Google Fires Kenya Country Manager Over Mocality Saga
Reports have emerged that Google has fired its Kenyan country manager over Google’s theft of Mocality’s database. Nairobitech says Olga Arara-Kimani, a former Safaricom employee has been let off. They also say a technical person in Zurich has been fired. Yesterday, Nelson Mattos who had released an earlier statement apologising to Mocality released another statement: “We’ve concluded our investigation into the serious allegations about our use of data... Read More
Google Says Mocality Kenya’s Database Was Publicly Available
We reported last week that Mocality Kenya accused Google of stealing its database of businesses and reaching out to those businesses while promoting Getting Kenyan Businesses Online as a Google-Mocality effort. In a statement to the UK’s ‘The Register’ Google says: “We’re aware that a company in Kenya has accused us of using some of their publicly available customer data without permission. We are investigating the matter and will have more information as... Read More
Don’t Be Evil: Google Kenya Steals Business Database From Mocality Kenya[REPORT]
Mocality is one of MIH Africa’s internet businesses. Mocality Kenya like its other variants across Africa, is a database of Kenyan businesses including their addresses, phone numbers and websites. Mocality’s database is built via crowdsourcing. The company pays Kenyans who contribute to the database via Kenya’s mobile payment service M-PESA. In a blog post this morning by CEO of Mocality Kenya, Stefan Magdaliski Mocality explained how Google Kenya staff had... Read More
MIH To Shutdown Kalahari Kenya, Kalahari Nigeria, Dealfish Ghana and Dealfish Uganda[REPORT]
Reports from TechMtaa have emerged stating that MIH Internet Africa [digital arm of South Africa's Naspers] is planning to shut down Kalahari Nigeria and Kalahari Kenya. MIH has reportedly sent a notice of the closure to its employees. Rumors state that Kalahari hasn’t recouped the money it has spent on advertising and running both websites. For those who dont know what Kalahari is, Kalahari is an e-commerce website run by MIH Internet Africa, where users can order and... Read More
