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I am not sure why he even needs two paragraphs before coming to the point: Google was basically phishing by pretending that they were partnered with Mocality.

I am not sure why he even needs two paragraphs before coming to the point: Google was basically phishing by pretending that they were partnered with Mocality. Isn't that what a phishing scam is? I lie and tell hotmail customers, for example, that I am from hotmail or somehow partnered with hotmail and that I need your password(or credit card). That's almost criminal.

michaelcampbell 15y ago
> Google was basically phishing by pretending that they were partnered with Mocality. It's a bit disingenuous to equate some Google employees from doing this with Google as a company doing it. I could be very wrong here (and would be extraordinarily disappointed in the company if so), but I doubt this was a corporate-sanctioned activity.
- badclient 15y ago
  When an engineer at google comes up with a great idea during work hours not sanctioned by google, google still owns that idea and its success. Not the individual. Same should apply when shit goes bad.
  - michaelcampbell 15y ago
    Taking responsibility for something stupid your employees do, sure. Equating that stupid thing with a sanctioned corporate action is ridiculous.
    - tripzilch 15y ago
      Following the same reasoning we shouldn't laud Google for all the great stuff they did either, like GMail, Search, etc. Sorry it's one or the other. I know I like to say, we're IT and if anything goes wrong it's not our fault, but if anything goes extremely well, we'll take the credit--but then I know I'm being facetious :)
      - derefr 15y ago
        > Following the same reasoning we shouldn't laud Google for all the great stuff they did either, like GMail, Search, etc. You know, why not think of Google (or Microsoft, or any other Zaibatsu-pretending-to-be-one-brand) as companies resident within a start-up incubator? Treating Google's Adsense team as the same "culture" as Google's Search team makes about as much sense as treating Sony Pictures as being the same company as Sony Computer Entertainment, or Virgin Airlines as being the same company as Virgin Mobile. So, don't say "Google did this to GMail today" or "Google's search is amazing" or "Google merged their Page Creator into Google Sites"; instead, say "The GMail team launched this today" or "I love the Google Search folks" or "Google Page Creator got bought out by Google Sites."
        Klinky 15y ago
        If YCombinator funded/supported say a company that allowed your house to get trashed with no reparations or attempt to make good, then yes I'd hold that against YCombinator. Ultimately Google Inc. is where the money funnels to & is ultimately responsible for it's subcultures. This idea that Google can't be held responsible for bad employee behavior is borderline religious. Praise Google when it does something good, let Google off the hook when it does something bad.
        michaelcampbell 15y ago
        Google has mentioned a lot of times that various projects started from 20% projects of specific people. The post you're replying to was so ridiculous it wasn't bearing me responding.
  - yock 15y ago
    Nonsense. You can't draw an equals sign between two actions just because they sounds similar. One is a completely legal action by an employee in good standing. The other is a crime. They are not the same thing and should not be treated as such.
    - awakeasleep 15y ago
      Yet they are both done for the profit of the company. What is the difference you see?
      - ori_b 15y ago
        Are you sure? Are you sure that people working at Google didn't just do something for their own profit?
        TallTalesOrTrue 15y ago
        The guy talking to businesses wasn't talking on his own behalf. He was representing Google and acting on Google's behalf. It's stupid to suggest that he was doing this for his own profit.
