Google accused of dodgy business practices in Kenya
Google lost its status as the darling of the Internet earlier this week following an uproar over changes to its search results.
Now the search engine and online advertising giant faces a fresh PR disaster after Kenyan mobile startup Mocality, on Friday, accused the company of fraudulent practices and knowingly undermining its business efforts.
Mocality is Kenya’s largest mobile business directory with more than 170 000 listings. The company helps promote local businesses through a crowdsourcing program and online search.
On its blog, CEO Stefan Magdalinksi claims that soon after Google launched Getting Kenyan Business Online (GKBO) in September 2011, Mocality began receiving “odd” calls from business owners on their database. They were confused about Mocality’s supposed collaboration with Google. As the calls increased, Mocality’s suspicions were raised. The company began monitoring its server logs and launched a sting operation to get to the bottom of the calls.
According to Magdalinski, their investigation revealed damning results: GKBO had been accessing Mocality’s database — 30% of it as of January 11, 2012 — and contacting listed business owners to sell their product to them. Mocality has cited evidence such as an audio recording of Google Kenya employees calling up business owners, falsely stating that GKBO works in collaboration with Mocality and then trying to sell them a website. Google later outsourced the operation to India, as suggested by this call to a Kenyan business owner from Deepthi at Google India’s offices.
Bob Marley with girlfriend Pascaline Bongo, the daughter of Omar Bongo, the former president of Gabon. Omar Bongo was president of Gabon from 1967 until his death in 2009.
A young man smokes and relaxes at dusk in the Rif Mountains in Chefchaouen.
The Rif Mountains are known as one of the largest cannabis-producing regions in the world.
While the harvest is mainly used to make hashish for export to Europe, many locals smoke a fine powder called kifi, made of the leftover flowers and stems.
Ph: John Francis Peters
Strand Books, New York. In 1927, Ben Bass opened Strand Book Store on Fourth Avenue, home of New York’s legendary Book Row. Named after the famous publishing street in London, the Strand was one of 48 bookstores on Book Row, which started in the 1890’s and ran from Union Square to Astor Place.
Om
nahuse7en, instagr.am
(via wordslessspoken)
SU EBRIEDAD;
De todos los estados por los que pasas este es el que me gusta: despues de llorar y justo antes de quedarte dormido.