engine.

And sure, Google does a lot of naughty crap–like this here. Apple does much much worse.

Another of Google’s competitors is Facebook… and honestly, I dislike the notions of both

Google+ and Facebook on the merits they are two centralised for a proper internet

conceptualisation… but between the day, I’d trust Google over Mark Zuckerberg, as even with

crap like this occurring quire frequently, Google STILL has a better track record than

Zuckerberg.

Yeah… okay, Google does some pretty nasty stuff… the point was: out of all the big evil

corporations, Google counts as the good guys. This doesn’t really speak so much for Google,

so much as against the other guys.

And sure, yeah–you are pissed… but, where do we go instead? Until you can answer, “well,

what else do we do?”, shut the fuck up, okay. You are NOT helping… you are just being a

whiny little bitch. An annoying whiny little bitch too–that does nothing to help, and only serves to

hurt things worse.

You sir, are the problem, on the grounds of not offering a solution… and not even trying to find

one.

ED says: January 14, 2012 at 9:44 am

You have absolutely Zero understanding of Apple. And properly the same for Google.

Reply

ARTHUR says: January 13, 2012 at 7:27 pm

What Google did was not good. But the amount of information Google has on a person has nothing to

do with the criminal act they committed on Mocality. You ISP has just as much information if not more

on you then Google. Their knowledge spans across not just want you search on Google but what you

search on any engine, what sites you go to, time, dates, how long you stay on that site, ip address, ip

address associated with your online persona.

To clarify Google trying to steal business away using shady practices wrong, them collecting

information isn’t because that is the cost of using their services.

Reply

YUNIVERSE says: January 13, 2012 at 10:12 pm



isp has more info than google? That certainly is a positive look at Google.

Reply

SANDEEP DATTA says: January 14, 2012 at 3:10 am

This is not necessarily true all transactions conducted through the https (secure http) protocol are

opaque to the ISP.

Reply

DOC SHELDON says: January 14, 2012 at 11:00 pm

Alistair-

Yes, they have the potential for being very nasty. But that, in itself, isn’t grounds for conviction. Every

woman on the planet has the potential for being a prostitute, too.

Reading the transcript and listening to the recordings, it was obvious that the caller had little to no

familiarity with typical internet use, the moment they were forced to divert from their script.

My money would be on a mid to upper level manager in Kenya having built himself a tidy little racket

using Google resources. Should it have been detected long ago? Of course. But that doesn’t make

Google “evil” any more than it makes my mother a prostitute.

Reply

VITALIS says: January 13, 2012 at 9:03 am

Shocking and stupid. They are not the only ones though. Stefan can you categorically and publicly confirm that

no MIH property is involved in contacting the customers of your competitors in this way?

Reply

KIRAN says: January 13, 2012 at 9:29 am

Agree! Are you SURE no other MIH property has done this before.

Reply

LOY OKEZIE says: January 13, 2012 at 9:09 am

I’m not surprised. I’ve been a huge critic of Google and have almost always questioned their intentions and

strategy in Africa. With some more investigative journalism, we can all expose their EVIL deeds. Thanks for

this, Stefan!

Reply

NYISH says: January 13, 2012 at 9:14 am

Stepping on others to try and get on top, shame on google.

Reply



DENNIS says: January 13, 2012 at 9:21 am

Someone pinch me! Unto those to whom much is given much is expected, mocality and team ought to get

justice for this blatant mediocrity

Reply

ANTHONY TAI says: January 13, 2012 at 9:22 am

I am not surprised. Stefan, clearly Google Kenya has to prove existence. Their business policy is: cripple / kill

your competition. Period. Ruthless!! Even if an apology were to be given, damage will have already been

done. Pole

Reply

JOHN DOE says: January 13, 2012 at 9:22 am

Cant believe Mocality is still up.. how much more of Naspers money are you going to waste. Can believe

Koos hasnt killed this operation.

Reply

DOKTOR J says: January 13, 2012 at 2:19 pm

Hmmm, anonymous poster randomly speaking out against the blog poster and his company. Do I smell

a troll, or a Google Kenya employee?

Reply

GOOGLE PLAYS DIRTY IN KENYA — WHITEAFRICAN says: January 13, 2012 at 9:23 am

[...] is a damning post out by Stefan Magdalinski on some unsavory business practices being done by Google

Kenya against [...]

Reply

THEBIGBOSS says: January 13, 2012 at 9:27 am

Shame Google !! First, you kill ads website by launching Google Trader and now this !!! So you tried for years

to get local content for African into your sub-websites but because you failed to attract users, you decided to

steal content !!

I hope we will get a clear explanation by Google Kenya

Reply

BILLY says: January 13, 2012 at 9:31 am

As someone who has tremendously benefited from Mocality and esp Dealfish,in terms of advertising and

business growth,i am appalled with this,Google should have just asked for the info considering the amount

of revenue they get from dealfish,i mean anything you search for on google usually has dealfish/mocallity as

the premier result!!!

UTTER SHOCK!!!

Reply



RAEL says: January 13, 2012 at 9:36 am

Shame on you Google!!!!

Reply

JACK says: January 13, 2012 at 9:39 am

Goes to show the unscrupulous practices big corporates engage in! Remember BA vs Virgin Wars. In fact

there is a book on the same called Dirty Tricks: British Airways’ Secret War Against Virgin Atlantic

Reply

MMK says: January 13, 2012 at 9:41 am

Fraud of epic proportions. Someone should answer for this.

Great investigation by the way.

Question: Why didn’t you block the rouge IP address(es)?

Reply

JOB ALPHONES says: January 15, 2012 at 6:56 am

Am wondering too….. to set a trap is a perfect reason. We also monitor ip addresses accessing our

online directory site..so i wonder why mocality did not block them yet such an issue happening daily

leaves a clear footprint.

Anyway even if they want to take legal action its a Kenyan firm which did the dirty work with or without the

knowledge of google. That firm am sure has no financial strength to pay mocality in comparison to the big

fish google. Mocality’s trap just trapped a small fish and lots of publicity

Reply

MARTIN says: January 13, 2012 at 9:41 am

heehee stupid for Google to engage in such an affair with the understanding they have of the internet really!!!!

big ups to the mocality team!!!!!

Reply

COLMAN CARPENTER says: January 13, 2012 at 9:42 am

First of all let me say this is shocking, and I hope that the flagrant abuse of your data stops and you get

recompense for the damage done to our business.

I’d be wary of chucking accusations directly at Google without first ascertaining if it was Google themselves

who designed this strategy, or they simply outsourced it to another company without properly putting the

appropriate checks and measures in place to ensure it was fair and above board.

Google certainly need censuring, after all it’s their logo at the top of the page, but they may not be alone.

Good luck!

Reply



MIKI (@HALFTRICK) says: January 13, 2012 at 9:44 am

WHOA! That is seriously uncool. I hope you’ve taken this matter up with Google Headquarters (not Google

Kenya) ? Or will you be going the legal route?

Reply

NAIROBI PIE says: January 13, 2012 at 9:47 am

I cannot believe Google is doing this against a developing country! Am behind mocality by all means and I

suggest that you should put some Legal charges against them!

Reply

KIRAN says: January 13, 2012 at 9:47 am

….and here we go around in circles. start a list of who is scraping content from who?

google scrapes mocality

pigiame scrapes google trader

njorku scrapes dealfish

Reply

SCOTT VAN LOOY says: January 13, 2012 at 9:48 am

So they fraudulently claim to be working with you yet you believe the claim they’re google? Maybe they are,

maybe they’re not…did you investigate any further with your sting operation or simply hear the name “google”

and assume?

Reply

GORDONJCP says: January 13, 2012 at 10:01 am

I don’t know if you read the whole article, but did you notice how the second set of calls were correlated

with unusual activity from a range of IP addresses owned by Google?

Reply

SCOTT VAN LOOY says: January 13, 2012 at 10:26 am

And I don’t know if you’ve heard of the google global cache (GGC) that was implemented in Kenya in

the first half of last year?

Reply

ALARIC SNELL-PYM says: January 13, 2012 at 10:55 am

I may have misunderstood, but I thought from the blog post that the callers were selling GKBO

products (so if they’re not Google, they’re kind well-wishers giving Google some free marketing –

or, at best, some kind of reseller).

Either way, if people are committing fraud *claiming* to be from Google, it’s now up to Google to

show that they aren’t behind it (and engage in their own fraud investigation, doubtless

enthusiastically helped by Mocality).

Reply



STEFAN says: January 13, 2012 at 11:26 am

We haven’t posted the full audio. The transcript pdf is complete. Please read.

We see an access from Google in mountain view. we serve them a phone number that leads

to our call centre. Shortly after someone calls and tries to sell us a GKBO website.

If, in some way, I’ve got this wrong, and it’s a rogue affiliate, or something else, and the

IP/WHOIS is erroneous because of the Google global cache,

I’ve still got 9 recordings of people claiming to be from Google and signing them up for

Google’s product (and nothing else).

Stef


If it’s definitely Google’s product they’re selling, that’s pretty conclusive – at best, this might be

the work of a reseller of some kind. Either way, it’s definitely Google’s *problem* to some

extent, as they are *claiming* to be from Google.

The stuff about coming from Google-owned IP ranges is damning, too, but I wouldn’t be too

surprised if it’s not conclusive, as I suspect you can run proxies on Google Apps and so on.

WANJA says: January 13, 2012 at 9:53 am

This is very disappointing – what do Joe Mucheru and Olga Arara have to say? Has Mocality contacted them?

Reply

UNCLE DEMOTIVATOR says: January 13, 2012 at 9:55 am

Oh, dear… This is wrong on so many levels. It tops even case of Google profiting from illegal Olympic ticket

ads which was highlighted earlier this week.

Reply

ODWAR says: January 13, 2012 at 9:56 am

Thank God its proven, as a Mocality team member I have had really hard time explaining to business owners

what is happening since they get strange calls from this white lady from Google, I have been accusedc by the

businessmen contacted by Google of selling their info.this is absurd, can’t some action be taken legally?

Atleast for the pain I have gone thro!!!

Reply

DAVID INGRAM says: January 13, 2012 at 9:59 am

Shame on Google.

Reply



UNCOVERED: GOOGLE’S RUTHLESS ATTEMPT TO CRIPPLE

MOCALITY, ITS BUSINESS LISTINGS COMPETITION IN KENYA |

TECHLOY says: January 13, 2012 at 10:03 am

[...] the post, Mocality’s CEO, Stefan Magdalinski exposed the search giant’s unsavoury business [...]

Reply

ODWAR says: January 13, 2012 at 10:03 am

Infact am on my way to a meeting with a businessman contacted by Google five times to explain to him

what’s going on co he is confused!!!

Reply

THE 2012 GOOGLE CLUSTERFUCK COUNTDOWN | BARRY

ADAMS says: January 13, 2012 at 10:05 am

[...] scamming businesses Google’s ‘Getting Kenyan Businesses Online’ programme is caught red-handed

deceiving small [...]

Reply

YTHERA! (@YTHERA) says: January 13, 2012 at 10:15 am

Shocked but not too much. What more have they done to other businesses that we a re not aware of?

Reply

JOHN says: January 13, 2012 at 10:22 am

I’m surprised there are still people thinking Google is one of the “good guys”. I’ve always mistrusted Google

more than Microsoft, or any other IT company.

But I do wonder. Why is Google doing this particular thing? Google is all about making money — do they

really think they’ll make enough money out of this operation to make it worthwhile for them?

Reply


I’m not certain people are really about “Google being the good guys”… so much as “everybody else is so

much worse, comparatively”.

It can be easy to confuse the two concepts without a decade or two of getting completely jaded in this

wide and strange world.

Or maybe people believe Google to actually be good guys… I dunno… I just look at it like “Google at least

gives a reach around when they are anally reaming me, provided I help them in public… and I think

maybe one day, they might give a bit of spit for lube first if I ask them… and this makes them better than

the competition… how awesome Google is for this”… so eh, my opinion only makes sense on this matter

with a sufficient amount of jaded applied.

Reply

NJOROGE says: January 13, 2012 at 10:29 am



Huh, so what happened to do no evil and playing fair? Google- this is downright disgusting!

Reply

ANDREW says: January 13, 2012 at 10:31 am

Anything is possible from their wonder-tricksful geeks in India. Pls send a TOS violation report to Google

Head quarters via your attorney as the wouldn’t want to, in any way engage in such an ill hacking activity. I

think, Google got legit ways to challenge, and trying to eat up the competitions. Still keep watching and

guarding your territory!

Reply

OWINO says: January 13, 2012 at 10:33 am

Finally, more proof that google isn’t holy, why do people trust these people so much?

Reply

DAVE says: January 13, 2012 at 10:35 am

A horrific abuse of your data and your brand. Google should be ashamed, but I suspect they aren’t – they

simply don’t care about publishers or independent content producers any more.

Don’t give up, keep fighting them and make sure this gets plenty of press coverage. People need to see that

Google isn’t their friend, or even a search engine anymore.

Reply

THEMIZZLE says: January 13, 2012 at 10:37 am

Very Sad indeed. I hope they’re taking legal action against Google. This is unfair business practice

Reply

JUMAMOSI says: January 13, 2012 at 10:37 am

This is terrible. The American / international big business practices of “might is right”.

Reply

PARK says: January 13, 2012 at 10:42 am

Google must stop this game if they are to uphold their corporate ethics.

Reply

NJOROGE says: January 13, 2012 at 10:45 am

So- mocality should just go on and start offering business owners a site. It might not be the plan but hey-

google has done the marketing for you

Reply



BEN CHEGE NGUMI says: January 13, 2012 at 10:49 am

does anyone remember the tarsorrhaphy , mbzrxpgjys and hiybbprqag sting operation!

Reply


@KIRAN and others, the scraping isn’t the real issue. A company that makes data publicly available pretty

much has to live with the fact that it’ll be scraped, and build that into the business plans so it’s not a problem,

or is even an advantage in some way (more exposure!). And as Stefan says, if Google had just asked, they’d

probably have been given access to the database anyway.

The issue here is that Google seems to be making fraudulent claims…

Reply

MWIRIGI says: January 13, 2012 at 12:31 pm

I agree with you, putting data in the public domain has its risks, but the whole point of a directory after all

is to help people find businesses. Anyone from a potential customer to a fraudster can leaf through the

yellow pages and make some calls. Its a risk any business takes by listing in a directory.

It seems rather strange that Google Kenya would do this. The evidence is clear, but I wouldn’t rule out the

work of a reseller. The risk/reward trade off for Google doing this just doesn’t add up

Reply

HORIA DRAGOMIR says: January 13, 2012 at 10:59 am

I’m not defending Google. Keep that in mind when you read the rest of my comment.

Nobody gets a monopoly by being nice to everybody. Even if Schmidt himself approved this, it would not

surprise me.

100k times $10 a year is nice to have potentially, no? So you need to make sure your ROI is high. They seem

to be doing that by keeping the I part small.

What’s sadder still? People will probably forget all about this tomorrow, when it’s something else’s turn on

the internet.

Good luck!

Reply


I don’t think people are forgetting that…. I think people are just aware that Monopolies are anti-capitalistic

in nature. Most of the original writers on the ideals of Capitalism pretty much state that if a Monopoly was

even in danger of getting put in place, the system would no longer work.

Communism mostly came about from people going with the notion that Monopolies were unavoidable,

and just figuring out ways to work it into the system in the least harmful manner.

So yeah… they are not forgetting anything here… they know monopolies suck. They are also aware the

goal should not be, in the world of business, to get a monopoly… unless you are an omnicidal maniac. Its

like “to be the best human, simply kill off all other humans”… it is not how the system is designed to

work–or even a sane way to look at it.

Reply



GOOGLE RAIDED OUR BUSINESS DATABASE SAYS KENYAN

STARTUP says: January 13, 2012 at 11:05 am

[...] that it has been fraudulently attempting to muscle out a Kenyan local services startup. Mocality Kenya, a

business database company that uses paid crowdsourcing to flesh out its entries, discovered what [...]

Reply

SUSAN HALLAM says: January 13, 2012 at 11:08 am

Deceptive practice

Intellectual property theft

Unfair trading

The list just goes on.

I hope this gets the publicity it merits.

Thanks for taking the time and effort to document and publish your findings, and very best wishes.

Reply

SRIRAM says: January 13, 2012 at 11:23 am

have you tried contacting Google about this?

Reply

FRANCIS says: January 13, 2012 at 11:24 am

I wonder what Google has to say about this. Not good at all

Reply

MOHAMED says: January 13, 2012 at 11:25 am

the problem here isn’t Google using the data, the issue is the false claims they are giving about the relation

with Mocality. you should try and seek legal action, it would a significant milestone in this country

Reply

LIZ CHURCH says: January 13, 2012 at 11:27 am

I’m appalled. Google’s search engine has been less than satisfactory recently. I’ll give them the boot once

I’ve migrated my email.

Reply

MARK ROFE says: January 13, 2012 at 11:31 am

Wow, what an eye opener, makes you wonder what other dirty tactics they are using elsewhere.

Reply



JAMES says: January 13, 2012 at 11:33 am

How do we know this isnt a fraud pretending to be Google

Reply

ATHMAN MOHAMED says: January 13, 2012 at 11:38 am

if me were mocality and i had this much proof, i would sue and teach them a lesson.

Reply

AMY PARKS says: January 13, 2012 at 11:47 am

Please post a follow-up when you eventually (if ever) hear from a Mountain View based Googler. Evil indeed!

Reply

THE WEBCRAWLER says: January 13, 2012 at 11:49 am

The bigger they are the harder they fall. Google just enforced the stereotype of american multinationals

pushing third world countries as if they own them. market forces are much more dynamic than they think and

if history has taught us anything is that this initiative will flop. As a website developer i have officially boycotted

Google KBO… Hope all of you who are involved get run over by a bus…. repeatedly

Reply

CHRIS says: January 13, 2012 at 11:56 am

Be careful who you stand on on your way up the ladder, you usually meet them again on your way back down.

Reply

POSSICON says: January 13, 2012 at 12:00 pm

This is appaling! i really hope Google will make a public statement on this. Why would they claim to have a

relationship with you when they are not? Is the directive from Larry Page (survive by all means)? Is this the

best route they could have taken? Google av more questions answer!

Reply

GOOGLE, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING? – SPIFFTASTIC says: January 13, 2012 at 12:09 pm

[...] Google, what were you thinking? ҧ January 13th, 2012 ∞ Permalink [...]

Reply

SUPLAB says: January 13, 2012 at 12:10 pm

This is really shocking and bit extreme even for Google. And if Google has done it, legal steps need to be

taken.

Reply



PAUL WINKLER says: January 13, 2012 at 12:11 pm

Google: DO EVIL.

Reply

MIKE says: January 13, 2012 at 12:11 pm

Is this what vulture capitalism is all about?

Reply

FACING ANOTHER PR DISASTER: GOOGLE ACCUSED OF

FRAUDULENTLY UNDERMINING A KENYAN STARTUP |

TECHCRUNCH says: January 13, 2012 at 12:12 pm

[...] Google, what were you thinking?, asks Kenyan startup Mocality, which operates the country’s largest

online business directory. Mocality is accusing Google of knowingly engaging in fraudulent behavior to

undermine their business and grow theirs, after careful monitoring of Internet traffic and a successful sting

operation turned up some very interesting results. [...]

Reply

DIG says: January 13, 2012 at 12:17 pm

Considering that whoever called your sting operators lied about allegiance to Mocality, are you convinced they

aren’t lying about allegiance to Google?

Reply

LASZLO says: January 13, 2012 at 5:27 pm

I understand the evidence that was collected.. web logs aren’t very meaningful but the sales calls surely

explain what’s going on.. but does Google really have a motive to do this? It’s easy to blame the big evil

corporation sure.. and they do plenty to reinforce that.. but perhaps people have motive to smear Google.