        deleted 15y ago
        [deleted]
        yock 15y ago
        I'm sure his compensation was dependent on his performance.
        ori_b 15y ago
        Have you looked at the transcript of his conversation? Would he be using an '@gmail.com' address instead of an '@google.com' address if he was doing it on Google's behalf?
  - idspispopd 15y ago
    This is an important point. I am reading a lot of defence on here for google and there is little to back it up. This isn't a minor oversight executed by a small team, rather the precise opposite. I would say Google's reply has been a lie(dare I say "utter bullshit") - an idea like this doesn't accidentally become implemented. It wasn't even implemented in a small way, both being executed from inside google and google finding it worthwhile to pay a separate company to expand the program for them. (A company doing exactly what google has asked of them, to the point of google having to approve the scripts used by callers.) This is incredibly bad of them, and while "HQ" might not have fully understood the methods being used they wouldn't have not known nothing about it. It's about on par with News Corp executives pretending they didn't know about voicemail-hacking.
- pork 15y ago
  > It's a bit disingenuous to equate some Google employees from doing this with Google as a company doing it. Um...no, it's not disingenuous at all.
  - ZeroMinx 15y ago
    Um...yes, it is. Take any 10k+ employee company, can you as a company guarantee that no employer will "do no evil"? That's impossible. I'm not trying to defend Google here, but just saying that an act made by an employee at a company is equal to a given strategy by the same company is just ludicrous.
    - y0ghur7_xxx 15y ago
      The scam was going on for months. It's not something that some employee did without telling anyone, hidden away in some office. You can't possibly contact all those businesses during work hours at google without some boss asking you what you are working on and what you are doing. And if that is possible inside google, imho something is very wrong.
      - michaelcampbell 15y ago
        > It's not something that some employee did without telling anyone, hidden away in some office. Awesome; since you seem to have more facts than anyone else in this emotion-laden thread, please lay them out for us. Perhaps you're right; I simply don't know, but since you seem to have evidence of this, I'm sure Google legal would love to see it.
        y0ghur7_xxx 15y ago
        > since you seem to have more facts than anyone I don't. I just repeated what Nelson Mattos wrote on his blog. "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."
      - 15y ago
- gabaix 15y ago
  Why is this downvoted? His point is valid, even if you disagree with it.
  - maratd 15y ago
    No, it is not a valid point. A company must take responsibility for its employees or contractors. It hired them. It is responsible for them. It must be held accountable for them. Why? Because a company is its employees. And yes, a few rotten apples will spoil the party. You judge a company by its worst employees, not its best. That's the way you judge any group. That's why a group worth admiring has the highest standard for membership and mercilessly purges its ranks of bad apples.
    - myko 15y ago
      No one is saying Google should not take responsibility - they should, and appear to be. Continue being angry at Google as a whole about this incident if they try to sweep it under the rug and do not get rid of those responsible.
      - tripzilch 15y ago
        I'll also continue being angry until they come up with a better response than a half-assed paragraph on a social network by some guy that doesn't even bother introducing himself or his function within Google.

