The bad week for Google PR refuses to end. A few days after Google’s Mocality misadventure in Kenya, Google contractors have been found to be vandalizing OpenStreetMap (OSM) by removing vital information from the system and altering important data, TheVerge reports.
The Google contractors were based out of India and shared the same IP Address as the team that stole data from Mocality’s database. A Google spokesperson confirmed the vandalism and sacked the two contractors involved in the act. The spokesperson was very particular in emphasizing that the culprits were Google contractors and not Google employees.
Let’s take a moment to consider the case here: Google hires contractors, who proceed to sabotage the competition to Google’s advantage. Contractors get caught, Google shrugs its shoulders and says, “not our guys!”, and nerd rage is suitably soothed.
This begs the question: why would independent contractors go out of their way to ransack the competition? Larry Page breaking into Mocality HQ or OSM to steal data is understandable; the more money Google makes, the richer he becomes. But an independent contractor has little motivation to do the same – unless, of course, the management has insinuated in a non-nod, wink-wink manner that doing so would yield some rewards.
Shake off the naivete and you’ll see this for what it really is: Google management hiring contractors to engage in all the shady things it can’t get away with should its own employees get caught in the act. The contractors have little motivation to sabotage the competition without management’s express approval or insinuation.
Not only is this evil of the highest order – incorrect traffic information on the OSM can directly cause accidents – but the practice of hiring contractors and shirking all responsibilities for their action must stop. Otherwise, we’ll soon have *contractors* hired by Microsoft, Samsung, Apple and others running around planting bombs in each others HQs.
Someone at Google has to stand up and take responsibility. And we, the general Google worshipping plebeians must hold Google responsible for the mess its made in the past few weeks.