Could this just be brand counterfeiting from a competitor? I can pretend to be Google and collect your

money all the same.. I might even deliver what I sold you..

-Laszlo

Reply

DIG says: January 13, 2012 at 5:45 pm

How do you know whoever did the sales calls wasn’t lying? Misappropriating Google’s and Mocality’s

trademarks?

Reply

EDUO says: January 13, 2012 at 10:53 pm

Mocality doesn’t need to know if it’s really from Google. They’re reporting what they’ve found and

how it *looks* like it’s from Google.

If it’s not from Google we can expect a reply and all will be cleared. It might all be a gigantic

coincidence where another company trying to jumpstart Google’s new business division in Kenya

is calling people up to pass them customers and then decides to outsource to India and keep up



the pretense that they’re google as well.

Remember: The big items are not the web server logs or the IP addresses. Those were the

detonators of the “investigation”. The problem is actually the calls and the claims made in those

calls by employees purportedly from Google and supposedly in an alliance with Mocality.

Of course, IPs can be faked. But defending that it’s possible to have a google IP without being

from Google falls apart when the people using that IP claim to be from google, offer to do

business with google and say they’re on google offices. Of course, they could be lying, but it’s a

very tortured exercise trying to come up with a reason for scammers to try and sell stuff for

someone else that they happen to look like as well.

Reply

JW says: January 14, 2012 at 11:49 am

Well, Google have now admitted it (as seen in various news articles), so…

Reply

KRISTA GROTHOFF says: January 13, 2012 at 12:17 pm

Simply awful. I urge everyone to take one or two painful days and migrate your Google services elsewhere. It

won’t change the fact that they already have your data, but it will at least make a statement.

Reply

GOOGLE’S KENYAN RIPOFF | ZIMBABWE TELEGRAPH says: January 13, 2012 at 12:18 pm

[...] Google, wh&#1072t w&#1077r&#1077 &#1091&#959&#965 thinking? [...]

Reply

ALEX MAINA says: January 13, 2012 at 12:20 pm

I feel for you Mocality. I’ve always told people that Google is a bad bad monopoly.

If this is Google doing so shame on them. I got a call from India last week in our office telling us to join the

“free” kbo sites last week too. I asked the guy to do enough research to realise that all our sites are hosted by

us and don’t require free hosting.

If I had known google was behind this, I would have seriously run a number of the fellow.

Google is evil!

Reply

CAXTON says: January 13, 2012 at 12:20 pm

Trust no one and by the way that is business premise worldwide.Even the Microsoft and apple had wars like

this ones of yours.

Reply

DAN says: January 13, 2012 at 12:21 pm



Im getting rid of chrome in protest. come on people join me in this boycott, only way to get their attention is to

hurt their business. before you know it it will be your business someone else is attacking mercilessly

Reply



TROLWEBDESIGN says: January 13, 2012 at 12:27 pm





Reply

NANAWIREKO says: January 13, 2012 at 12:28 pm

I just so wish you could sue Google. That would send a message across!

Reply


FRAUDULENTLY UNDERMINING A KENYAN STARTUP | TECH

NEWS AGGREGATOR says: January 13, 2012 at 12:29 pm





Reply

KERMONK says: January 13, 2012 at 12:29 pm

Oh get a grip – obviously this isn’t “Google” – its a few idiots who work out there in the boondogs.

Reply

PROT says: January 13, 2012 at 2:43 pm

They explain that the connection is coming from an IP in a range allocated to Google Headquarters in

Mountain View, California.

Reply

REQUISITEDILIGENCE says: January 14, 2012 at 4:29 am

Kermonk, you need to read this more clearly. This was an excelllent job of cyber sleuthing and does point

a finger at Google. I think the blog is clear enough to be said too be raising the question and not

concluding that Google itself is guilty. That, however, doesn’t mean it isn’t a rogue entity within or without

Google perpetrating the unethical activity. It would be difficult to understand how Google could fall prey to

such activity within their own camp. They should be among the world’s best at monitoring and eliminating

such behavior. I suspect this will be found to be a clever but criminal outside entity. It will be interesting to

watch this story unfold..

Reply



HENRY SIXTH says: January 13, 2012 at 12:30 pm

OMG the IPs all come from “Google HQ” ! Except, only the second time around.

Ever heard of Google Cache ?

It looks like Indians have, unlike the other Kenyans who try to rip off the businesses by convincing them that

they are Google, or a Google partner…

Reply

I DON'T LIKE GOOGLE ANYMORE says: January 13, 2012 at 12:32 pm

[...] I read this interesting and in-depth story where Google crawled data from Mocality, a small Kenyan

company publishing an online Kenya business [...]

Reply

LARRY PAGE says: January 13, 2012 at 12:33 pm

Ha ha HA! Geez the Kenyan spam and scam queens get handed their arses! How funny. Maybe next time you

and your african cohorts who engage in systematic spam, email attacks and all sorts of fraud will think twice

before entering the land of the Pure.

Larry

Reply

BRIAN LONGWE says: January 13, 2012 at 2:34 pm

I sincerely hope that this comment came from an impostor and not from the real Larry Page. This kind of

bigotist comment is totally unacceptable. “Kenyan spam and scam queens”? Take this isht somewhere

else!

Reply

IRENE says: January 13, 2012 at 12:41 pm

Google what do you have to say for yourselves???

…

…

…

…er…

Nothing???

I thought so too!! Shame on you!!!

Reply

GEOFREY says: January 13, 2012 at 12:42 pm

oh dear.

Reply



KRANTENKOPPEN TECH says: January 13, 2012 at 12:45 pm







Reply

IS GOOGLE KENYA PLAYING DIRTY WITH MOCALITY? «

KENYANDEVELOPER says: January 13, 2012 at 12:50 pm

[...] Read the full story posted by Stefan on the Mocality blog here. [...]

Reply

JAKE WAHOME says: January 13, 2012 at 12:53 pm

Appalling that such a big corporation can resort to such underhand and illegal tactics. Reeks of gutter tricks…

I owe my very first steps in online business to Mocality. You guys have designed a solution that is above all

comprehensive and unique. What Google is trying is reprehensible.

Reply

FACEBOOK ONLINE » FACING ANOTHER PR DISASTER:

GOOGLE ACCUSED OF FRAUDULENTLY UNDERMINING A

KENYAN STARTUP says: January 13, 2012 at 1:01 pm

[...] A Kenyan Startup • Posted by matt the rat • 13 January, 2012 • (0) Comment Google, what were you

thinking?, asks Kenyan startup Mocality, which operates the country’s largest online business [...]

Reply

GOOGLE ALLEGEDLY SCRAPING CONTENT FROM MOCALITY

says: January 13, 2012 at 1:03 pm

[...] this post by Stefan Medalinski the CEO of Mocality, what they are practicing is plain scraping and bait and

[...]

Reply

GANESH says: January 13, 2012 at 1:03 pm

I am a fan of Google. This is completely unacceptable and ‘evil’ from Google. If Google is indeed at fault it

should do three things

1. Make good any loss to you up until now

2. Give you guys free ad space for sometime

3. Launch investigation across the world for any similar practices across the world

I hope Google comes out clearly on this, like they did recently for the chrome issue

Reply

SPNJOROGE says: January 13, 2012 at 1:05 pm

stunningly unethical and criminal

Reply



GOOGLE KAN GODT GØRE ONDE TING | MATHIAS

KIRKEGAARD'S BLOG says: January 13, 2012 at 1:07 pm

[...] slogan er “Don’t be evil”, men i en blogpost fra det kenyanske firma Mocality beskriver de, hvordan de fik

mærkelige henvendelser fra deres kunder. De er en slags kenyansk [...]

Reply

CURTIS WILCOX says: January 13, 2012 at 1:08 pm

If you search online for the IP address that WHOIS says belongs to Google, you’ll find evidence that the IP is

used in India (same place as the call center). The WHOIS record lists Mountain View, CA only because that’s

where Google’s headquarters are. Previous activity from that IP includes reviewing and suspending blogs on

Blogger that are thought to be nothing but spam.

Clearly there is bad behavior going on here but it could easily only involve staff at Google Africa and GKBO. It

wouldn’t even have to be many people at Google Africa, just someone in a position to requisition of the

services of the Google operation in India to do the scraping and calling. The people in India probably don’t

know anything about the fraudulence of what they’re tasked to do.

Reply

CHUCKS says: January 13, 2012 at 1:15 pm

Guys, this is just a cyber espionage thingy, the only issue is that the guys who were doing it, dint know how to

do it, and that’s why it was easy to catch them. This happens everywhere especially in Middle East, Europe

and America. This was just an amateur attack.

Reply

HONEST ABE says: January 13, 2012 at 1:19 pm

Hire a US law firm immediately. I’m not a fan of lawsuits, but in this case it is clearly required to set a

precedent.

This well recorded effort to steal and deceive is worth millions. Google has stolen your database, lied about a

partnership, and also lied about your business tactics to all of your customers. Your business and customers

deserve better.

Well done on the detective work.

Reply

AMY PARKS says: January 13, 2012 at 1:21 pm

@stefan: Has anyone from Google contacted you yet? or are you waiting on them to release a statement like

the rest of us?

Reply

SAMSON says: January 13, 2012 at 1:22 pm

Very good. So now, almighty Google now turned EVIL!!! SHAME on Google. Google never listen to complaints

and never respond to COMMENTS because they are always busy SCRAPPING and SCAMMING other sites.

Reply



BEN ACHESON says: January 13, 2012 at 1:23 pm

Google, wake up. You need to react to this as a matter of urgency to save your brand.

Reply

KOBBY OWUSU says: January 13, 2012 at 1:24 pm

As i started reading I also assumed, rogue employee or GKBO partner company or something BUT it seems

it was deliberate.

Is mocality considering retaining legal counsel (lawyers are alsways bad for biz though) to take some form of

LEGAL recourse?

It sucks that your business, like so many worldwide has to depend on Google for advertising revenue…. BUT

we have all see cases where two partners fight over a specific issue and still collaborate on others, ala Apple

vrs Samsung, so if they really mean to make amends you can take legal action and still use AdSense without

any issues.

On the other hand, as a positive, your biz is SO GOOD, Google wants to rip you off. You beat the worldwide

info aggregator in the hottest segement of the market, LOCAL SEARCH… Waiting for their response….

Reply

DIGITAL VISION EAST AFRICA says: January 13, 2012 at 1:25 pm

How is this even possible? Gosh, How can google authorise the mining and reselling ( by ‘hook and crook’)

their services and KBO in particular to Mocality users?

Again, even pretending to be in partnership with Mocality is wrong!

Where is the media so that google can respond to this?

I want to see how this develops so that we are assured that local content apps like mocality will be respected

and terms of use too

Would be good to get an official response from google kenya and google ca

Reply

CHRISTINE says: January 13, 2012 at 1:26 pm

I hate that they changed their strategy instead of stopping when they were caught and I love that you kept on

going when you seemed to hit a brick wall in your investigation.

Reply

ALADIN says: January 13, 2012 at 1:34 pm

you basically have a corrupt leader in JM in Kenya

Reply

GOOGLE’S PLAN TO KILL MOCALITY, A BUSINESS LISTING

COMPETITOR IN KENYA | BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY |

INTERNET | SOCIAL MEDIA NEWS says: January 13, 2012 at 1:34 pm

[...] Post by Stefan Magdalinski Via mocality [...]

Reply



GOOGLE’S KENYAN RIPOFF says: January 13, 2012 at 1:36 pm

[...] Google, what were you thinking? [...]

Reply

DARTHLUKAN says: January 13, 2012 at 1:37 pm

I’m more apt to believe that someone registered their IP Gateway with false address and company info (as is

very common nowadays) by using Google’s publicly available information than I am to believe that a massive

corporation like Google, who already rules the search market, would go after, no offense, small potatoes in a

developing nation. Seriously, what do they have to gain?

If this is true, shame on them. If not, those are some clever spammers/phishers and hopefully they get

caught.

Let’s not all drop the “innocent until proven guilty” principle just because of what it appears to be, regardless

of how bad.

Just my two cents.

Reply

KORNA says: January 13, 2012 at 2:18 pm

Buddy, care to explain the logic of scammers hawking a Google product? How would they benefit?

Reply

KB says: January 13, 2012 at 4:52 pm

Easy, they dupe the person on the other end into giving financial information because they think they

are giving it to a reputable company, and then identity theft is complete. I get spam all the time that is

supposedly from Rolex selling me genuine Rolex watches. I somehow doubt that Rolex is in the

business of spamming to boost sales.

Reply

CYBIK says: January 13, 2012 at 4:53 pm

Wouldn’t benefit anyone, but that’s the point. Smearing Google might be the objective here.

Reply

JON says: January 13, 2012 at 1:40 pm

I strongly doubt that google is behind these things. It could be that these guys were using some techniques

to cover their identity… Google would _never_ do this

Reply

LUCIA says: January 13, 2012 at 1:42 pm

OMG!!!!! We received a call on the office line (the one listed on Mocality) from India stating that they were

offering website services. I think the guy on phone was Deepak or something (it sounded almost like a scam)



the guy said he was from Google Kenya blah blah, we refused the offer as we already have a site. Then few

days ago I was just searching our page when I stumbled upon our site on .kbo.co.ke site…I mailed them n

told them to take it down! aaaaaaaarg!!!!!!

Reply

PHIL says: January 13, 2012 at 1:45 pm

May be this matter can be settled in a civil suit or through alternative dispute resolution. Let our courts show

who is guilty and who is not.

Anyway if Google caused Mocality any damage, and it is really tthem, then that is not a smart move.

Reply

COELMAY says: January 13, 2012 at 1:48 pm

You have done an absolutely outstanding job in analysing your server data, setting up a sting and uncovering

the deceptive operation undertaken against you and the businesses on your site.

I am very interested to see what Google has to say about this.

Reply

MUCHNO says: January 13, 2012 at 1:49 pm

I’m really not surprised as this stinks of something a particular relatively new Google employee would have

cooked up to try to justify their relatively new senior posting. Having worked with this individual (elsewhere –

prior to their joining Google), I learnt just how evil-to-the-core they are despite the image they publicly portray. I

just knew that this evil would continue wherever they went… seems they’re dragging a global icon into their

dubious “win-at-all-costs” (lack of) business etiquette.

Reply

OMOSH says: January 14, 2012 at 8:31 am

Read Olga Arara……..

Reply


Add Paul Kukubo to the mix….

Reply


I said it, Olga was involved in the scam, trying to make money any way she can. Forgot others

interests. Next should be head of Kenya ICT Board. They were in cohorts.

Reply

JAMAALUDEEN KHAN says: January 13, 2012 at 1:49 pm



Google should really be ashamed of themselves. And this also shows that even Google is not infallibly

smart, because they got caught!

Reply

GOOGLE’S DO NO EVIL GETS EXPOSED! - MOBILITY DIGEST


[...] Source: Google What Were You Thinking [...]

Reply

BRETT LOWE says: January 13, 2012 at 2:03 pm

Find this quite amazing though very believalble. I was waiting for you to clarify that it was someone claiming to

be from Google – but there the page logs are.. Well caught!

Reply

MARSHA says: January 13, 2012 at 2:03 pm

some how I’m not really surprised. Google has a bad reputation the world over and they have landed in Africa

with a bang. They believe Africans are dumb and can easily be take advantage of.

Shame on you big G

Reply

ANALYTICS, BACK, BARN, BUILDING, BUYING, CALL,

CHARACTER, CHARGE, COUPLE, DIFFERENCE, KEYWORD,

MOVE, PERMISSION, PRICE, PROMOTION, SOMEONE, SORT,

THING, WASN, WORKING - WAS GOOGLE CAUGHT IN A STING

OPERATION IN KENYA? - SEO says: January 13, 2012 at 2:05 pm

[...] to this post, Google was caught scraping Mocality, calling the listed businesses, soliciting that they move

to [...]

Reply

@THEMUMBI says: January 13, 2012 at 2:08 pm

Google Kenya’s work on skimming off Mocality is just pathetic on all 76 levels of patheticness! Ushering in a

“new level” in Kenya’s Tech foray.. “vulture capitalism”. They say the same thing about Vultures as they do

about Fire.. Fight like with like.

Reply

GOOGLE RIPS OFF KENYAN START-UP BUSINESS « HABARI ZA

NYUMBANI–ON JAMBONEWSPOT.COM says: January 13, 2012 at 2:11 pm

[...] Google, what were you thinking?(Thanks, Stef!) [...]

Reply

ILYA ZVEREV says: January 13, 2012 at 2:17 pm

Oh wow. Thanks for this investigation, and good look to you.



Reply

STEPHEN says: January 13, 2012 at 2:28 pm

I think I received a similar call and someone from google kenya costed me a lot. Mocality kindly take some

action

Reply

PSYX says: January 13, 2012 at 2:29 pm

Worthy of RTing and crowdsourcing angry mob duties. /picks up pitchfork.

Reply

WAS GOOGLE CAUGHT IN A STING OPERATION IN KENYA? «

MAKE YOUR MONEY « MAKE YOUR MONEY ONLINE says: January 13, 2012 at 2:30 pm


to [...]

Reply

ANONYMOUS says: January 13, 2012 at 2:31 pm

Honestly, i do not see anything here that links Google to your woes.

Take it up with them and settle it once and for all.

Reply

GOOGLE WAS CAUGHT SCRAPING DATA FROM A KENYAN

STARTUP AND TELLING LIES ABOUT THE STARTUP TO ITS

CUSTOMERS (GOOG) | TECHDIEM.COM says: January 13, 2012 at 2:37 pm

[...] Kenyan startup Mocality conducted a relatively elaborate sting to catch Google scraping results from its

database of local businesses. Mocality CEO Stefan Magdalinski wrote up the full results on its blog. [...]

Reply

ANONEEMOUSE says: January 13, 2012 at 2:45 pm

Hard to believe. Without the clear transition to their Indian call center I’d have likely believed it was either a

rouge local leader or someone impersonating GOOGLE credentials. With that transition, however, this looks

pretty damming. IANAL, but would wager this is illegal for a US company under US laws.

Reply

DAN says: January 13, 2012 at 2:45 pm

MIH does the same thing on a small scale! Am not saying Google is right but this is the bare knuckles kind of

business of the day. If you put your website up, expect every ruthless thing to happen to it. If you beleive its out

of this world and illegal, you go to court! Is Mocality gone to court…? Aks yourself;;

Reply



ROBERT says: January 13, 2012 at 2:47 pm

Google!!!!! Ahem! You need to be laid! Be responsible… Great piece Stefan Magdalinski…Jicho pevu pap!

Reply

HENNING says: January 13, 2012 at 2:48 pm

Are you using a free Google API to push the business on the map?

Maybe you should change the provider and switch to bing or Nokia maps.

Henning

Reply

WILLIAM KOMU NGURE says: January 13, 2012 at 2:52 pm

By the way I have registered my business with Mocality and I got that call from a strange number.

Reply

JOSEMBI says: January 13, 2012 at 3:06 pm

“If google wanted this information why didn’t they just ask?”

Honestly, had they asked would you just give them? They hacked into your d-base and now sniffed all your

data and started contacting your clients?

When you realized this you didn’t handle it well and so they transfered their dirty work beyond your area of

jurisdiction….how will you sue someone in India?

Firstly, if mocality was in a place with stringent privacy laws, you would have lost a lot of clients or would be

nursing law suits cuz think of it, if google was the worst guy, they would have done worse with the data they

stole.

So mocality, please protect your data with good firewalls and please have a 24/7 qualified IT stuff to monitor

your servers and spare us your whining.

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PAUL THOMAS says: January 13, 2012 at 4:23 pm

hi Josembi,

I think you might need to read Stefan’s article again. The database wasn’t hacked at all. Telemarketers

where simply visiting Mocality and contacting the businesses that are listed on the web directory, that’s

all. You could do the same to any online business directory.