michaelcampbell 15y ago

> Google was basically phishing by pretending that they were partnered with Mocality. It's a bit disingenuous to equate some Google employees from doing this with Google as a company doing it. I could be very wrong here (and would be extraordinarily disappointed in the company if so), but I doubt this was a corporate-sanctioned activity.

badclient 15y ago
When an engineer at google comes up with a great idea during work hours not sanctioned by google, google still owns that idea and its success. Not the individual. Same should apply when shit goes bad.
- michaelcampbell 15y ago
  Taking responsibility for something stupid your employees do, sure. Equating that stupid thing with a sanctioned corporate action is ridiculous.
  - tripzilch 15y ago
    Following the same reasoning we shouldn't laud Google for all the great stuff they did either, like GMail, Search, etc. Sorry it's one or the other. I know I like to say, we're IT and if anything goes wrong it's not our fault, but if anything goes extremely well, we'll take the credit--but then I know I'm being facetious :)
    - derefr 15y ago
      > Following the same reasoning we shouldn't laud Google for all the great stuff they did either, like GMail, Search, etc. You know, why not think of Google (or Microsoft, or any other Zaibatsu-pretending-to-be-one-brand) as companies resident within a start-up incubator? Treating Google's Adsense team as the same "culture" as Google's Search team makes about as much sense as treating Sony Pictures as being the same company as Sony Computer Entertainment, or Virgin Airlines as being the same company as Virgin Mobile. So, don't say "Google did this to GMail today" or "Google's search is amazing" or "Google merged their Page Creator into Google Sites"; instead, say "The GMail team launched this today" or "I love the Google Search folks" or "Google Page Creator got bought out by Google Sites."
      - Klinky 15y ago
        If YCombinator funded/supported say a company that allowed your house to get trashed with no reparations or attempt to make good, then yes I'd hold that against YCombinator. Ultimately Google Inc. is where the money funnels to & is ultimately responsible for it's subcultures. This idea that Google can't be held responsible for bad employee behavior is borderline religious. Praise Google when it does something good, let Google off the hook when it does something bad.
      - michaelcampbell 15y ago
        Google has mentioned a lot of times that various projects started from 20% projects of specific people. The post you're replying to was so ridiculous it wasn't bearing me responding.
- yock 15y ago
  Nonsense. You can't draw an equals sign between two actions just because they sounds similar. One is a completely legal action by an employee in good standing. The other is a crime. They are not the same thing and should not be treated as such.
  - awakeasleep 15y ago
    Yet they are both done for the profit of the company. What is the difference you see?
    - ori_b 15y ago
      Are you sure? Are you sure that people working at Google didn't just do something for their own profit?
      - TallTalesOrTrue 15y ago
        The guy talking to businesses wasn't talking on his own behalf. He was representing Google and acting on Google's behalf. It's stupid to suggest that he was doing this for his own profit.
        deleted 15y ago
        [deleted]
        yock 15y ago
        I'm sure his compensation was dependent on his performance.
        ori_b 15y ago
        Have you looked at the transcript of his conversation? Would he be using an '@gmail.com' address instead of an '@google.com' address if he was doing it on Google's behalf?
- idspispopd 15y ago
  This is an important point. I am reading a lot of defence on here for google and there is little to back it up. This isn't a minor oversight executed by a small team, rather the precise opposite. I would say Google's reply has been a lie(dare I say "utter bullshit") - an idea like this doesn't accidentally become implemented. It wasn't even implemented in a small way, both being executed from inside google and google finding it worthwhile to pay a separate company to expand the program for them. (A company doing exactly what google has asked of them, to the point of google having to approve the scripts used by callers.) This is incredibly bad of them, and while "HQ" might not have fully understood the methods being used they wouldn't have not known nothing about it. It's about on par with News Corp executives pretending they didn't know about voicemail-hacking.
pork 15y ago
> It's a bit disingenuous to equate some Google employees from doing this with Google as a company doing it. Um...no, it's not disingenuous at all.
- ZeroMinx 15y ago
  Um...yes, it is. Take any 10k+ employee company, can you as a company guarantee that no employer will "do no evil"? That's impossible. I'm not trying to defend Google here, but just saying that an act made by an employee at a company is equal to a given strategy by the same company is just ludicrous.
  - y0ghur7_xxx 15y ago
    The scam was going on for months. It's not something that some employee did without telling anyone, hidden away in some office. You can't possibly contact all those businesses during work hours at google without some boss asking you what you are working on and what you are doing. And if that is possible inside google, imho something is very wrong.
    - michaelcampbell 15y ago
      > It's not something that some employee did without telling anyone, hidden away in some office. Awesome; since you seem to have more facts than anyone else in this emotion-laden thread, please lay them out for us. Perhaps you're right; I simply don't know, but since you seem to have evidence of this, I'm sure Google legal would love to see it.
      - y0ghur7_xxx 15y ago
        > since you seem to have more facts than anyone I don't. I just repeated what Nelson Mattos wrote on his blog. "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."
    - 15y ago
gabaix 15y ago
Why is this downvoted? His point is valid, even if you disagree with it.
- maratd 15y ago
  No, it is not a valid point. A company must take responsibility for its employees or contractors. It hired them. It is responsible for them. It must be held accountable for them. Why? Because a company is its employees. And yes, a few rotten apples will spoil the party. You judge a company by its worst employees, not its best. That's the way you judge any group. That's why a group worth admiring has the highest standard for membership and mercilessly purges its ranks of bad apples.
  - myko 15y ago
    No one is saying Google should not take responsibility - they should, and appear to be. Continue being angry at Google as a whole about this incident if they try to sweep it under the rug and do not get rid of those responsible.
    - tripzilch 15y ago
      I'll also continue being angry until they come up with a better response than a half-assed paragraph on a social network by some guy that doesn't even bother introducing himself or his function within Google.