What was Google thinking(Contains text from the blog)

13 points by GKKenya ↗ HN
This is the text contained in http://blog.mocality.co.ke/2012/01/13/google-what-were-you-thinking/blog as written by Mocality CEO You can follow the blog link to read the full story(of which I propose since it is of better quality) but just in case you can't access the site here is some of the contents that the blog contains. Note: Some resources such as images might be missing and also I didn't have enough time to format the content properly

============================================= Links to some of the resources contained in the blog ============================================= https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/mocality-wordpress/audio/douglas.mp3 http://blog.mocality.co.ke/files/2012/01/Incoming_Call-Redacted-20111221-1133502.pdf ============================================= 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 c...

2 comments

[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 16.4 ms ] thread
I hope its just a random error that keeps getting the discussions and links to this article killed and not something a bit more systematic... or "evil"....