The difference here is that many Kenyan businesses are new to the Internet and might be easy prey. If

this was happening in a country saturated with online directories the scam would fall over in a day. This

problem does not affect businesses listings or detract from the service Mocality offers. It just means that if

someone from Google calls your business … hang up! It’s really that simple!

I hope this answer gives you a bit more confidence in Mocality. By the way, I’m in Australia and I’m not

associated with Mocality or Google. I do have friends from Kenya (Hi Mwende and Carol), and I think Africa

is the most awesome place on Earth!

Cheers,

Paul

Reply



SHAWN PAUL says: January 17, 2012 at 8:32 pm

Paul,

It could have been a lesser evil if they stopped at getting the details from the directory. But they went

ahead to lie about their relationship with Mocality.

Reply

GIOVANNI says: January 13, 2012 at 5:16 pm

JOSEMBI, quite the comment! Very funny.. (in a lame way).

Reply

CARECA CASAGRANDE says: January 13, 2012 at 3:07 pm

Shame shame shame…. Actually “DON’T BE EVIL” means define where evil is and stop just short of being

it…. :O

Reply

EOAI says: January 13, 2012 at 3:08 pm

Geez, I mean Google has to pick on the little fish when they could have easily automated or had the Google

Army create a business directory? It seems like Google has no shame anymore!

Reply

WAS GOOGLE CAUGHT IN A STING OPERATION IN KENYA? |

INFINITE BACKLINKS BLOG says: January 13, 2012 at 3:09 pm


to [...]

Reply

BOB says: January 13, 2012 at 3:10 pm

Incredible how misinformed and technologically absurd the comment posters here are.

Reply



BLOGGER05 says: January 13, 2012 at 3:11 pm





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MARIO says: January 13, 2012 at 3:12 pm

Do no evil Google. Shame shame shame. Now we need to hear from them.

Reply

KIBET says: January 13, 2012 at 3:13 pm

It just doesn’t add up as to why Google would try such stunts knowing the repercussions of such actions if

someone finds out and it goes public. A possible explanation to this is a bunch of script kiddies who thought

that they’d be able to use Google’s GKBO service to try and make some quick shillings by calling up

business owners whom they got their contacts from Mocality. Think of it as using tumblr to create blogs for

businesses by targeting business owners who probably don’t know that creating a tumblr account is free.

You’d ask what I’m I driving at? The second IP that showed a user agent from Google’s servers was crawling

mocality could have just been a bunch of script kiddies trying to act smart by spoofing the IP address to look

like it was coming from Google’s servers. It could be as easy as using google translate as a proxy. Google

‘spoof google bot’ and you’d get a ton of places to start.

On the other hand, if all this is true and it was due to an overambitious Google Kenya employee, then Mocality

are onto something here. But its surprising to hear people say that they are surprised that Google is not

holding to their “Don’t be evil” mantra. All you need to do is check out the “Criticism of google” page on

wikipedia and do some research based on what’s listed there.

Waiting to see how all this unfolds.

Reply

SHAWN PAUL says: January 17, 2012 at 8:54 pm

KIBET,

Google has already apologized to Mocality. Doesn’t this mean they are guilty?

Reply

WAS GOOGLE CAUGHT IN A STING OPERATION IN KENYA? says: January 13, 2012 at 3:16 pm


to [...]

Reply

CARTIER says: January 13, 2012 at 3:17 pm

My pals and i were talking of how google was killing small online business in Kenya and now this. I didn’t

know they were this desperate.

Reply

DOES “DO NO EVIL” INCLUDE NOT LYING TO GET BUSINESS? |

HACKING FOR CHRIST says: January 13, 2012 at 3:19 pm

[...] Here is the story of representatives of Google systematically lying about their relationship with another

company (whose public directory they were using to get contacts) in order to get business. Stefan

Magdalinski (who I have met a couple of times) has amassed a conclusive portfolio of evidence, including

taped phone conversations, of a persistent campaign of such lies. [...]

Reply



MICHAEL TSAI - BLOG - GOOGLE says: January 13, 2012 at 3:19 pm

[...] Mocality (via Robin Wauters): Since October, Google’s GKBO appears to have been systematically

accessing Mocality’s database and attempting to sell their competing product to our business owners. They

have been telling untruths about their relationship with us, and about our business practices, in order to do

so. As of January 11th, nearly 30% of our database has apparently been contacted. [...]

Reply

GOOGLE, ¿EN QUÉ ESTABAS PENSANDO? [EN] says: January 13, 2012 at 3:20 pm

[...] "CRITEO-300×250", 300, 250); 1 meneos Google, ¿en qué estabas pensando? [EN]

blog.mocality.co.ke/2012/01/13/google-what-were-you-think… por Pecinejo hace [...]

Reply

SERGEY BRIN says: January 13, 2012 at 3:24 pm

Well i guess that’s only a small market, we can always close the kenyan office and go on to uganda or

tanzania or whatever country

Reply

PAUL THOMAS says: January 13, 2012 at 3:26 pm

I smell a huge rat and it’s not wearing a Google badge. I think we need to be careful what is said in these

early days. Finger pointing without thorough investigation is useless.

Anything is possible with IP spoofing, malware and other malicious attacks. A small insignificant file could be

sitting undetected on a server, posting requests to another server. The originating request will look as though

it was made from the host. If you are going to impersonate Google you had better make sure you do a good

job. It looks as though these thieves almost succeeded.

Watching the amount of traffic to and from Google’s servers would make your head pop. Finding unusual

requests would be like finding a needle in a haystack.

One thing for sure. If any payments were made by an unsuspecting business there will be a money trail that

leads right to the front door of those responsible. One good thing that has come from this is Mocality’s solid

stance in support of their stakeholders, peers and customers. What a great organisation and business

model.

Whatever the outcome for the bad guys, I can assure you this will only bolster Mocality’s position as an

outstanding organisation. If my business was in Kenya I would be signing up with them first thing in the

morning!

I wish you all the best in this trying time Stefan!

Best regards,

Paul

Reply


FRAUDULENTLY UNDERMINING A KENYAN STARTUP says: January 13, 2012 at 3:28 pm





Reply



GA says: January 13, 2012 at 3:29 pm

74.125.63.33 = Hyderabad in India. Google? Yeah right. You’ve just been scammed. You’re in Kenya…

Reply

GOOGLE KENYA ‘INVESTIGATING’ MOCALITY RIPOFF CLAIMS


[...] the morning. But today, it did. Stefan Magdalinski called me around 10am and asked me to check the

Mocality blog. He’s the GM, E-Commerce, Sub-Saharan Africa for MIH (it’s parent company also owns [...]

Reply

ANDY says: January 13, 2012 at 3:32 pm

This is very bad. Google strategy in Africa has been far from innovative.

Reply

DAVID says: January 13, 2012 at 3:33 pm

pole sana…but good job exposing them do not stop….expose them…to the core…put this information

everywehere and go to the media… we will boycott their products if necessary…

Reply

DON’T BE EVIL – GOOGLE CAUSING A STIR IN KENYA | SELL

MORE says: January 13, 2012 at 3:34 pm

[...] 13th – unlucky for some? I read a great article today, written on the Mocality blog about some possibly very

underhand behaviour on behalf of Google in [...]

Reply

K.J. says: January 13, 2012 at 3:35 pm

Read . Shared.

Reply


SEO TRAFFIC « SEO TRAFFIC says: January 13, 2012 at 3:37 pm


to [...]

Reply

GOOGLE ATACA EMPRESA NO QUÉNIA? | PCGUIA says: January 13, 2012 at 3:37 pm

[...] o blog de uma empresa queniana chamada Mocality que criou uma base de dados de empresas do país

e que usa um sistema de crowsourcing para [...]

Reply



OMOSH says: January 13, 2012 at 3:38 pm

SHAME on GOOGLE. But most importantly on KICT Board..

Is this the way to get hits onto your initiatives. At least be more creative & spend some of the money from

donors in a more constructive way. This is corruption. How it works.

1. Donors give money for some project

2. Crocks (someone(s) high up at K-ICT Board & someone(s) high up at Google), set up a BPO.

3. Funds go to employ staff & resources.

4. Conned Kenyans, sign up to service, list like crazy.

5. Stats show all is going well.

6. Donors told dummy project doing well. Invoiced at inflated rates & requested for more funds as business

is doing well.

7. Money pocketed.

8. Years (maybe months) down project fails & cancelled as there is no fall back plan

Why can’t those tasked with public services provide those services without getting kickbacks & self interest?

Mocality take this fight to the END!!!!

Reply


I said it, Olga was involved in the scam, trying to make money any way she can. Forgot others interests.

Next should be head of Kenya ICT Board. They were in cohorts…

Reply

PRATEEK says: January 13, 2012 at 3:38 pm

Horrible, horrible, shameful. As an Indian I am really ashamed this was also outsourced to my country. Hope

Google has stopped this stinking practice with you now.

Reply

GOOGLE ATACA EMPRESA NO QUÉNIA? | PT GADGETS says: January 13, 2012 at 3:44 pm

[...] o blog de uma empresa queniana chamada Mocality que criou uma base de dados de empresas do país

e que usa um sistema de crowsourcing para [...]

Reply

GOOGLE, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING? ← MOCALITY KENYA |

ANSALDO COMPUTING says: January 13, 2012 at 3:47 pm

[...] Google, what were you thinking? ← Mocality Kenya. TwitterDiggFacebookDeliciousStumbleUpon [...]

Reply

GOOGLE WAS CAUGHT SCRAPING DATA FROM A KENYAN

STARTUP AND TELLING LIES ABOUT THE STARTUP TO ITS

CUSTOMERS (GOOG) « INVESTMENT WATCH BLOG – 2012 says: January 13, 2012 at 3:50 pm

[...] Kenyan startup Mocality conducted a relatively elaborate sting to catch Google scraping results from its

database of local businesses. Mocality CEO Stefan Magdalinski wrote up the full results on its blog. [...]

Reply



CHIBBONTA CHILALA says: January 13, 2012 at 3:57 pm

Its ugly how the IT is being abused in the world to an extent where you are scared to open up for any unknown

mail. Its the world developing its good and bad, where good is breeding bad things breed too, make a bullet

and bullet proof to counter such thefts of innovation. The teams in the big organisation run out of ideas and

copy other versions before you know it the CEO is in court just because of employees who want to score

marks. Lets all try to be innovative but not steal to get support on the ideas which aint yours.

Lastly lets all beware of who you share info with.

Reply

WEBSITE DESIGN says: January 13, 2012 at 4:04 pm

Not sure what kind of laws you have in Kenya, but it sounds to me like you could take them to court and sue

for all kinds of damages!

Reply

ROGER ELLMAN says: January 13, 2012 at 4:05 pm

I await a reply from Mountain view. This can be put right. I expect it will be.

Reply

CALVIN KLEIN says: January 13, 2012 at 4:17 pm

I have always asked where is the fairness. Google puts google trader on top of search results while mocality

have to buy google ads to be visible.

If this happened in the west google would be investigated for abuse of market position, but this is Africa

where corporations get away with bullying.

Reply

KENYAN STARTUP CLAIMS GOOGLE ‘SCALPED’ ITS DATA AFTER

STAGING A STING | ZIMBABWE TELEGRAPH says: January 13, 2012 at 4:19 pm

[...] th&#1077 remarkable claim m&#1072&#1281&#1077 b&#1091 Stefan Magdalinski &#959f startup [...]

Reply

GOOGLE FRAUD OR ANOTHER KENYAN SCAM? | JONATHAN

JETER - UI EXPERT & FRONT-END WEB DEVELOPER says: January 13, 2012 at 4:23 pm

[...] and finding out what was going on and even includes a transcript of the fraudulent calls on its blog.

Apparently, someone identifying themselves as Google Kenya is trying to sell web sites to [...]

Reply

MIKAL says: January 13, 2012 at 4:31 pm

This is a major lawsuit waiting to happen. On behalf of Kenya and the rest of the world, make it so, mocality.

Reply



JON R. CORTRIGHT says: January 13, 2012 at 4:33 pm

Be careful everyone, jumping to conclusions and vilifying big G without the full investigation might make you

look very stupid later. As has been mentioned above, spoofing and other techniques could be responsible. A

lot of people have been posting “but why would the culprits be pushing a Google product then? What profit for

them?” and the answer is pretty obvious: they weren’t out to directly profit but probably rather to smear Google

and take them down a few pegs. Don’t get me wrong, I am not a Google fanboi (completely… I do prefer them

to most other alternatives however, in the interest of full disclosure) and I am not completely discounting that

is MIGHT actually originate from within the Google empire, but… Google isn’t just Larry and Sergei anymore.

Saying “Google is evil after all!” is taking a broad brush to a bunch of good people, the “few bad apples”

metaphor. It is very possible that there were a few evil Google employees (or even contractors… even if you

take that route, if they were working via Google, then they ARE Google) but I still wouldn’t base my overall

opinion of their entire company on one single (admittedly really really horrid) incident. Any more than I wold no

longer buy a Microsoft product after they foisted Windows ME onto the public (“Microsoft, what were YOU

thinking!”).

Take it all in context, Google overall is not evil, it *looks* as if some Google employees might have been,

maybe, if it doesn’t turn out to be a spoofing situation. All in all, Google has a black eye.

And in the interest of fair play, for those conspiracy theorists: Has anyone considered the possibility (I

personally doubt it, but…) that MAYBE Mocality could possibly have falsely generated these “logs” and this

whole thing is a play to generate sympathy and positive vibes for their product? Or maybe cash in on a huge

(HUUUUGE) payout from big G? Yeah, not bloody likely, but still… it IS a possibility.

I too am looking forward to seeing how this all plays out!

Reply

GOOGLE KENYA’S MOTTO: DO <STRIKE>NO</STRIKE> EVIL «

QUOTULATIOUSNESS says: January 13, 2012 at 4:41 pm

[...] at Google has some explaining to [...]

Reply

ALEX MAINA says: January 13, 2012 at 4:42 pm

Just like they paid to have their chrome ap on websites, they will send their so called supporters here to villify

mocality.

Mocality, you are doing Kenya proud (even though you are south african..lol). this Google menace has to be

tamed and I hope that you sue them for everything they’ve got.

I have a few of my friends who were called by this beast and we all thought it was a scam. Turns out that Big

G (remember that chewing gum), is made of gum…stretching the truth all the way. My goodness, Big G even

scaps content? I thought they banned some SEO companies for that.

Let the West understand that Kenyans are not to be taken lightly with apps. We aren’t easily conned either.

After living with Kenyan politicians, anything that Google says after this should be and will be taken with a

pinch of salt by all Kenyans.

Let them take their Big G somewhere else, we shall use Mocality for our searches.

Reply

STEFAN MAGDALINSKI (FOUNDER / CEO OF MOCALITY IN

KENYA) HAS SOME QUESTIONS FOR GOOGLE | LINKED IN NEWS

@ ONLINE INTERNET WEB NETWORK says: January 13, 2012 at 4:49 pm

[...] Google, what were you thinking? I moved to Africa from the UK 30 months ago to be CEO of Mocality.

When I moved, Kenya’s reputation as a corrupt place to do business made me nervous. I’ve been very

happily surprised- until this point, I’ve not done business with any company here that was not completely

honestly conducted. It is important for global businesses to adapt to local cultural practice, but ethics are an

invariant. As a admirer of Google’s usually bold ethical stance around the world, to find those principles are



not applied in Kenya is simply… saddening. [...]

Reply

STEFAN MAGDALINSKI (FOUNDER / CEO OF MOCALITY IN

KENYA) HAS SOME QUESTIONS FOR GOOGLE | BEST OF

POPULAR ONLINE COMMUNITY FORUM says: January 13, 2012 at 4:49 pm

[...] Google, what were you thinking? I moved to Africa from the UK 30 months ago to be CEO of Mocality.

When I moved, Kenya’s reputation as a corrupt place to do business made me nervous. I’ve been very

happily surprised- until this point, I’ve not done business with any company here that was not completely

honestly conducted. It is important for global businesses to adapt to local cultural practice, but ethics are an

invariant. As a admirer of Google’s usually bold ethical stance around the world, to find those principles are

not applied in Kenya is simply… saddening. [...]

Reply

SKYLAR BOWKER says: January 13, 2012 at 5:03 pm

It’s beyond distasteful to see a large conglomerate abusing it’s power against this sort of company. Keep

plugging away guys, this won’t go down quietly.

Reply



TXTJIVE.COM says: January 13, 2012 at 5:04 pm





Reply

JULIA says: January 13, 2012 at 5:09 pm

Oh and also, I forgot to mention… There a number of scams originating from India, where someone cold-

calls and claims to be from Microsoft, and is selling By stating repeatedly that they represent “Microsoft” or

“Google” in this case, it gives an impression of legitimacy. This is an old old old confidence trick.

Reply

RENATO says: January 13, 2012 at 5:13 pm

I am stunned…

Reply

MARK says: January 13, 2012 at 5:16 pm

From the language used by this supposed google employee I highly doubt this is sanctioned by google. He

sounds like a quark or inexperienced and it doesn’t sound like something google may want to expose

themselves to legally. Am thinking its a hosting company that’s trying to get as many people as possible on

their servers and using the free publicity of google and morality to get ahead.

Let’s wait for googles response.

Reply



KIM says: January 13, 2012 at 5:18 pm

I’m 99% sure that Google whether they’re guilty or not will still get away with this swiftly.

Reply

KFTGR says: January 13, 2012 at 8:47 pm

Sadly, this is true. Like the advertising scandal earlier, Google can just claim that it was someone they

outsourced that was actually “Doing Evil.”

Reply

GOOGLE PR TROUBLES CONTINUES | ENTMONEY says: January 13, 2012 at 5:19 pm

[...] in Business,ENTmoney News,Social Media,Technology Google has been facing a wind fall of bad PR and

it seem like its not going to get better any time soon. Mocality, is a start up company in kenya which operates

the country’s largest online business directory, and according to Mocality Google knowingly engaged in

fraudulent behavior. Mocality believes that Google undermined their business to grow theirs, after careful

monitoring of Internet traffic and a successful sting operation revealed some damaging results for Google.

Check out the full report from Mocality by Clicking Here [...]

Reply

BILL says: January 13, 2012 at 5:21 pm

Mocality, are you actually brain damaged or do you just like pretending to be so you get media attention? This

is quite obviously a phishing scam being done by a group that is using Mocality’s directory to find their

targets. Mocality should be on the hook for these slanderous accusations, and should definitely check their

facts better before doing a press release that illustrates their lack of comprehension of a very simple concept.

Morons!

Reply

JW says: January 14, 2012 at 11:53 am

Er, except that Google have now admitted it, of course…

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/jan/13/google-kenyan-rival-mocality-database?newsfeed=true

Reply

PHIL says: January 14, 2012 at 12:31 pm

@Bill ..you need Dr Phil I think you might have some issues from the past you haven’t dealt with .. Maybe

you and an uncle share a secret??

Reply

MURIUKI CHRIS says: January 13, 2012 at 5:21 pm

Please sue them. This big brother syndrome should end



Reply


FRAUDULENTLY UNDERMINING A KENYAN STARTUP » TECHNO

NEWSPAPER says: January 13, 2012 at 5:22 pm





Reply

JJ says: January 13, 2012 at 5:23 pm

OK. This is slightly more than a little weird! It is more than a little evil. it is more than a little overboard.

I think it is IP theft. It is plain and simple.

Where data is concerned, IMHO, Google is full of crap, but then again, glad that they showed us we are not

crazy to think so.

Stefan: time for you to secure your data…and find a way to make this sort of activity actionable and

troublesome for someone who tries…

Reply

JJ says: January 13, 2012 at 5:27 pm

and all those who think someone is impersonating thoogle (thug, thoog, google …same difference), they

would do it to self-promote…all the callers are promoting GKBO… the thoogle project.

Reply

ANN says: January 13, 2012 at 5:28 pm

Sue Google. Now.

Reply

SAVVANACODER says: January 13, 2012 at 5:32 pm

As an online entrepreneur and among the people who contributed (and benefited) to the realization of

Mocality’s database, I am UTTERLY DISGUSTED by GOOGLE! This is not an issue to be swept under the

carpet. @Stefan, I know its a tall order to ask for an OCCUPY GOOGLE movement, but there must be a way to

petition Google to come out clean on this issue! There is an article on Techcrunch on this whole issue we

can post our comments there sure Google will get them. You can also start a petition site and we shall sure

gather numbers. SHAME ON GOOGLE!

Reply

GOOGLE, WHAT WERE YOU THINKING? | JOEL HOUSMAN says: January 13, 2012 at 5:34 pm

[...] Stefan Magdalinski, writing for Mocality: [...]

Reply

UNETHICAL BUSINESS PRACTICES: IS GOOGLE TRYING TO KILL



MOCALITY KENYA? | NAIRABRAINS says: January 13, 2012 at 5:46 pm

[...] 21st. When we listened to the calls, we were beyond astonished.”You can Read the Full post

HEREAccording to Mocality CEO Stefan Google should have asked them for the information instead of [...]

Reply

MM says: January 13, 2012 at 5:47 pm

If you use google translate the request will come from a google IP.

People in the comments have clearly no idea what they’re talking about.

Reply

JACKO says: January 13, 2012 at 5:50 pm

Hmmm, So why, pray tell, did you not contact Google directly and get it sorted out? Why publicise it in this

manner and without getting their input first? It could and probably is one rogue employee. My personal

opinion is that you couldn’t resist the (cheap) publicity you’d get with this stunt. Not a very sustainable way to

build a (currently loss-making) business IMO.

Reply

AFOTEY says: January 13, 2012 at 5:51 pm

Google —> “Don’t be Evil” #fail

Reply

ABHINAV SINGH says: January 13, 2012 at 5:56 pm

I am stunned, this is a real SHAME on Google part

Reply

SOPA says: January 13, 2012 at 6:01 pm

So now if the SOPA was in effect Mocality could shut Google down for infringing on their copyright data.

Reply

/PD says: January 13, 2012 at 6:11 pm

Well its good you caught them !! The human hoeny Pot worked.. Now GooG Africa needs to explain

themselves.

Reply

STE WILLIAMS » KENYAN STARTUP CLAIMS GOOGLE ‘SCALPED’

ITS DATA AFTER STAGING A STING says: January 13, 2012 at 6:13 pm

[...] the remarkable claim made by Stefan Magdalinski of startup [...]

Reply



KUALA says: January 13, 2012 at 6:15 pm

Wow, kenyans are really brainwashed to hate Google. I bet kenyans love Microsoft too much. I’m still waiting

for an official statement from Mountain View about this. If there’s an evil company nobody could knocked-off

Microsoft from the throne.

Reply

DAVID BENNETT says: January 13, 2012 at 6:17 pm

Have you contacted Google and asked them for an explanation? I don’t see that here.

Reply

GOOGLEGUY says: January 13, 2012 at 6:21 pm

blar blar blar. Google will always win, get used to it.

Reply

STEVE says: January 13, 2012 at 6:21 pm

This is trademark infringement, and is exactly the kind of thing trademark law is there to prevent. You should

be thinking about lawsuits because that is the only thing that will get their attention.

Reply

MSNINDIA.CO.IN WEBSITE DIRECTORY » GOOGLE ACCUSED OF

BEING EVIL…IN KENYA says: January 13, 2012 at 6:23 pm

[...] a blog post published today by Mocality CEO Stefan Magdalinski, he laid out a series of unethical

business [...]

Reply

JULIA says: January 13, 2012 at 6:26 pm

So… has anyone asked Google about this yet?

From a cursory analysis, I would say that someone in India is proxying through

hxxp://www.google.com/adpreview I *think* the source IPs for this service are all on 74.125.63.0/24 but I’d

have to setup an account with Google to check.

There are several tricks for proxying through Google. For example:

hxxp://translate.google.com/translate?

tl=sw&js=n&hl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.whatismyip.com%2F&act=url

… will tell you that you’re connecting from 74.125.26.81 (or similar) So anyone who does a whois on this IP

which appears in their web logs will see:

NetRange: 74.125.0.0 – 74.125.255.255

CIDR: 74.125.0.0/16

OriginAS:

NetName: GOOGLE

NetHandle: NET-74-125-0-0-1

Parent: NET-74-0-0-0-0

NetType: Direct Allocation

RegDate: 2007-03-13



…

There a number of scams originating from India, where someone cold-calls and claims to be from Microsoft,

and is selling questionable PC maintenance services.

By stating repeatedly that they represent “Microsoft” or “Google” in this case, it gives an impression of

legitimacy. This is an old old old confidence trick.

[Note to moderator: I'm reposting this comment]

Reply

LOGAN says: January 13, 2012 at 7:00 pm

You know what I think? The real culprit is Apple. All the other companies that the rogue callers seemed to

have called from are major competitors to Apple, and their method over the past decade has been

smear/belittling campaigns against the competitors.

Reply

FEDERICO LEBRON says: January 13, 2012 at 6:30 pm

I too wonder why you did not contact Google and ask what was going on, instead of wasting all this effort and

making what honestly sounds like propaganda to put Google in a bad light.

You know what the company does, and what their policies are. When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not

zebras. It is unlikely that Google is having a massive undercover operation just to screw with your site in

Kenya. This is not a proper investigation. This is unfounded conjecture.

Google does screw up sometimes. But its response is more similar to what happened to the Chrome team

with the not-entirely-squeaky-clean ads (they penalized themselves quite harshly in the search results). It is

definitely not a cloak-and-dagger business that this post tries, poorly, to paint it as.

Full disclosure: I started an internship with Google a couple of weeks ago. My questions to you are valid

regardless, I’d like to think

Reply

ALANL says: January 13, 2012 at 7:21 pm

Going to change your tune now that Google has admitted this?

Reply


Yeah……You being an intern doesn’t give make you a god to know all the wrong doings that is going on.

Now that Google has admitted what is going on, clearly the transition from “Do No Evil” to “Do Evil” is

complete.

Even though late Steve Job’s apple has turned a blind eye to evil practices in China I will take my hats off

to this comment. This don’t be evil mantra: “It’s bullshit.” So interns be a critical thinker. Only such an

intern will be good for Google. As Fmr Defence Secretary Rumsfeld put it “There are known knowns.

There are known unknowns. There are unknown unknowns”. So this one falls into either of the latter two

classes!

Reply

MATTHEW DE GALE says: January 16, 2012 at 2:43 pm

I like how unconsciously anti-African your analogy is: since this happened in Kenya there is in fact a solid



chance that hoofbeats are zebras…

Reply

KATYBOPS says: January 13, 2012 at 6:31 pm

Well done on so many levels. Proud of you. X

Reply

BUSTED: GOOGLE GETS CAUGHT SCRAPING KENYA’S BIGGEST

BUSINESS LISTINGS DATABASE | TECH NEWS AGGREGATOR


[...] decided it would use Mocality’s comprehensive database to try and boost its new service — as noted in a

company blog post entitled “Google, what were you [...]

Reply

@MFALME says: January 13, 2012 at 6:45 pm

I am impressed by forensic investigation.With all the facts.

lets wait and see what google says about this

Reply

ALYSE.ORG » SIGH DO NO EVIL? THIS IS PRETTY SCUMMY ….


[...] Google, what were you thinking? ? Mocality Kenya 202 comments so far. Google, what were you thinking?

by Stefan. I'm very proud of the business that we've created here at Mocality, but I'm especially proud of two

things: Our crowdsourcin… [...]

Reply

JOHN says: January 13, 2012 at 6:49 pm

I am shocked by all of you who are shocked by Google’s behavior. Wake Up.

Stefan, your well tempered explanation certainly helped the facts speak for themselves. A more inflammatory

rant would have had less impact.

Reply

BRENDAN says: January 13, 2012 at 7:03 pm

DOUGLAS…you’re the only person mentioned by name: terenteren!

Reply

MILES WARD says: January 13, 2012 at 7:04 pm

Wow that is complete crap. Wow.

Reply




FRAUDULENTLY UNDERMINING A KENYAN STARTUP | BITMAG






Reply

GOOGLE GETTING MORE UNTRUSTWORTHY EACH DAY,

CAUGHT GOOGLE SCRAPING THEIR BUSINESS LISTINGS

DATABASE IN KENYA says: January 13, 2012 at 7:09 pm

[...] reasonably stop trusting the company as a whole. To read the full story on Mocality Blog click here

window.fbAsyncInit = function() { FB.init({appId: "", xfbml: true}); [...]

Reply

EARL GREY says: January 13, 2012 at 7:10 pm

This is not the first time i have heard something like this.

Well done on the investigation and good luck on a satisfactory response.

Reply

GOOGLE FLAGRADO COM AS PIORES PRÁTICAS DE

CONCORRÊNCIA NO QUÊNIA | TECNOBLOG says: January 13, 2012 at 7:13 pm

[...] um post especialmente detalhado que foi publicado hoje em seu blog, a Mocality escancara os

pormenores de uma auditoria que parece [...]

Reply

KAILASH says: January 13, 2012 at 7:17 pm

Impressive investigation and great job bootstrapping your business from scratch!

Looking for some real answers now..

Reply

OSCAR says: January 13, 2012 at 7:17 pm

Stefan,love to see your in-depth analysis and professional reaction. Good luck

Reply

GOOGLE ADMITS BAD BEHAVIOUR IN KENYA | FT TECH HUB |

FTTECHHUB - INDUSTRY ANALYSIS – FT.COM says: January 13, 2012 at 7:25 pm

[...] a blogpost on Friday, Mr Magdalinski laid out in technical detail what he described as “scalping” by [...]

Reply

GOOGLE DATA SCRAPING CONTROVERSY OF THE DAY - TDW



GEEKS says: January 13, 2012 at 7:31 pm

[...] startup that has crowdsourced a directory of businesses from the ground up, has accused Google of

scraping its information and faking a relationship with Mocality to sell Google [...]

Reply

A "MORTIFIED" GOOGLE APOLOGIZES TO MOCALITY FOR

POACHING CUSTOMERS, LYING ABOUT RELATIONSHIP says: January 13, 2012 at 7:32 pm

[...] laid out its evidence against Google in a blog post today, accusing Google of scraping its local business

listings, contacting local [...]

Reply

VINCENT says: January 13, 2012 at 7:33 pm

Stefan, best of luck in going up against Google and like-minded Internet gangsters. Google is using it’s

position and “search engine” (sic) to undermine any business that attempts an honest and open service to

clients. SHAME ON YOU GOOGLE!!!

Reply

GOOGLE'S SPYW, KENYA IMBROGLIOS AN "INK BLOT" TEST FOR

GOOGLE AS GOOD OR EVIL? says: January 13, 2012 at 7:38 pm

[...] it had a partnership with the publisher to sign them up. Mocality founder Stefan Magdalinski explains in a

blog post that his company conducted a “sting” against Google and offers evidence of his claims [...]

Reply

GOOGLE FLAGRADO COM AS PIORES PRÁTICAS NO QUÊNIA |

VOCÊ INFORMADO says: January 13, 2012 at 7:42 pm

[...] um post especialmente detalhado que foi publicado hoje em seu blog, a Mocality escancara os

pormenores de uma auditoria que parece [...]

Reply


AITIR LAB says: January 13, 2012 at 7:48 pm


to [...]

Reply

BORGFISH says: January 13, 2012 at 7:49 pm

I hope you do more than tell Google they hurt your feelings. They need to suffer a legal and moral setback in

the public arena and be taught a lesson for such outrageous behavior, especially egregious due to their

supposed motto of “Don’t be evil.” That motto is a load of horseshit, and a potentially very dangerous one to

believe.

Reply

ROSENSTAND says: January 13, 2012 at 7:58 pm



I hope that there is some really good explanation for this. Otherwise Google need to revise their motto quite a

bit!

Reply

TOM ALTMAN says: January 13, 2012 at 7:59 pm

Thank you for the indepth information/proof on this subject. This is mortifying and sad.

What say you Google?

Reply

SAM says: January 13, 2012 at 8:04 pm

Google needs to come clean on this one. HOw about suing Google for stealing data and false claiming

partnership?

Reply

GOOGLE ‘MORTIFIED’ OVER CLIENT POACHING SCANDAL,

CAUGHT ACCESSING MOCALITY DATABASE | 9TO5MAC | APPLE

INTELLIGENCE says: January 13, 2012 at 8:05 pm

[...] a blog post called, “Google, what were you thinking?“, Stefan Magdalinski claimed Getting Kenyan

Business Online, a Google-backed initiative that [...]

Reply

GOOGLE ‘MORTIFIED’ OVER CLIENT POACHING SCANDAL,

CAUGHT ACCESSING MOCALITY DATABASE | 9TO5GOOGLE |

BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL says: January 13, 2012 at 8:07 pm

[...] the “Google, what were you thinking?” blogpost, Stefan Magdalinski claimed Getting Kenyan Business

Online, a Google-backed [...]

Reply

THERICKER says: January 13, 2012 at 8:08 pm

All they would find on me is repeated hits to the same pr0n site so…

Reply

MARIEME JAMME says: January 13, 2012 at 8:15 pm

We need African startups in Africa, having distractions like this is very unfair. I hope they can come up with a

very credible answer to this allegations. We are monitoring the situation on Google+. Here is the updated

response of Google VP Neslon Mattos

Nelson Mattos – 6:27 PM – Public

“We were mortified to learn that a team of people working on a Google project improperly used Mocality’s

data and misrepresented our relationship with Mocality to encourage customers to create new websites.

We’ve already unreservedly apologised to Mocality. 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.”

Reply



BROWSERSPIELE says: January 13, 2012 at 8:19 pm

hm… Really Google? >;(

Shame on the big G

Reply

[UPDATED] FACING ANOTHER PR DISASTER: GOOGLE

ACCUSED OF FRAUDULENTLY UNDERMINING A KENYAN

STARTUP | DELTABLUKS.TK says: January 13, 2012 at 8:20 pm





Reply

DON’T BE EVIL? says: January 13, 2012 at 8:23 pm

[...] has a lot of explaining to do.Complete story from Mocality’s point of view can be found on their blog.Also

an interesting reply by Google’s VP for Product and Engineering, Europe and Emerging [...]

Reply

JOHN says: January 13, 2012 at 8:23 pm

It sounds like you are in a good position to sue google. google has 2 choices. 1. Google can buy you out and

make you go away if it’s less then x millions or 2. Settle with you. Eitherway that’s how big corp work and you

can’t loose either way since you can get money out of google.

Reply

MAMBENANJE says: January 13, 2012 at 8:24 pm

I am getting a feeling that a google reseller who makes money with respect to the number of sites they create

on gkbo must have pushed this as Google.com doesnt have any direct benefit when they can get the mocality

pages in their search. does it matter where the content is found on Google KBO or on mocality ?

Reply

GOOGLE’S KENYA SCRAPING DECEPTION | WEBPRONEWS


[...] if there’s an issue of Google’s scraping of the content, something made apparent in the conclusion of

Mocality’s post: Since October, Google’s GKBO appears to have been systematically accessing Mocality’s

database [...]

Reply

LOL says: January 13, 2012 at 8:28 pm

herp derp, nobody cares

Reply



DENEF says: January 13, 2012 at 8:32 pm

I am just a run of the mill normal guy with an interest in tech and live in the UK. I just came by this post on G+

via Gianna Trapanni and to say I am shocked is an understatement! This is evil practice indeed. Somebody,

some place has a lot to answer too.

Good luck Mocality and Kenya

Reply

MICHAEL says: January 13, 2012 at 8:35 pm

Fi, Fi, Fo, Fum! I smell, the fingerprints of scum!

Reply

MACCAD » KENYAN STARTUP CLAIMS GOOGLE ‘SCALPED’ ITS

DATA AFTER STAGING A STING says: January 13, 2012 at 8:36 pm

[...] the remarkable claim made by Stefan Magdalinski of startup [...]

Reply

IS GOOGLE REALLY TRYING TO SCAM KENYAN BUSINESS

OWNERS? (UPDATED WITH GOOGLE’S REACTION) —

SILICONFILTER says: January 13, 2012 at 8:41 pm

[...] You can find all the details in Mocality's blog post about their allegations. [...]

Reply

TIXIK says: January 13, 2012 at 8:47 pm

Wow. For me, the best topic this year for now.

Reply

RED SEO says: January 13, 2012 at 8:49 pm

Very disappointing behaviour by google here, and your dealing with the analysis of the data is commendable.

Reply

TOBY BARNETT says: January 13, 2012 at 8:53 pm

We done on the forensics and calling Google out! Its nice to know there are smart people out there to keep

Google as honest as they can!

Reply

DAVID KYLE says: January 13, 2012 at 9:06 pm

As an Adwords certified partner, this makes me FURIOUS! You are their best customer in Kenya and this is

how they treat you??



Reply

PDBODDY says: January 13, 2012 at 9:07 pm

I shared this on my Google+ stream with Eric Schmidt.

Reply

MUCHIRI MWANGI says: January 13, 2012 at 9:08 pm

Great stefan,Mocality for sure has been more than kazi kwa vijana and has certainly helped thousand of

jobless kenyans earn a leaving.Its too annoying for google to came take the harvest after you do all the

planting and farm care.We look forward to send emails via mocality and have our search results through you

and erase google from our mind.i suspect some of the listing in google trade to be those of

dealfish.MOCALITY changed my life.

Reply

MAMAOVAAT says: January 13, 2012 at 9:10 pm

How incredibly depressing that a company as large as Google has to try and swallow up a new and exciting

venture in a country trying to participate fully on the world stage. Shame on you Google

Reply

SKAS says: January 13, 2012 at 9:12 pm

this might just be a scam run by some indian scammers in collaboration with Kenyan people trying to rip off

some money from local business. Or Google getting nasty with their business.

Reply

MICHAEL says: January 13, 2012 at 9:13 pm

I don’t see mention of any reporting of this to Google’s corporate offices, or confronting the people

responsible. It seems if this were a legitimate complaint, the complaint should have gone out to the offending

party, not to a posting looking for sympathy from those not involved.

Have you attempted to contact Google? I doubt that Google Kenya was told to steal data from the home office,

this is likely a case of satellite offices playing fast and loose with directives. If your goal here is to resolve the

problem, you should report it to Google.

Reply

KAMANGU says: January 13, 2012 at 9:23 pm

If you knew how Google operates in Kenya, you wouldn’t even bother with that. Naming and shaming

them might work better.

Reply

GOOGLE APOLOGIZES TO KENYA STARTUP OVER DIRTY

BUSINESS TACTICS | GOT2.ME says: January 13, 2012 at 9:14 pm



[...] The calls started shortly after Google announced its plan in September to provide Kenyan small and

medium-size businesses with freely hosted and designed websites, as well as a fee-based option to

purchase their own domain, according to Mocality CEO Stefan Magdalinski, who published a detailed account

of the claims on the company’s blog [...]

Reply


BUSINESS TACTICS | NAJTECH.SK says: January 13, 2012 at 9:17 pm

[...] The calls started shortly after Google announced its plan in September to provide Kenyan small and

medium-size businesses with freely hosted and designed websites, as well as a fee-based option to

purchase their own domain, according to Mocality CEO Stefan Magdalinski, who published a detailed account

of the claims on the company’s blog [...]

Reply

INTERESTED says: January 13, 2012 at 9:21 pm

just look at elimu.co.ke, then look at the gkbo initiative, and tell me whether the gkbo initiative is moral…

Reply

RICHARD WOODING says: January 13, 2012 at 9:22 pm

My final word on this is that I think Google is involved in the chain some how.

Reply

MOCALITY KENYA SCANDAL: “MORTIFIED” GOOGLE

“APOLOGIZES UNRESERVEDLY” — SILICONFILTER says: January 13, 2012 at 9:23 pm

[...] CEO Stefan Magdalinski in a blog post on Friday accused Google of “telling untruths” and a “human-

powered, [...]

Reply


My final word is that Google is probably involved in the chain here.

Reply

STUART HALLIDAY says: January 13, 2012 at 9:34 pm

Sorry,

But I see no proof that it isn’t just a small 3rd party contractor using a IP address given by Google Kenya to

make some money on the side doing some simple harvesting. Typical tactic of any dodgy salesman on

commission from my experience. Easy to do using VPN for example.

You need to find out who is getting the monthly money? Is it to a Google bank account or perhaps someone

else? Ask one of your customers?

Wouldn’t surprise me if Google Inc. knows nothing about it…

Have you even visited Google Kenya and ask to speak to the head manager?

Reply



ROSS HALL says: January 13, 2012 at 9:34 pm

Before you cry foul it is worth noting that Google’s DNS servers are used by various ISPs in India, including

BSNL. It is also worth noting that scams involving people calling up and claiming to be “Google” are well

known.

My question is this – what’s Google’s response? Have they been contacted? What’s their legal department’s

response to these allegations?

Reply

ETELEJ says: January 13, 2012 at 9:37 pm

‘We were mortified to learn that a team of people working on a Google project improperly used Mocality’s data

and misrepresented our relationship with Mocality to encourage customers to create new websites. We’ve

already unreservedly apologised to Mocality. 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.’ – Google’s Nelson

Mattos, Vice-President for Product and Engineering, Europe and Emerging Markets.

Seriously Google? Way to drag your name in the mud..

Reply

ADVENTURE_OF_LINK says: January 13, 2012 at 9:39 pm

Whoops, guess next time you need to get out of that GOOGLE Chrome or at least mask the user-agent eh?

those Kenyans are catching up to us… we gotta get smarter than this if we want to compete..

Reply

LIBRARY JUICE » EVIDENCE OF EVIL AT GOOGLE, FROM A

FARAWAY LAND says: January 13, 2012 at 9:40 pm

[...] is true, it deserves to be a scandal. Mocality’s Stefan Magdalinski’s post is titled, Google, what were you

thinking? Comments (0)Filed under: Information Ethics by — Rory Litwin @ 3:30 [...]

Reply

RAJESH says: January 13, 2012 at 9:41 pm

Great work Stefan!!!!!! Kudos to you and your team for the sting op. It’s a very sad thing to see a giant like

Google involving itself in such Unfair, Unethical and illegal methods . But what remains to be seen is whether

Google employyes in Kenya branch acted on their own or were they under orders from the guys back in head

office. If so this is an eye opener for business similar to Mocality around the world to realize the depth of their

partnerships with companies like Google and how this arrangements are being really interpreted. Once

again great detective work Stefan .

Reply

SON says: January 13, 2012 at 9:46 pm

Google, I am dissapoint.

Reply



ANON says: January 13, 2012 at 9:47 pm

Google.. I am disappoint.

Reply


BUSINESS TACTICS « BREAKING NEWS « THEORY REPORT


[...] The calls started shortly after Google announced its plan in Sep to yield Kenyan tiny and medium-size

businesses with openly hosted and designed websites, as good as a fee-based choice to squeeze their

possess domain, according to Mocality CEO Stefan Magdalinski, who published a minute comment of a

claims on a company’s blog [...]

Reply

JAMES says: January 13, 2012 at 10:01 pm

I don’t see any reason for this except to put Google in bad light and so it could be anyone. It could even be

apple for all we know

Reply

GOOGLE AURAIT PIRATÉ LA BASE DE DONNÉES D’UNE

STARTUP KÉNYANE | ALLOMONSITE.COM says: January 13, 2012 at 10:06 pm

[...] à des milliers de personnes et nous avons construit le répertoire le plus complet du Kenya », explique

ainsi la société. Google serait arrivé sur le marché avec des pratiques [...]

Reply

CHRIS says: January 13, 2012 at 10:11 pm

Google has now become the epitome of poor business practices and ethics.

Sad sad day.

Reply

GOOGLE KENYA VS MOCALITY CONTROVERSY: SCANDAL OR

TANTRUMS? | INTERNET MARKETING AND SEARCH NEWS FOR

AFRICAN WEBMASTERS says: January 13, 2012 at 10:13 pm

[...] soliciting for business from business owners listed in that database. See full details in this blog post by

Mocality’s CEO, Stef [...]

Reply

HANNU AVOIN says: January 13, 2012 at 10:14 pm

But Google is Open so it can’t be Bad!

Reply



FLOYD MITCHELL says: January 13, 2012 at 10:19 pm

This is pretty hard data to shake off. I particularly appreciate Matt Cutts response on Twitter so far. It was

honest and I like that. This is not good..Not good at all. I am very disappointed in Google.

Reply

GOOGLE CAUGHT SCRAPING COMPETITOR DATABASE IN

KENYA | OBAMA PACMAN says: January 13, 2012 at 10:22 pm

[...] Highlights from Mocality’s sting: [...]

Reply


I made a very small test which demonstrates sending requests from Google IPs by means of Google App

Engine. This is just a demonstration that this is possible and I think it’s more likely then using the Google

Query Cache.

Just point your browser at:

httprequesttest.appspot.com

Reply

BEN says: January 13, 2012 at 10:34 pm

e·vil/̍ēvəl/

Noun: Whatever Google doesn’t do.

Reply

JAMES says: January 13, 2012 at 10:35 pm

Sometimes you need to look past the obvious and sometimes stupid answer, whois can be faked

Reply

GOOGLE ACCUSED OF STEALING INFORMATION FROM RIVAL

KENYAN BUSINESS DATABASE | VENTUREBEAT says: January 13, 2012 at 10:40 pm

[...] Friday, Mocality posted a blog entry detailing that Google has been using data on Mocality to find local

business information and then calling those businesses to offer competing services. [...]

Reply

DANNY says: January 13, 2012 at 10:41 pm

I received the Indian call myself and was wondering how the got me. This is a bad move from Google.

Reply

PRAKASH says: January 13, 2012 at 10:49 pm



Couldnt stop going thru the complete blog. Curiously ended up submitting “mocality” on yahoo, bing and

google search. Y and B’s search results were similar

Reply

WHAT ARE YOUR FAVORITE ALTERNATIVES TO GOOGLE

SERVICES? [ASK THE READERS] says: January 13, 2012 at 10:59 pm

[...] you’re turned off by Google pushing its own services or its constant mining of data (some of which may be

on the evil side), there are any number of reasons you might not like Google and their ways. And, while the

majority [...]

Reply

G_FACE says: January 13, 2012 at 11:00 pm

You are to be commended on your investigation and its write up. Surely without this depth, we couldn’t have

got such a response as that from Nelson Mattos.

Thank you.

Reply

GOOGLE ‘IMPROPERLY’ ACCESSED RIVAL MOCALITY’S

DATABASE | GADUNKY says: January 13, 2012 at 11:14 pm

[...] problem came to light thanks to a blog post from Stefan Magdalinski, the Nairobi-based CEO of [...]

Reply

CAPAC AMARU says: January 13, 2012 at 11:16 pm

Wow. For shame Google, for shame.

Reply

STEP BY STEP GUIDE TO SCREWING UP NOT THE GOOGLE

MOCALITY WAY » NDEGWA MWAI'S BLOG says: January 13, 2012 at 11:35 pm

[...] google mocality way Posted in Internet | January 13th, 2012 I must say I was shocked after reading

Stefan’s blog post jana and made me think twice before I do anything stupid on the Internet. And as the [...]

Reply

GUBATRON says: January 13, 2012 at 11:45 pm

Welcome to the internet.

Reply

GUBATRON says: January 13, 2012 at 11:46 pm

Welcome to the internet.

If you think Google is being evil, try dealing with chinese hackers.

Reply



SIJUINIJIITE™ says: January 14, 2012 at 1:53 am

@Gubatron, That’s just lame thinking. Hackers, wherever they may be hacking from are just hackers, and

that’s what they are expected to do. On the other hand, when you mention Google, you think of a very

respectable company which is incapable of such illegal activity.

I think the international media should look into this and make sure Google owns up.

Reply

APOLOGY TO KENYAN FIRM ENDS GOOGLE’S WEEK FROM HELL

| THE COMMUNITY OF IPHONE 5 USERS says: January 14, 2012 at 12:11 am

[...] 11th, nearly 30% of our database has apparently been contacted,” Magdalinski wrote in a blog post [...]

Reply

RJACK says: January 14, 2012 at 12:14 am

For all of you out there that think this CAN’T be Google, after all, they are the good guys.

READ.

Read the PDF file.

According to Google, this was “a team of people working on a Google project”.

(we usually call them employees)

Suck it up Google, admit you got caught.

Reply

WUDZ says: January 14, 2012 at 12:15 am

I thought i raised this to mocality & you paid it cold shoulder!

Reply

TEKEDIA » SHAME TO GOOGLE – GOOGLE IS EVIL TO AFRICA.

AFRICA UNION, PLEASE REGULATE GOOGLE. says: January 14, 2012 at 12:17 am

[...] time to read this report by CEO of Mocality which we have published the summary below. When people

praised Google for saving [...]

Reply

HERZMEISTER says: January 14, 2012 at 12:23 am

Don’t be evil! (we’re watching you…)

Reply

BUSTED: GOOGLE GETS CAUGHT SCRAPING KENYA’S BIGGEST

BUSINESS LISTINGS DATABASE | DIGITAL GADGET DAN

SELULAR says: January 14, 2012 at 12:26 am

[...] decided it would use Mocality’s comprehensive database to try and boost its new service — as noted in a

company blog post entitled “Google, what were you [...]

Reply



ODA says: January 14, 2012 at 12:46 am

Oh wow. I will not forget this soon.

Reply

JOHN KOETSIER says: January 14, 2012 at 12:46 am

Wow. Just wow.

I cannot believe Google is doing this. I’m sure they will stop it when the appropriate people find out about it,

but how it’s gotten this far is simply amazing.

I would assume there would be some legal and financial liability here …

Reply

IKAIKA HUSSEY says: January 14, 2012 at 12:48 am

Congratulations on your work in uncovering this information. Kudos to you from Hawaii!

Reply

says: January 14, 2012 at 12:57 am

Wow Google, wow.

Though I have to say I find it very amusing that you claim your database is your business and you protect it, yet

didn’t implement anything to prevent people from scraping it like this.

Reply

JIM GREENBERG says: January 14, 2012 at 12:59 am

I sent the URL of this site to Google and asked them to comment…..If they do, har har, I’ll post it back here.

Reply


| BRIAN'S BLOG SITE says: January 14, 2012 at 1:14 am

[...] nearly 30 percent of our database has apparently been contacted,” Magdalinski wrote in a blog post [...]

Reply

PETER says: January 14, 2012 at 1:18 am

I seriously doubt that Google approves of these practices, and if they happen to actually be responsible for

this, the headquarters certainly are not aware of it.

You are doing some serious accusations here. Why didn’t you contact Google to ask for some explanations

before posting this post?

In case they’re not involved in this (eg. could be someone claiming to be Google when they’re actually not;

Google headquarters checking your website when hearing about this story, …), you’d be the one doing evil by

publicly accusing Google of illegal practices, thus hurting their image for no good reason.



Gathering evidence was a good idea, but make sure you use it right now. Drawing conclusions too fast is

dangerous…

Good luck in solving your problem.

Reply

TIM says: January 14, 2012 at 9:03 am

Have you been following the story at all??! Google’s VP Nelson Mattos already has admitted this: “We

were mortified to learn that a team of people working on a Google project improperly used Mocality’s data

and misrepresented our relationship with Mocality to encourage customers to create new Web sites”

Reply

GOOGLE ACCUSED OF FRAUD BY KENYAN RIVAL | BUYING A

WEBSITE says: January 14, 2012 at 1:32 am

[...] backs up his claim with a detailed forensic analysis of data traffic to his company’s website. Mocality

gathered this data through what Magdalinski characterizes as a sting [...]

Reply

ITOLDU says: January 14, 2012 at 1:34 am

Finally the dots connect….Designed by: iridiumInteractive

Reply

GOOGLE ACCUSED OF FRAUD AND SHARP PRACTICE IN KENYA

| ASPENIT.CO.UK | COMPUTING & TECHNOLOGY NEWS says: January 14, 2012 at 1:35 am

[...] “Since October, Google’s GKBO appears to have been systematically accessing Mocality’s database and

attempting to sell their competing product to our business owners,” said Stefan Magdalinski, Mocality CEO,

on the company website, which details the investigation. [...]

Reply

FACEBOOK ONLINE » PUTTING THE GOOGLE-IS-RIPPING-OFF-A-

KENYAN-STARTUP STORY IN PERSPECTIVE says: January 14, 2012 at 1:57 am

[...] been looking into the well-researched story that Mocality, a Kenya-based business listing service,

published this morning. There are certainly [...]

Reply


» 99DZH says: January 14, 2012 at 2:01 am

[...] January 11th, nearly 30% of our database has apparently been contacted,” Magdalinski wrote in a blog

post [...]

Reply


| PARTNERS IN SUBLIME says: January 14, 2012 at 2:09 am


Reply



EMEKA says: January 14, 2012 at 2:15 am

Mocality should publicly launch a lawsuit against Google… then settle behind the scenes for a high amount –

a good way to finance your Kenya operations.

Reply

SHRINIDHI HANDE says: January 14, 2012 at 2:31 am

Did you try to get a response from Google?

Reply

PUTTING THE GOOGLE-IS-RIPPING-OFF-A-KENYAN-STARTUP

STORY IN PERSPECTIVE | BITMAG says: January 14, 2012 at 2:33 am



Reply

IAN TILBURY says: January 14, 2012 at 2:43 am

It sounds like business as usual from Google. Their belief that all data will eventually be theirs and the

skewed view of themselves as more like an independent nation rather than a company says it all. In silly

speak, Google is today’s AOL. Fingers crossed. Meanwhile, simply stop using them. Their content has

increasingly less value, burying ones specific search under a mound of their preferred results.

My suggestion is advertise their practises over and over again. Suing will bust you and leave you at best

vulnerable. And hire a bunch of 12 year olds to make Google old hat.

Reply


| ANDROID DEVELOPERS says: January 14, 2012 at 3:26 am

[...] 11th, nearly 30% of our database has apparently been contacted,” Magdalinski wrote in a blog post [...]

Reply

GOOGLE ACCUSED OF STEALING INFO FROM RIVAL KENYAN

BUSINESS DATABASE | SOCIAL NETWORK BACKGROUND

CHECK says: January 14, 2012 at 3:30 am

[...] Friday, Mocality posted a blog entry detailing how Google has been using data on Mocality to find local

business information, and then calling those businesses to offer competing services. [...]

Reply

MIRAJ PATEL says: January 14, 2012 at 4:16 am

Perhaps you should seek some legal counsel and with their advice maybe contact Google too? Sorry to hear

that this happened, but it is likely just a subdivision in G that is either overlooking something or has gone

“rouge”. I wouldn’t criticize the whole company off the bat based on this incident, but some wrongs probably

do have to be righted here by them.

Reply



SAMUEL LAVOIE says: January 14, 2012 at 4:52 am

Wow I’m shocked. The saddest part is that Google admitted their scam.

Google scamming a Kenyan business… wtf!

Reply

GOOGLE ‘IMPROPERLY’ ACCESSED KENYAN RIVAL MOCALITY’S

DATABASE | GADUNKY says: January 14, 2012 at 5:17 am

[...] allegations were first made public in a blogpost on Friday by the chief executive of Mocality, Stefan

Magdalinski, who accused Google of [...]

Reply

BRENDAN says: January 14, 2012 at 5:17 am

First off this is reprehensible and unacceptable on googles behalf;

I see 3 likely outcomes;

1) Google sacks the involved staff members

2) Google sacks the Mo division and starts anew

3) Apple buys Mocality and sues google (because it can)

B

Reply

SAMORA says: January 14, 2012 at 5:31 am

Mocality should not cry foul either; they obtained their so called data from ‘The Yellow Pages’, obtaining

locations, contacts, then calling the contacts just to confirm! so who is the real thief here?

Reply

IPHONENATION.COM: APPLE NEWS AND TECHNOLOGY

INSIDERS – PUTTING THE GOOGLE-IS-RIPPING-OFF-A-KENYAN-

STARTUP STORY IN PERSPECTIVE says: January 14, 2012 at 5:33 am



Reply


BUSINESS … | BUSINESS FRANCHISES | SMALL BUSINESS says: January 14, 2012 at 5:47 am



Reply

ZEN says: January 14, 2012 at 6:45 am

Sadly Google outsourced the work of recruiting and designing kbo websites to an unscrupulous Kenyan –



Indian Company named IridiumInteractive…Naughty as hell

Reply

JULIET GATERI says: January 14, 2012 at 12:38 pm

We would like to clarify that iridium Interactive is not involved in any of these scraping and calling

operations.

Reply

JULIET GATERI says: January 14, 2012 at 3:26 pm

Official Response of Iridium Interactive:

Dear Sir/ Madam,

In the context of the latest conversations regarding the Scraping & Calling operations done on Mocality’s

databse by Google, Iridium Interactive officially & categorically denies any involvement in these

operations. Any allegations/ rumors indicating our involvement are baseless, false and grossly

misinterpreted.

Juliet Gateri

Business Manager

+254 722 561 070

Reply

FTC REPORTEDLY ADDING GOOGLE+ TO ANTITRUST

INVESTIGATION AMID SEARCH CONTROVERSY |

NEWSPOWER.EU says: January 14, 2012 at 6:45 am

[...] recently, Kenyan business listings association Mocality released evidence that Google seemed to have

been “systematically accessing Mocalitys database and attempting [...]

Reply


STORY IN PERSPECTIVE | KRANTENKOPPEN TECH says: January 14, 2012 at 6:52 am



Reply

HEZBON says: January 14, 2012 at 6:57 am

OMG! I had tipped my bosses about this last yr.my friend received that call from stupid Google for devilish

deal. Yesterday i was told the same by a friend whose business has been listed.An Indian called him over

the issue.We r working hard pitting up biz on the net and someone wants to reap from where they never

sawd!cantact me for any details .Ambassador MOC

Reply


INVESTIGATION AMID SEARCH CONTROVERSY | ALRAHMA

GADGET BLOG says: January 14, 2012 at 7:04 am

[...] recently, Kenyan business listings company Mocality released evidence th&#1072t Google appeared

t&#959 h&#1072&#957&#1077 b&#1077&#1077n “systematically accessing [...]



Reply


INVESTIGATION AMID SEARCH CONTROVERSY | BRIAN'S BLOG

SITE says: January 14, 2012 at 7:09 am

[...] recently, Kenyan business listings company Mocality released evidence that Google appeared to have


Reply

UPDATE: GOOGLE ADMITS SHARP PRACTICE IN KENYA |

ASPENIT.CO.UK | COMPUTING & TECHNOLOGY NEWS says: January 14, 2012 at 7:38 am

[...] “Since October, Google’s GKBO appears to have been systematically accessing Mocality’s database and

attempting to sell their competing product to our business owners,” said Stefan Magdalinski, Mocality CEO,

on the company website, which details the investigation. [...]

Reply

ARAPU KAWUSE says: January 14, 2012 at 7:46 am

Terrible! Is this the Google I normally use? I am pulling out my two google e-mail address immediately in

protest. They fellows have failed in all senses to appease Africa’s large growing market in the best possible

way apart from staeling local content… I am worried the same is happening to startups in Uganda, Tanzania

and Rwanda where Google is hurriedly trying to entrench itself. We need to protest to Google, I feel for

Mocality, because soon others will be harrased too by such evil actions of the likes of Google.

Reply


BUSINESS DATABASE says: January 14, 2012 at 8:18 am



Reply

WHATSNEW says: January 14, 2012 at 8:18 am

Why didn’t they genuinely partner with Mocality, an option mocality has made clear that they are open to.

Mocality’s business model appears to be win win, not only for its business partners but also for local people

via crowd sourcing. The greedy corporate capitalist model on the other hand, desire it all and it seems

absolutely sacrilegious, for the little man to enjoy even a crumb.

Reply


INVESTIGATION AMID SEARCH CONTROVERSY says: January 14, 2012 at 8:19 am



Reply


STORY IN PERSPECTIVE | TECHDIEM.COM says: January 14, 2012 at 8:38 am





Reply


INVESTIGATION AMID SEARCH CONTROVERSY | KC-NEWS says: January 14, 2012 at 8:43 am

[...] recently, Kenyan business listings company Mocality released evidence that Google appeared to have [...]

Reply

FIONA says: January 14, 2012 at 8:51 am

Never trusted this Google invasion. Now I know why!

Reply

‘MORTIFIED’ GOOGLE APOLOGIZES TO KENYAN BUSINESS –

WALL STREET JOURNAL (BLOG) « ONLINE BUSINESS says: January 14, 2012 at 9:06 am

[...] news came to light this morning after the CEO of the business directory company published “Google,

What Were You Thinking?” a blog post detailing a months-long company investigation into strange traffic

spikes on its [...]

Reply

TANDARTS ALMERE says: January 14, 2012 at 9:06 am

Wow, what were they thinking?

Reply


INVESTIGATION AMID SEARCH CONTROVERSY – APPLE

INSIDER | ANDROID DEVELOPERS says: January 14, 2012 at 9:20 am


been “systematically accessing Mocality೦s database and [...]

Reply

TERRAHERTZ says: January 14, 2012 at 9:22 am

LOL at all the denialists/apologists/Google-lovers still wailing about how it could not POSSIBLY be the

beloved Google doing this. Long, long after links are posted to Google’s own clear admission that in fact it

WAS them and they are so very sorry (they got caught.)

Bit late for that Google!

Mocality absolutely should sue Google to pieces. Google’s ‘apology’ is effectively just an admission of

absolute guilt. It in no way provides any restitution for the real damages and crimes. This is worth $millions to

Mocality.

I almost wish they were Nigerian. The irony would be complete.

Oh, one more thing. There’s more going on here than immoral and illegal business practices. This is very

likely to be an element of the US government’s push to assert total military and economic dominance in

Africa. Someone at AFRICOM very likely was involved in setting this up. The US government wants to run the

place. In every way.



Reply

ALI says: January 14, 2012 at 9:31 am

Google has no choice but to come out clean on this.Those guys must be shown the door,unless,of course it

was official!

Reply

GOOGLE APOLOGIZE UNRESERVEDLY FOR MALPRACTICES TO

MOCALITY-KENYA | TARIG ANTER says: January 14, 2012 at 9:37 am

[...] CEO Stefan Magdalinski in a blog post on Friday accused Google of “telling untruths” and a “human-

powered, systematic, months-long, [...]

Reply

BLAQX says: January 14, 2012 at 9:45 am

From a web developer’s point of view…thatz an unfortunate thng…an unfair wastage of other pples effort!

Reply

MSNINDIA.CO.IN WEBSITE DIRECTORY » GOOGLE CAUGHT

PILFERING KENYAN BUSINESS DIRECTORY IN STING

OPERATION says: January 14, 2012 at 9:45 am

[...] the evidence collected, Mocality CEO Stefan Magdalinski went public, making a blog post, Google, what

were you thinking?, detailing the company’s findings, and asking the advertising giant three [...]

Reply

ED says: January 14, 2012 at 9:49 am

I absolutely admire Google amazing marketing / deceptive ( depends on your point of view ) tactic. They Are

BRILLIANTLY executed!

The fact that people truly love, and believe the This don’t be evil mantra.

I am sorry and i love to quote: “It’s bullshit”

Reply

NEZUMI says: January 14, 2012 at 10:02 am

But you do work with google! You use all their services so therefore must in some way be working with them! I

imagine thats how they might see it anyway!

Thanks for the article, a great warning to other small online businesses!

Reply

» PUTTING THE GOOGLE-IS-RIPPING-OFF-A-KENYAN-STARTUP

STORY IN PERSPECTIVE says: January 14, 2012 at 10:23 am





Reply

FRANCIS says: January 14, 2012 at 10:43 am

i dont understand the beef here….. if google tried getting information, well it had to use all means necessary

…..

Reply

BARTL says: January 16, 2012 at 8:17 am

But telling lies to customers about other company and business relations to entice them to your business

is illegal. That’s called scamming and fraud I believe it is also punishable by jail.

Reply

TOLD YOU GOOGLE IS EVIL... - ASKDAMAGEX.COM WEBMASTER

FORUM says: January 14, 2012 at 10:44 am

[...] [...]

Reply

DON’T BE EVIL: GOOGLE KENYA STEALS BUSINESS DATABASE

FROM MOCALITY KENYA[REPORT] : TECHNESSTIVITY says: January 14, 2012 at 11:20 am

[...] a blog post this morning by CEO of Mocality Kenya, Stefan Magdaliski Mocality explained how Google

Kenya staff [...]

Reply

GOOGLE CAUGHT PILFERING KENYAN BUSINESS DIRECTORY

IN STING OPERATION : INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY LEADER




Reply

MUTAHI KAHEMBE says: January 14, 2012 at 11:39 am

this is shocking…but how does the big G gain from such unfair biz practices this is just mind boggling

the big G needs to react and very fast at that!

Reply

MUTAHI KAHEMBE says: January 14, 2012 at 11:41 am

if you have prove that this is actually the big G and no impostor..sue them

Reply



LUDWIG says: January 14, 2012 at 11:47 am

incredible story, kudos for the impressive technical detective work! i’m curious what measures google will

take on this shady behaviour. keep up the good work!

Reply

GOOGLE CAUGHT PILFERING KENYAN BUSINESS DIRECTORY

IN STING OPERATION | DESIP2P.COM says: January 14, 2012 at 11:50 am



Reply

GOOGLE IN KENIA: FRAGWÜRDIGE METHODEN – SEO.AT says: January 14, 2012 at 12:12 pm

[...] Fragwürdige Methoden bei Google in Kenia Mocality Blog:Google, what were you thinking? var

szu=encodeURIComponent(location.href); var [...]

Reply


STORY IN PERSPECTIVE « IPHONESCREEN says: January 14, 2012 at 12:22 pm



Reply

GOOGLE MAITĀJAS « DATSPEC says: January 14, 2012 at 12:42 pm

[...] datu nesankcionētā izmantošanā klientu biznesa pārņemšanā. Ļoti nteresants raksts – Google, what

were you thinking? Kopš pagājušā gada oktobra fiksēts, ka laikam jau Google sistemātiski un nesankcionēti

[...]

Reply

C.M.ROGERS says: January 14, 2012 at 12:48 pm

Apparently Google has already publicly acknowledged that people in the company were abusing Google’s

systems to do this. They are “mortified” that it has happened, and I think you can expect the people

responsible to be fired, imprisoned, or both.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/jan/13/google-kenyan-rival-mocality-database?newsfeed=true

Can you please post a new blog update on the situation? No one sane is going to read this far down the

comments section for information!

Reply

FORBES: GOOGLE ACCUSED OF BEING EVIL…IN KENYA

HTTP://ONFORB.ES/ZBKMTQ : GOOWIRE says: January 14, 2012 at 12:54 pm

[...] fraudulently scraping its database as part of an effort to sell products to Mocality users. In a blog

post published today by Mocality CEO Stefan Magdalinski, he laid out a series of unethical business [...]

Reply



GOOGLE ‘IMPROPERLY’ ACCESSED KENYAN RIVAL MOCALITY’S

DATABASE « NEWS « ISHAPER says: January 14, 2012 at 12:55 pm

[...] allegations were first made public in a blogpost on Friday by the chief executive of Mocality, Stefan

Magdalinski, who accused Google of [...]

Reply


INVESTIGATION AMID SEARCH CONTROVERSY | EVERY SINGLE

HOUR! says: January 14, 2012 at 12:56 pm


been “systematically accessing Mocality೦s database and [...]

Reply

ON TIDES AND TALL POPPIES | WAVES PR, FREELANCE PR

CONSULTANT, UK says: January 14, 2012 at 1:00 pm

[...] abused its access to information in Kenya by using the data it acquired from search to compete with

Mocality, a local database company. Even Google itself was “mortified” and issued an apology, [...]

Reply


STORY IN PERSPECTIVE « IPHONECASE says: January 14, 2012 at 1:16 pm



Reply


STORY IN PERSPECTIVE | BLOG02 says: January 14, 2012 at 1:18 pm

[...] a local startup that’s trying to do something complementary. I’ve been looking into the well-researched

story that Mocality, a Kenya-based business listing service, published this morning. There are certainly [...]

Reply

WEEKEND EDITION | BETTYVERSE says: January 14, 2012 at 1:39 pm

[...] been a strange week on the internet, Betties. Scandals and controversy seem to have eaten everyone’s

brains, but there are still a valiant few who [...]

Reply

THE REAL PROBLEM WITH SEARCH+ « THE TORTUGA LAIR


[...] on Google renaming the new feature Antitrust+. Of course, it does not help that at the same time Google is

caught with their pants down ignoring their own “Do no Evil” motto. For a good sample of the reactions, take a

look at MG [...]

Reply

MAE says: January 14, 2012 at 2:07 pm



Google responds to the Mocality blog post.: “We were mortified to learn that a team of people working on a

Google project improperly used Mocality’s data and misrepresented our relationship with Mocality to

encourage customers to create new websites. We’ve already unreservedly apologised to Mocality. 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.”

Reply


DESIGNS BY BRIAN says: January 14, 2012 at 2:15 pm


to [...]

Reply


INVESTIGATION AMID SEARCH CONTROVERSY | APPLE STOCKS



been “systematically accessing Mocality’s database and [...]

Reply

JONGO says: January 14, 2012 at 3:03 pm

I would also know: What were you thinking Google?

I’m sure there are just some people responsible, but Google have to make the entire incident transparent, if

they would not like to lose there “don’t be evil”-face furthermore.

Reply

RONNEY MLUMBE says: January 14, 2012 at 3:11 pm

This is part of competition just like safari-com and zain, you cant complain when the competition gets hard,

you look forward on what next

Reply

CHRIS says: January 14, 2012 at 3:24 pm

Amazing investigation. Thank you for sharing!

Reply

TROUBLES says: January 14, 2012 at 3:39 pm

Seems to me that this issue is one if the very real and logical problems that result from outsourcing to save a

few dimes. One really loses control when they turn data and access over to others to manage.

Reply






Reply

LINKS FOR JANUARY 14, 2012 « ANDRZEJ'S LINKS says: January 14, 2012 at 4:27 pm

[...] Google, what were you thinking? ← Mocality Kenya [...]

Reply

JEREMY says: January 14, 2012 at 4:36 pm

Excellent research and evidence collection! A couple of things stand out, to me.

25 calls per hour to businesses implies a fairly small telemarketing team, perhaps half a dozen people. Few

enough to be easily run by a single manager, perhaps even as a small portion of a larger team.

The switch from using a team in Kenya to one in India means someone fairly familiar with the internal

machinations of Google, but still limited in their scope and power. That switch may have been made in

response to your actions, or simply a precaution again internal scrutiny.

On a tactical level, if you suspected something was going on enough for you to switch your ‘face’ team to

another continent for non-routine reasons, you’d be smart to back off for a week or two, or at least try to be a

little more subtle than simply changing IP address mid-day-peak. (and nothing else)

This sounds, to me, like some mid-level manager who’s desperate to skim a little more out of his monthly

commission rate, while hiding his activities from the rest of the company. Someone’s lining their pockets at

the expense of you, your customers, and Google.

Fortunately, activity at this scale (especially the writing and distribution of telemarketing scripts to the call

centres) should be easily traceable within the company, and you follow the money back to the manager who

benefited from the campaign.

Then – Google, if you’re listening – you fire his ass, explain and apologise to everyone involved, assist in the

transfer of customers back to Mocality, and also give them a small wheelbarrow of money for their trouble.

Google does not benefit from behaviour like bait-and-switch tactics. They know this. At a corporate level they

think long-term and truly believe that more Internet is better, no matter who builds it, because it inevitably

creates more for them to index.

The behaviour you’ve exposed is purely short-term extractive thinking which is explicitly against their corporate

motto – Don’t Be Evil – which they take seriously. I’m sure a lot of cynical and derisive laughter will greet that

statement, but they do. It’s almost impossibly hard for a multinational company that affects millions of lives to

_not_ occasionally screw up and hurt people. That they chase that impossible dream at all is to be

commended.

This kind of underhanded behaviour to steal customers is pretty common. Law courts are full of such cases.

It’s shocking this time because it came from Google, who hold themselves to a higher standard, and thus we

do to.

Best of luck! I suspect it will all work out, now. And you’ve created an excellent model for how to go about this

in future.

Reply

GOOGLE ACCUSED OF FRAUDULENTLY UNDERMINING A

KENYAN STARTUP « NBC, INC. DAILY MEETINGS says: January 14, 2012 at 5:22 pm

[...] Google, what were you thinking?, asks Kenyan startupMocality, which operates the country’s largest

online business directory. Mocality is accusing Google ofknowingly engaging in fraudulent behavior to



Reply



OKECHUKWU A says: January 14, 2012 at 5:22 pm

What an excellent write up! Fantasic stuff you guys are doing in Kenya. As a African and a Nigerian, I’m proud

of you guys and all others doing such work bringing talent and services.. showing we too can be players on

the global stage. Using IT and providing services to our homeland.

Reply

AUGHAVEY COMPUTERS - AUGHAVEY COMPUTERS

COOKSTOWN says: January 14, 2012 at 5:32 pm



Reply

OKECHUKWU A says: January 14, 2012 at 5:38 pm

One more thing.. Google is a US based company. Have you looked into legal recourse against them in the

US? You have have a fight you know. And lawyers would take your case for free. Look into it…

Reply


INVESTIGATION AMID SEARCH CONTROVERSY says: January 14, 2012 at 5:44 pm

[...] recently, Kenyan commercial operation listings association Mocality released evidence which Google

appeared to have been “systematically accessing Mocalitys database as well as [...]

Reply

GOOGLE FLAGRADO USURPANDO BANCO DE DADOS ALHEIO

NA ÁFRICA | VOCÊ INFORMADO says: January 14, 2012 at 6:20 pm

[...] um post especialmente detalhado que foi publicado hoje em seu blog, a startup Mocality, que fornece um

diretório de páginas [...]

Reply

JOB ALPHONES says: January 14, 2012 at 7:51 pm

Well done though you realized it late. We saw them live in action as we were doing our marketing in the

field…. they did theirs on phone. I hope they too will not raid other local websites including our website for

contacts. They have no idea what it takes to get such data. Shame on them for paying Kenyan graduates

Kshs 10,000 a month. Shame shame on them the employees left one by one because they were working for

transport alone.

I had a friend working there….they conducted their operations from westlands Nairobi. They were working in

a team of 20 but the number dropped to 12 because of poor pay. I just wonder how a whole company like

google could pay Kenyans peanuts yet they were making a fortune courtesy of Mocality. Had this continued

longer most hosting companies would have lost business and possibly shut down.

On my facebook profile i complained of how we lost money to con men posing as their employees, we were

shocked to be informed that our pay has just been collected. It was so painful. This google gkbo thing has

created heven for con artists. No wonder some business men ask us for a photocopy of our national ids

most likely they themselves have been conned off their money with offers of putting their businesses online.

Shame on them again and again.

Reply



AR-JAY says: January 14, 2012 at 8:08 pm

Google is starting to show its true face:

- Killing local startups

- Outsourcing local jobs to India

That is just plain Gordon Gekko style multinational corporation behaviour. Google, I’ll keep watching your

business ethics closer from now on!

Reply

JOANNA says: January 14, 2012 at 8:34 pm

This is awe-inspiring. I will follow this blog forever!

Reply

WORLD AND SOCIETY BY NWINTON - PEARLTREES says: January 14, 2012 at 9:11 pm

[...] Google, what were you thinking? ← Mocality Kenya Our database IS our business, and we protect and

tend it very carefully. We spot and block automated attacks, amongst other measures. We regularly contact

our business owners, to help them keep their records up-to-date, and they are welcome to contact our call

centre team for help whenever they need it. In September, Google launched Getting Kenyan Businesses

Online (GKBO). Whilst we saw aspects of their program that were competitive, we welcomed the initiative, as

Kenya still has enough growth in it that every new entrant helps the overall market. We are also confident

enough in our product, our local team, and our deep local commitment that we believe we can hold our own

against any competition, playing fair. [...]

Reply


STORY IN PERSPECTIVE | REDTAXI says: January 14, 2012 at 9:25 pm



Reply


STORY IN PERSPECTIVE - THE REVIEW BLOG says: January 14, 2012 at 11:03 pm



Reply


Sounds similar to the way that mobile phone resellers contact you pretending to be the main dealer when

really they are selling on the service for some commission. Maybe companies are deceptive. Maybe the issue

is lack of checks on the people who Google chose to work with, rather than Google being the problem?

Reply

BAS says: January 14, 2012 at 11:46 pm

This is how google is killing all niche and verticals that have high value. With google places and shopping



they are slapping hard working established businesses. I have a local business directory, it took lot’s of effort

before it reached 250.000 unique visitors a month. Made me a steady income for 4 years. Beginning last year

they added places listings into the searchresults so my site no longer ranks on top op the google

searchresults page. Monthly visits dropped from 250.000 to 6000. What I think is a shame about this is that

Google has stolen all their addresses in google places from hard working small businesses that worked

hard for years to build good databases. They are just stealing and crushing small business owners!

Reply

GOOGLE PRIS LA MAIN DANS LE SAC AU KENYA ? |

SNOBINART.COM says: January 14, 2012 at 11:48 pm

[...] analyses des logs : d’après Stefan Magdalinski, un des responsables de Mocality qui s’explique dans un

long article, Google aurait purement et simplement espionné la concurrence pour aller récupérer des [...]

Reply

MIKE says: January 15, 2012 at 12:52 am

I wondered how long you’d been waiting for your data to be “stolen”! It must have been a very SAD day for you

to find out. Good luck.

Reply

MIKE GORDON says: January 15, 2012 at 1:03 am

A giant like Google is always an easy target for criticism. I personally didn’t have good experience doing

business in Kenya – I was ripped off and had to fight all the time. So I found it interesting that Mocality was so

prepared for this case. Seriously, a publicly available online directory sounds like a perfect trap. I’ll be curious

to see how this case will turn out. Hard to tell who’s really the victim.

Reply

STUFF WE READ: DO NO EVIL? REALLY? | HUNTER & BARD


[...] “Do not evil”? Explain this one please. Hat Tip: MG Siegler. Google did something seriously uglynasty (my

new word) to a small business in Kenya. [...]

Reply


STORY IN PERSPECTIVE | BLOG10 says: January 15, 2012 at 3:16 am



Reply

DAWESI says: January 15, 2012 at 3:52 am

Bring on the anti-trust trials I say, break the company up like they did with Microsoft.

The tip of the iceberg this is. How many other ‘non-monitored’ databases have also been used. I think a

COMPLETE AUDIT of every customer database vs Googles would be an adequate punishment, they have the

resources, and the money to do it, and need a hit in the pocket

Reply




INVESTIGATION AMID SEARCH CONTROVERSY | APPLE LIVE

BLOG says: January 15, 2012 at 4:00 am



Reply

SHAME ON GOOGLE says: January 15, 2012 at 4:13 am

I know of at least 2 other countries where Google is doing this, with a ruthless win at any cost. Not just win but

destroy the lives of your competitors by stealing from them.

Thank you for a providing a template on how to come public.

Shame on Google.

Shame on Larry Page

Shame on Eric Schmidt

The fish rots from the head, and both Page and Schmidt were involved in the Canadian drug deal for which

they paid $500 million to the US DOJ.

Reply


BUSINESS DATABASE : MARKETERS-NETWORK says: January 15, 2012 at 5:47 am



Reply

KEN says: January 15, 2012 at 6:03 am

According to the Wall Street Journal, http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2012/01/13/mortified-google-apologizes-to-

kenyan-business/ Google has apologized and is continuing to investigate.

Reply

SOLYDARITAS FOREVER says: January 15, 2012 at 8:37 am



Reply

WPADKA GOOGLE’A W KENII. ZAMIERZONA NIEUCZCIWOŚĆ CZY

PRZYPADKOWY BŁĄD? « VBETA.PL says: January 15, 2012 at 9:32 am

[...] to kenijska firma internetowa, prowadząca bazę lokalnych przedsiębiorstw. Jak na firmowym blogu

opisuje jej CEO, Stefan Magdalinski, baza powstała dzięki wysiłkowi tysięcy osób, które [...]

Reply


STORY IN PERSPECTIVE | STARTUP HELP says: January 15, 2012 at 9:55 am



Reply



SOMETHING BAD OUT OF AFRICA – THE ECONOMIST (BLOG) :

LINCING.COM says: January 15, 2012 at 10:05 am

[...] services and claimed that the web firm was working closely with Mocality, which is not the case. In a blog

post entitled “Google, what were you thinking?”, Mr Madgalinski says he initially thought [...]

Reply

WHAT A WEEK:-KENYAN TECH STORIES FROM GOOGLE TO THE

DANGERS OF LOCAL HOSTING says: January 15, 2012 at 10:53 am

[...] Read Mocality detective operation here [...]

Reply

WATCH FRIENDS ONLINE FREE STREAMING says: January 15, 2012 at 11:37 am

[...] Facing Another PR Disaster: Google Accused Of Fraudulently Undermining A Kenyan Startup [...]

Reply

MAPIGO INDEJE says: January 15, 2012 at 11:52 am

Please lets accept competition wisely, thanks to Google for creating websites to sme’s, by the Google egents

go to smes and ask for information not from your database, and most sme’s prefer websites than being in a

directory, Google transform lives into better living,.

Reply

MASOMO says: January 15, 2012 at 12:38 pm

mapigo you are right, many SMEs liked the google stuff

Reply

MOCALITY'DEN GOOGLE HAKKINDA AĞIR İDDIALAR | SOSYAL

MEDYA says: January 15, 2012 at 12:47 pm

[...] yaptıkları bir açıklama dijital dünyada minik fırtınalar kopardı. Açıklamanın kendisine bu adresten

ulaşabilirsiniz.Durumu teknik kısımlarına elimden geldiğince az değinerek açıklamaya [...]

Reply


STORY IN PERSPECTIVE | BLOGGER05 says: January 15, 2012 at 1:02 pm



Reply

MARK says: January 15, 2012 at 1:04 pm

Das ist wirklich schlecht.

Reply



#GOOGLE’S DIRTY SECRET OUTSOURCING THE EVIL A

SCANDAL… « @LISSNUP says: January 15, 2012 at 2:05 pm

[...] from Kenya, later moved to India. Only one company is involved at the moment, Kenyan start-up Mocality,

but we should expect there to be many, many more that are either unaware or have not come forward [...]

Reply

LIZA says: January 15, 2012 at 2:36 pm

After reading this post, i have mixed feelings:

1 – I empathize with Mocality. I am a small technology business owner too.

2 – Shame on Google representative for claiming to work in collaboration with Mocality. You have to build your

business on trust…not lies.

But after consideration, the lesson here is: If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen! Unless

information is somehow protected from the public, it is not a trade secret. Don’t complain cause someone is

‘stealing’ your customers. If it wasn’t Google, clearly it would have been someone else. Just a matter of time.

Case in Point: You’re seriously not offering your customers a website… in this day and age! #fail Why not try

and make a better offer for YOUR customers! Think creatively…don’t come crying woe. This is business! Not

personal! And Google is NOT a non-profit sent to save you! You could have worked magic and come out

looking like a super star with a story of how YOU beat Google!!! Now, you’re just a kid in the playground crying

to his mom cause the other kids are running faster than him. Pick up your feet and try harder!!!

Reply

MSHTUKO says: January 15, 2012 at 6:50 pm

I don’t see much wrong with what Google did.

Mocality is an open directory. There should be no restriction on what you can do with information obtained

from them. If Mocality claims otherwise, I’d like to see them take responsibility when, or if, a burglar obtains a

physical address of a business for purposes of breaking in and stealing.

The fact that Google used an automated website to harvest the information is no different than if someone

physically retrieves addresses of 10 or 20 businesses from Mocality, and writes them down on a piece of

paper, say for marketing purposes.

It’s not enough for Mocality to state that this goes against their terms of use (if they even claim that). Terms of

use and copyright restrictions must be reasonable, especially when the information is publicly and freely

available.

Terms of use may only apply to the extent that you shouldn’t provide a similar product. There are two products

here: the directory service, and the web design/hosting service. Google was trawling Mocality’s directory to

market and reach out to potential customers for their web hosting product, NOT to incorporate the information

in their own, rival directory service.

It’s a fine distinction, but an important one. Google is a giant company and they provide hundreds of products

and services — they shouldn’t be denied fair access to another company’s product or service simply

because another of Google’s service is similar to the company’s

Reply

CHRISTINA says: January 18, 2012 at 4:37 pm

WHAT? They were lying to the customers. It wasn’t the harvesting of the information, it was the lying part,

the falsely stating they were part of mocality, falsely claiming things to customers, contact customers,

attempting to steal business from mocality by lying to them. Did you read the article?

Reply



DON’T BE EVIL (TM) | BRAM.US says: January 15, 2012 at 7:07 pm

[...] Google, what where you thinking? → Elsewhere google, mocality ← Play your world with Google Maps [...]

Reply

TOM says: January 15, 2012 at 10:43 pm

If you, as a company from Kenya, did such a thing in USA against an American company, they would sue you

till they get your underwear! They convicted a crime and apology is just a confession. Find good lawyers and

go for it! Make yourself rich and Google regret.

Reply

BRETT (COMPUTER REPAIR EXPERT FROM SYDNEY,

AUSTRALIA) says: January 16, 2012 at 12:17 am

It is surprising that unethical practices like this can occur at all. What ever the case I hope that you find it was

rouge agents and not something from the top of Google because I always thought Google was one of the

good guys.

Reply

MOCALITY VS GOOGLE – THE SILVER LINING | PAULINE MWANGI


[...] Stefan’s Mocality blog – 7956 tweets and 455 [...]

Reply

WPADKA GOOGLE’A W KENII. ZAMIERZONA NIEUCZCIWOŚĆ CZY

PRZYPADKOWY BŁĄD? | MOBILE24 says: January 16, 2012 at 12:29 am

[...] to kenijska firma internetowa, prowadząca bazę lokalnych przedsiębiorstw. Jak na firmowym blogu

opisuje jej CEO, Stefan Magdalinski, baza powstała dzięki wysiłkowi tysięcy osób, które [...]

Reply

EARTH SCIENCE says: January 16, 2012 at 1:31 am

I am doing some research on science for my website . has anyone seen any independent analysis web sites

on current “science in the news” articles and news stories? I keep seeing stories that seem to conflict with

eachother. Each one claiming that their spin on the story is legitimate. It can take me hours of research

that may already be available someplace.

Any Ideas where to start?

Thanks!

Reply

SOMETHING BAD OUT OF AFRICA | says: January 16, 2012 at 1:40 am

[...] and claimed that a web organisation was operative closely with Mocality, that is not a case. In a blog post

entitled “Google, what were we thinking?”, Mr Madgalinski says he primarily suspicion a [...]

Reply



GILDA says: January 16, 2012 at 5:09 am

This is totally unacceptable.

Reply

IPAD 3, INTERNET-ANBIETER, TWITTER-EXPERIMENT |

TECHSLASH.DE says: January 16, 2012 at 7:03 am

[...] Google klaut Daten von kenianischem Start Up. Um den Diebstahl zu stoppen, stellte das Start Up dem

Unternehmen eine Falle. Google hat sich zwischenzeitlich entschuldigt. Der Vorgang werde derzeit

untersucht, dann wolle man Maßnahmen gegen die Beteiligten ergreifen, so ein Google Sprecher. SPON,

Mocality Blog [...]

Reply

ZEN says: January 16, 2012 at 7:54 am

A brief research of the GKBO project

NAIROBI, Kenya, Sep 12

- Google Kenya launches partnership with Safaricom/KENIC/Equity Bank to form kbo.co.ke (GKBO) offering a

standard website to SMEs.

-One of the partners above is already involved in a competing product to get businesses online run by Iridium

Interactive.

-Iridium share an office with Google Kenya and have another office in India.(7th Floor, Purshottam Place,

Westlands,Nairobi)

-Sooner or later they must have come together.

-All GKBO websites are designed by Iridium Interactive BUT GKBO website is managed by Google Kenya

-GKBO charges about $20 (Ksh. 2,000) for each customized website hosting……Interestingly it was

launched as FREE service website on kbo.co.ke .

-GKBO is targeting to get 50,000 business online … @ $20 thats $1 million dollars in the first year.

-Google has an annual turnover of 21.796 billion dollars

-So the connections: Mocality has 170,000 SME contacts, Calls come from ‘Google Kenya’, Websites are

designed by Iridium

-Who stands to gain most from this? How is this money to be shared?Is there a website sales department at

Google Kenya? If not is the service outsourced? To whom at what cost? Follow the money you will find your

answers.

NB: Any allegations/ rumors indicating our involvement are baseless, false and grossly misinterpreted.

Reply

GOOGLE TAGNA MED HANDEN I SYLTBURKEN IGEN -

DISRUPTIVE.NU says: January 16, 2012 at 8:37 am

[...] kunder och hävdat falskeligen att man gjort det i samarbete med de företagen man scrapat: Läs mer

här: (Tagna med handen i syltburken erkänner man det [...]

Reply

STARTUPSTREAM.SE» BLOG ARCHIVE » GOOGLE TAGNA MED

HANDEN I SYLTBURKEN IGEN says: January 16, 2012 at 9:31 am

[...] kunder och hävdat falskeligen att man gjort det i samarbete med de företagen man scrapat: Läs mer

här: (Tagna med handen i syltburken erkänner man det [...]



Reply

GOOGLE – GOOD OR EVIL? – BBC NEWS « ONLINE BUSINESS


[...] a long blog post on Friday, Mocality’s CEO Stefan Magdalinski, who came to Kenya from the UK 18

months ago, explained [...]

Reply

GOOGLE SLOWLY FORGETTING ITS 'DON'T BE EVIL' MOTTO –

TELEGRAPH BLOGS says: January 16, 2012 at 10:49 am

[...] Has Google finally forgotten its "don't be evil" roots? A free Kenyan business directory called Mocality

appear to have evidence of Google unethically tapping up their customers. Mocality, founded by Stefan

Magdalinski, also behind Moo.com, claim that Google have been illicitly approaching their clients to win new

business for their own pr…. [...]

Reply

JOSEPH MUTIE MULE says: January 16, 2012 at 11:04 am

As much as we would accuse Google Kenya for this,how sure are we that it is not a team of

spammers/conmen/conwomen who took the advantage(of the ability of GKBO allowing business owners to

create free websites ) and then started CHARGING business owners so that they may create websites on

behalf of them.I think it may not necessarily have been GKBO Team that did this but some

conmen/conwomen who wanted to use Google’s name to entice and con business owners.

Reply

IDEOT says: January 16, 2012 at 11:57 pm

Then why is Google [Global] quick to apologize. Think, reason and write like somebody who went to

school!!!!!! Pumbavu mavi ya kuku…

Reply

GOOGLE GÖR BORT SIG I KENYA « NAIROBIKOLL! says: January 16, 2012 at 11:11 am

[...] Man har 1. hämtat upp data ur en privat företagsdatabas (KBO) för att 2. försöka sälja konkurrerande

tjänster till samma företag, och antingen 3. gett sken av att det skett i samarbete med databasägarna, eller 4.

spridit ringaktande uppgifter dem. Företaget som drabbats skriver ett utförligt blogginlägg om det här:

Google, what were you thinking?. [...]

Reply

GOOGLE MORTIFIED BY MOCALITY’S ‘SCALPED DATA’ CLAIMS |

DESIP2P.COM says: January 16, 2012 at 11:57 am

[...] boss, Stefan Magdalinski, posted an update on his blog, where he first revealed that Google employees in

both Kenya and India had acted [...]

Reply

4J says: January 16, 2012 at 12:12 pm



Unbelievable!, coming for such a big company? That was cheap and low. Hence the title, “Google, what were

you thinking?”

Reply

KENYAN STARTUP MOCALITY FINALLY GETS APOLOGY FROM

GOOGLE - SOCIAL BARREL says: January 16, 2012 at 1:18 pm

[...] startup Mocality, a local business directory that crowd sources its database of businesses, published a

post accusing Google of ripping it off of its hard earned database of some 170,000 local businesses by [...]

Reply

HAS GOOGLE BEEN STEALING MOCALITY’S DATA? |

MYTOPCOMPANY says: January 16, 2012 at 1:32 pm

[...] I’m watching keenly to see how this plays out in the media and most importantly the final outcome. It might

just open another can of worms. Refer to this post for the breakdown of how it all started Google what were

you thinking [...]

Reply

DOMINIC BETT says: January 16, 2012 at 1:37 pm

I am surprised. Google of all the companies!!!!

Reply

DOMINIC BETT says: January 16, 2012 at 1:40 pm

Am shocked beyond words!!!!

Reply

GOOGLE IS SLOWLY FORGETTING ITS ‘DON’T BE EVIL’ MOTTO |

ASPENIT.CO.UK | COMPUTING & TECHNOLOGY NEWS says: January 16, 2012 at 1:50 pm

[...] Has Google finally forgotten its "don't be evil" roots? A free Kenyan business directory called Mocality




Reply

SCAB OF A NATION, DRIVEN INSANE : ANOTHER WEEK CLOSER

TO THE ESCHATON… says: January 16, 2012 at 4:02 pm

[...] Google, what were you thinking? – this is the reason i’m suspicious, to say the least, about anything

having to do with google. to me, a company whose motto is “do no evil” deserves watching a bit more closely

than other companies, and this is exactly the reason why. Posted by przxqgl on Monday, January 16, 2012, at

8:00 am. Filed under i am a terrorist. Tagged i am a terrorist. Follow any responses to this post with its

comments RSS feed. You can post a comment or trackback from your blog. [...]

Reply

GOOGLE A PIRATÉ LA BASE DE DONNÉES D’UNE STARTUP

KÉNYANE (MÀJ) | ALLOMONSITE.COM says: January 16, 2012 at 4:12 pm



[...] à des milliers de personnes et nous avons construit le répertoire le plus complet du Kenya », explique

ainsi la société. Google serait arrivé sur le marché avec des pratiques [...]

Reply


STORY IN PERSPECTIVE | WATCH FREE HORROR MOVIES

ONLINE says: January 16, 2012 at 4:15 pm



Reply

GOOGLE ADMITS TO KENYAN DATA SCRAPING ALLEGATIONS |

LOCATEPC | LOCATE YOUR STOLEN COMPUTER OR STOLEN

LAPTOP - WORKS FOR BOTH MAC AND PC says: January 16, 2012 at 5:19 pm

[...] matter first came to light in a blog post published on Friday by Stefan Magdalinski, chief executive of

Mocality, who accused Google of [...]

Reply

THE GOOGLE-KENYA RIPOFF | SAHAR ZAINAB says: January 16, 2012 at 7:18 pm

[...] Google, what were you thinking? (Thanks, Stef!) Leave a comment: [...]

Reply

GOOGLE PR NIGHTMARE: SEARCH GIANT APOLOGIZES

FOR EVILDOING – SOUTH DEVON WEB DESIGN - NEW MEDIA

CREATIVES - WEB DESIGN, WEB DEVELOPMENT, WEB

HOSTING, AND SEO IN SOUTH DEVON UK says: January 16, 2012 at 8:11 pm

[...] Include: Mocality, Nelson Mattos Google+, [...]

Reply

RON PAUL says: January 16, 2012 at 9:52 pm

I love it how you switched phone numbers on them, pure genius.

I also love how you’re handling the whole situation, keep it up man!.

Reply

IDEOT says: January 16, 2012 at 11:52 pm

It is high time we started thinking like Innovators and not just users!!! Let us think of our own Kenyan Search

engine. Yes I am a developer, is doable……. OR just sit around and just shut up your mouth because

complaining will not help.

Just a thought…. How can a reputable company with ‘Kenyan presence’, outsource such functions as

mentioned to an Indian firm???!! This is crazy. We have lots of professionals in Kenya who can do a better job

and professionally. Now look at what the Indian firm has done with little coordination from someones

bedroom in India……

Molacity has spent KES 11M in the past few Months to come up with their database. Google just wants to

reap where it has not sawn….. Unprofessional, Unacceptable, legally punishable. YES YES YES..

Reply




STORY IN PERSPECTIVE | FUNNY REAL NEWS ARTICLES says: January 17, 2012 at 12:18 am



Reply

DO KNOW EVIL… « O.C. REVO says: January 17, 2012 at 12:45 am

[...] on about Google+ using facial recognition technology to find you in photos; or also this week, the Mocality

scandal (a lesser publication would have called it “Mocality-gate”) where Google [...]

Reply

DON HVAC says: January 17, 2012 at 1:00 am

Someone finally caught the big dog. That is the best news ever. Hey Google, What happen to NO EVIL?

After you guy understand the meaning behind “Search plus Your World,” You will favor Bing search engine.

Please BING this: “GOOGLE HAS SOLD THEIR SOUL. THE PRICE? YOU!”

Reply

WHERE’S YOUR APOLOGY GOOGLE? | MAXIMISE says: January 17, 2012 at 1:43 am

[...] days ago this post appeared on Kenyan company Mocality’s website accusing Google of not only scraping

[...]

Reply

OA NEWS: JANUARY 11-16, 2012 » OAFRICA says: January 17, 2012 at 4:18 am

[...] A supposed rogue Google Kenya employee attempted to poach a Kenyan startup’s business: Google,

what were you thinking? {Mocality Blog} [...]

Reply

ADWORDS GUY says: January 17, 2012 at 5:23 am

Goog has been doing this for 10 years…in 50 countries… wake up world… Data theft…/ scraper & deceptive

trade practice… Google are the Robber Barrons of the internet world in turn redistribute with google ads @ 34

billion!

Reply

MUGWANJA says: January 17, 2012 at 6:04 am

i am stunned… you guys shd seriously consider legal action!!

really good for you to expose google for what they really are, and real smart gathering such evidence from ‘the

kings of the web’ themselves…

Reply

MAC-JORDAN DEGADJOR » GOOGLE APOLOGIZES TO KENYAN

SEARCH DIRECTORY START-UP: MOCALITY says: January 17, 2012 at 10:04 am



[...] sought to host Kenyan businesses by creating free websites for them. In a lengthy post titled ‘Google what

were you thinking’ on their blog, Mocality provided detailed evidence against which they backed their

allegations [...]

Reply

ZBIGNIEW GRABOWSKI says: January 17, 2012 at 11:54 am

Harvestowanie baz danych, zwłaszcza w branżach yellow pagest to niestety dość często spotykana praktyka.

W każdym razie gratuluję czujności i szybkiej reakcji

Reply

WAS GOOGLE CAUGHT IN A STING OPERATION IN KENYA? | THIS

IS TRUXST says: January 17, 2012 at 12:16 pm


to [...]

Reply

GOOGLE DON’T BE EVIL: APOLOGIZED TO MOCALITY FOR

EVILDOING says: January 17, 2012 at 12:47 pm

[...] per hour, since 7 calls over 3 hours, only 10% of calls redirected: 7*10/3= 23.3. calls/hour)," revealed [...]

Reply

MSNINDIA.CO.IN WEBSITE DIRECTORY » GOOGLE ADMITS TO

KENYAN DATA SCRAPING ALLEGATIONS says: January 17, 2012 at 12:54 pm

[...] matter first came to light in a blog post published on Friday by Stefan Magdalinski, chief executive of

Mocality, who accused Google of [...]

Reply

STRIKE TWO FOR GOOGLE WITH OPENSTREETMAP VANDALISM

CLAIM « TECHNOOSE says: January 17, 2012 at 1:03 pm

[...] week was bad news for Google as Mocality, a crowd-sourcing Kenyan company came forward in a blog

post about how its data was being stolen, its relationship with Google being misrepresented, and its [...]

Reply

GOOGLE AUF ABWEGEN? OPEN STREET MAP VON EINER

GOOGLE IP-ADRESSE AUS MANIPULIERT | BASIC THINKING


[...] IP-Adresse aus Indien, von der aus auch die kenianische Website Mocality vergangene Woche einen

Datenmissbrauch durch Google beklagte. Google-Mitarbeiter kopierten Daten der Wirtschaftsbörse und

boten sie kenianischen [...]

Reply

KINYA says: January 17, 2012 at 2:50 pm

What Mocality and Dealfish have accomplished thus far is fantastic and I commend and congratulate you and

your team Mr. Stefan Magdalinski. There are many reasons you could have chosen not to take on such a



daunting task in a developing nation. I am so glad that you have attested to the honesty and hard work of

many businesses in Kenya. I wish you all the best in your battle(s) with the culprits. Based on your reaction to

the problem, you are definitely well equipped, prepared and capable to deal with this issue and any more that

arise as you continue to grow; it is inevitable therefore do not tire.

Reply

NEW ALLEGATIONS: IS GOOGLE TRYING TO KILL THEMSELVES?

- GOOGLE, NEWS - STATE OF SEARCH says: January 17, 2012 at 2:54 pm

[...] week we saw Google taking a big hit when it became clear that in Kenya Google had crawled a local

directory and then cold called businesses in that database. The allegations seemed to be true because the

[...]

Reply

IS GOOGLE VANDALIZING OPENSTREETMAP? | MASZMAN

SPEAKS! says: January 17, 2012 at 3:08 pm

[...] been in the news a lot lately for less than flattering reasons. Last week it was scraping data from a

Kenyan business data startup, this week it appears to be vandalizing OpenStreetMap. The vandals have the

same Google [...]

Reply

BLOG « GO DIGITAL APPS says: January 17, 2012 at 3:57 pm

[...] which is an offshoot of a South African company, said in a blogpost that it had caught Google

“systematically accessing Mocality’s database and attempting [...]

Reply

CYBERBEACH says: January 17, 2012 at 5:19 pm

Number of firings at Google over this incident: 0

Presumption therefore is this is daily at Google business as usual worldwide. It’s rare to get caught, so each

“bust” indicates 100 other incidents that are still undiscovered.

Apologies are meaningless only firings and damages (payments) count.

PS: in a globally-distributed business, there is no such thing as a “third party vendor”, anyone who performs

core functions is YOURS.

Reply

AJAY says: January 30, 2012 at 10:42 am

Cyberbeach – Already have heard of some who have been fired. It is not important to publicize these

though. Action is important, the company does not want to make a PR win by declaring that it has. Very

stringent action is being taken. Which is a good thing.

Reply

DIRECCIONES IP DE GOOGLE IMPLICADAS EN EL ABUSO DE

DATOS DE DOS START-UPS #IMAPAS — #IMAPAS says: January 17, 2012 at 5:27 pm

[...] en el abuso de datos de dos start-ups #iMapasby admin on 17/01/2012

5109080982_1fb9a9a14a_bMocality, un nuevo buscador de negocios en Kenya y OpenStreetsMap

denunciaron en menos de una semana en sus [...]

Reply




DATOS DE DOS START-UPS - LA ISLA BUSCADA says: January 17, 2012 at 5:57 pm

[...] Mocality, un nuevo buscador de negocios en Kenya y OpenStreetsMap denunciaron en menos de una

semana en sus blogs oficiales un uso fraudulento, así como vandalismo de datos por parte de gente que

dice representar al gigante del internet en Kenya, o bien, que usan cuentas asociadas con IPs de Google en

India para editar erróneamente la información de OMS. [...]

Reply


DATOS DE DOS START-UPS | TECNOMIZE.NET ! –

PROGRAMACION , TELEFONIA , INFORMATICA EN GENERAL Y

MUCHO MAS says: January 17, 2012 at 9:49 pm





Reply

DECAL says: January 17, 2012 at 10:16 pm

Interesting yes suprising..no. It’s only illegal or wrong when caught. Sad but true.

Reply

PIRATAGE, TRIPATOUILLAGE, BAFOUILLAGE DE GOOGLE. |

FRANCOCOM RÉFÉRENCEMENT GRATUIT FRANCOPHONE


[...] cette société vient d’accuser Google de piller sa base de données en « scrapant » (copier/coller) les

informations se trouvant sur son site. [...]

Reply

SKYRIM’S CRAZIEST MODS AND GLITCHES | BANGLAMEDIA says: January 18, 2012 at 12:04 am

[...] Google, what were you thinking? Kenyan startup, Mocality use an online sting, and cunning detective work,

to apparently find Google fraudulently stealing their customers. (via) [...]

Reply

OPENSTREETMAP CHILE » BLOG ARCHIVE » IP DE GOOGLE

VANDALIZANDO OPENSTREETMAP says: January 18, 2012 at 3:01 am

[...] semana pasada Mocality, un emprendimiento Keniata de datos comerciales, atrapo a Google extrayendo

sus datos y el artículo llego hasta boing boing. Mocality rastreo esto con algo de análisis de sus [...]

Reply


DATOS DE DOS START-UPS | JOBBR ES says: January 18, 2012 at 3:07 am







Reply


DATOS DE DOS START-UPS | IGEEK says: January 18, 2012 at 3:23 am





Reply

ZBIGNIEW GRABOWSKI says: January 18, 2012 at 7:27 am

This is a very bad move from Google.

Reply

ADAM says: January 18, 2012 at 12:53 pm

It’s time this issue is sorted out.

Reply

SIVAKUMAR says: January 18, 2012 at 1:48 pm

Hope Google does not change their algorithm to push your organic listing down, just because you exposed

them!!!

Reply

GBI PORTAL | BLOG | AFRICAN TECH TIDBITS: PRAGMATISM,

OPEN SOURCE, THE JOY OF 3G, AND MORE says: January 18, 2012 at 2:14 pm

[...] Google/Mocality controversy earlier in the week serves as a wake-up call for everyone involved in online

business. Small [...]

Reply

CHRISTINA FREEMAN says: January 18, 2012 at 4:28 pm

Take legal action.

Reply

MARC SULLIVAN says: January 18, 2012 at 11:01 pm

@Mike Gordon If so why Google apologized??

I would definitely take legal action

why?

1- because key questions haven’t been answered accordingly, via court they will be forced to provide an

answer.

2- It will effectively help prevent Google from using this tactic in other countries and regions and certainly in



Kenya. They will think twice.

3- This matter would have more exposure and will raise awareness in the rest of the world,

helping/preventing startups of possible unethical business, which make use of similar tactics and/or are

related to Google.

4- An apologize isn’t enough. There is business damage on the matter. And although money compensations

leave a lot to desire, they are what current legal systems had established to repair damages.

Reply

GOOGLE NEDIENAS | PBS.LV says: January 19, 2012 at 10:08 am

[...] 2. Skandāls Kenijā ar datu vākšanu un tirgošanu. Vienkāršots raksts ir iekš boing-boing, un plašāka

informācijas analīze ir uzņēmuma blogā. [...]

Reply

FRED says: January 19, 2012 at 10:49 am

Google?!!!!!!!!!! Whyb a u destroying your integrity!!!

Reply

FRED MANYASI says: January 19, 2012 at 10:50 am

Google?!!!!!!!!!! Why a u destroying your integrity!!!

Reply

IS THERE A FLIPSIDE TO GOOGLE’S ‘GET AFRICAN SMES

ONLINE’ PUSH? « SUSHI IN ACCRA says: January 19, 2012 at 11:58 am

[...] service for SMEs that first launched in Britain in 2010 and is currently embroiled in a ‘scalping’ row in

Kenya, was coming to Ghana, bringing the sub-Saharan Africa tally to Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda and [...]

Reply

COPY LINK = GOOGLE HIJACKING MY BROWSER? says: January 19, 2012 at 8:40 pm

[...] this is an intentional Google strategy to prevent link/search farming, similar to what their “rogue shadow

company” did to Mocality in Kenya? Is this practice known by others and/or publicized by Google

themselves? I wonder if my [...]

Reply

"YIPPEE DOO DAH" - PODCAST 14 |TECHNOLOGY.IE NEWS &

VIEWS ON GADGETS & TECH says: January 19, 2012 at 11:38 pm

[...] by people acting on Google’s behalf? There’s a nice tech detective story in the sting operation which

Mocality conducted which uncovered the action. Google have admitted the story is true and apologised while

they are [...]

Reply

EVIL GOOGLE « GLOBE TREKKER says: January 20, 2012 at 6:07 am

[...] First, there was the small matter of leeching from a Kenyan business: [...]

Reply



LUCINDAH says: January 20, 2012 at 12:58 pm

sure enuff they called me more enuff times

Reply

KENYA: NOT SUCH A GOOD WEEK FOR ICT AND

TELECOMS | ZIMBABWE TELEGRAPH says: January 20, 2012 at 2:38 pm

[...] egg &#959n th&#1077 mighty Google’s face, t&#959&#959: Mocality CEO Stefan Magdalinski posted a

long blog entry &#1110n wh&#1110&#1089h h&#1077

&#1281&#1077&#1109&#1089r&#1110b&#1077&#1281 a sting surgical [...]

Reply

EVELYN says: January 21, 2012 at 4:04 pm

I received the calls, and was wondering, why they are so persistent, yet i declined the first time they had

called!…these third party contractors are tarnishing Google’s respectable name..they should be dealt with

accordingly..Mocality, you Rock!

Reply

GOOGLE IS SLOWLY FORGETTING ITS ‘DON’T BE EVIL’ MOTTO |

BUYING A WEBSITE says: January 22, 2012 at 5:13 am

[...] Has Google finally forgotten its “don’t be evil” roots? A free Kenyan business directory called Mocality




Reply

» IS THERE A FLIPSIDE TO GOOGLE’S ‘GET AFRICAN SMES

ONLINE’ PUSH? SUSHI IN ACCRA says: January 23, 2012 at 11:02 am

[...] service for SMEs that first launched in Britain in 2010, and is currently embroiled in a ‘scalping’ row in

Kenya, was coming to Ghana, bringing the sub-Saharan Africa tally to Kenya, Ghana, Nigeria, Uganda [...]

Reply

GOOGLE-MANAGER MATTOS ENTSCHULDIGT SICH FÜR

UNERLAUBTE DATENBANKNUTZUNG | SUMASEARCH BLOG


[...] Magdalinski, CEO Mocality, teilte in einem Blogbeitrag mit, dass es Mitarbeitern des

Branchenverzeichnisses aufgefallen sei, dass sich Google, ohne eine [...]

Reply

AFRICAN TECH TIDBITS: PRAGMATISM, OPEN SOURCE, THE JOY

OF 3G, AND MORE » OAFRICA says: January 23, 2012 at 2:07 pm

[...] Google/Mocality controversy earlier in the week serves as a wake-up call for everyone involved in online

business. Small [...]

Reply



WAS GOOGLE CAUGHT IN A STING OPERATION IN KENYA? - SC

WEB DESIGN GROUP says: January 23, 2012 at 4:53 pm

[...] in a Sting Operation in Kenya? Wow…this is pretty…um…transparent.According to this post, Google was

caught scraping Mocality, calling the listed businesses, soliciting that they move to [...]

Reply


DATOS DE DOS START-UPS | NOTICIAS DEL CEREBRO DIGITAL






Reply

I011 – STRAHLENDE EIER | INCERIO PODCAST says: January 23, 2012 at 8:36 pm

[...] Google – “Don’t be evil!” [...]

Reply

GOOGLE+ AND IT’S GROWING INFLUENCE ON SEARCH | MAINE

PRO SEO says: January 24, 2012 at 5:25 am

[...] business. I’ve been observing the fallout from Google’s recent moves in social and the Kenyan debacle,

but rather than wax philosophical on Google’s ethics I’d like to talk about the [...]

Reply

MOBILE INNOVATION IN AN UNLIKELY PLACE | WMPOWERUSER


[...] Interestingly, a different image sprung in my mind with the news a week or so ago about certain Google

(third party contractors) poaching business from a Kenyan startup Mocality. I instead recalled a post I had

read sometime [...]

Reply

INFORMATIQUE 2012 – SEMAINE 3 says: January 25, 2012 at 2:47 pm

[...] Kenya aurait piraté la base de données de Mocality, composées de 170000 adresses. Elles devraient

être bientôt disponibles dans Google Adresses ? [...]

Reply

IT'S OFFICIAL - GOOGLE IS EVIL NOW - PAGE 2 - WINDOWS

PHONE FORUMS AT WPCENTRAL.COM says: January 26, 2012 at 7:15 pm

[...] another reason to dislike Google. Google, what were you thinking? ← Mocality Kenya Funny how it never

got into mainstream media… But… If you own a company which controls [...]

Reply

GOOGLE PLAYS DIRTY IN KENYAEAST AFRICAN OBSERVER




[...] is a damning post out by Stefan Magdalinski on some unpalatable business practices being finished by

[...]

Reply

KAMAU says: January 30, 2012 at 9:43 am

Now Nelson Mattos of Google seems he again did it again….giving a two lined statement of what they will or

have done. No public official response yet from Google, what a shame

Reply

GOOGLE APOLOGISES FOR USING MOCALITY DATA, HEADS

ROLLED? | | TECHWEEZTECHWEEZ says: January 30, 2012 at 10:36 am

[...] Kimani This month has been a tough one for the Google Kenya office after the undoubted exposure of

Google’s activity on the Mocality database earlier in the month. Google has taken several steps internally and

given several [...]

Reply

SEO ENTERPRISE-WAS GOOGLE CAUGHT IN A STING

OPERATION IN KENYA? says: January 30, 2012 at 12:59 pm


to [...]

Reply

GOOGLE TAKES OUT NIGERIA FROM ITS 2 FACTOR

AUTHENTICATION? « OPENRANTS says: January 30, 2012 at 2:59 pm

[...] Update: Could Google just be human after all? They were definitely evil on this one. [...]

Reply

STARTING A STARTUP? THE ESSSENCE OF BUILDING A

COMPLETE TEAM. « OPENRANTS says: January 30, 2012 at 4:02 pm

[...] I was late in getting the details of Google’s sales stunt in Kenya where they essentially were feeding fat on

another company’s data. [...]

Reply

STARTING A STARTUP? THE ESSENCE OF BUILDING A

COMPLETE TEAM « OPENRANTS says: January 30, 2012 at 4:18 pm

[...] I was late in getting the details of Google’s sales stunt in Kenya where they essentially were feeding fat on

another company’s data. [...]

Reply

REPORT: GOOGLE FIRES TWO EMPLOYEES OVER MOCALITY

SCANDAL | 9TO5GOOGLE | BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL says: January 30, 2012 at 5:52 pm

[...] Kenya’s largest business directory, criticized Google’s unethical business practices in a blog post dated

Jan. 13, when its CEO Stefan Magdalinski discovered the search engine systematically [...]

Reply



GOOGLE FIRES KEYNA LEAD OVER MOCALITY SCANDAL |

FLAREVINE says: January 30, 2012 at 6:04 pm

[...] Kenya’s largest business directory had recently criticized Google for its unethical business practices in

the country which lead to Google [...]

Reply

GOOGLE ENDS PROBE OF KENYA DATABASE SCAM | ZIMBABWE

TELEGRAPH says: January 30, 2012 at 11:06 pm

[...] later &#1109&#1072&#1110&#1281 th&#1072t Google h&#1072&#1281 apologized &#1072n&#1281

th&#1072t h&#1077 appreciated [...]

Reply

SOME OF THE MOST POPULAR INTERNET MARKETING STORIES

YOU MIGHT WANT TO CHECK | MAKE BIG PROFIT says: January 31, 2012 at 2:48 am

[...] t&#959 th&#1110&#1109 post, Google w&#1072&#1109 caught scraping Mocality, calling th&#1077 listed

businesses, soliciting [...]

Reply

GOOGLE CUTS HEAD OF KENYAN OPERATION AFTER

SCRAPING MOCALITY DATABASE « NEWS « ISHAPER says: January 31, 2012 at 2:55 am

[...] to Mocality after its initial investigation discovered that allegations by Stefan Magdalinski, first aired on the

Mocality blog on 13 January, were [...]

Reply

GOOGLE CUTS HEAD OF KENYAN OPERATION AFTER

SCRAPING MOCALITY DATABASE | ZIMBABWE TELEGRAPH says: January 31, 2012 at 1:08 pm

[...] &#1110t&#1109 initial investigation learned th&#1072t allegations b&#1091 Stefan Magdalinski, first

aired &#959n th&#1077 Mocality blog &#959n 13 January, w&#1077r&#1077 r&#1110&#609ht. [...]

Reply

STACKING UP GOOGLE OPTIMIZATION EFFORTS : DIGITAL

AGENCY says: January 31, 2012 at 8:53 pm

[...] you haven’t read about the Mocality debacle, you really aren’t missing that much, it’s more of a ‘How the

heck?’ than [...]

Reply


WD22 – BEST PORTAL WORLD WIDE WEB says: January 31, 2012 at 9:43 pm


to [...]

Reply

ГЛАВА GOOGLE В КЕНИИ ПОПЛАТИЛСЯ ЗА ВОРОВСТВО

У СТАРТАПА says: February 1, 2012 at 4:12 pm

[...] выяснило руководство кенийского стартапа Mocality, представители [...]



Reply

ГЛАВА GOOGLE В КЕНИИ ПОПЛАТИЛАСЬ ЗА ВОРОВСТВО У

СТАРТАПА » ИННОВАТИКА says: February 2, 2012 at 6:05 am

[...] выяснило руководство кенийского стартапа Mocality, представители [...]

Reply

GOOGLE: THE REAL QUESTIONS WE SHOULD BE ASKING |

GEOREFERENCED says: February 7, 2012 at 9:31 pm

[...] for sites attracting more than 25,000 hits per day. Next, one of Google’s affiliates was caught playing dirty

in Kenya, scraping third party IP without permission and trying to poach customers by deception. Around the

[...]

Reply

GOOGLE IP VANDALIZING OPENSTREETMAP | CARNET DE

NOTES says: February 9, 2012 at 9:15 am

[...] » qu’ils disent. Moi je veux bien les croire mais visiblement ils se sont fait prendre à piller des annuaires

avec des pratiques commerciales malhonnêtes. Bon, ils se sont excusés mais déjà on peut retirer la

médaille du chevalier blanc (et ça fait [...]

Reply


I no longer think this is likely (because of the repeated visits shown in graphs), but there other methods of

sending requests from Google’s IPs e.g. using app engine, as demonstrated at this URL:

httprequesttest.appspot.com

Reply

WHATSNEW says: January 14, 2012 at 10:57 am

So you contact business owners from the database, claiming to be from Google and offering Google

services, not to mention spreading falsehoods about the company you’ve swiped the data from.

Where do you go from there if do no in fact represent Google?

You should have terminated your comment after the fourth word.

Reply

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