Don't Be Evil*

*except if evilness is good for business.

The basics: Google, by way of their Getting Kenyan Business Online initiative, stole customers (and data) from rival Mocality.

Mocality uncovered as much in a clever sting operation, not unlike the one Google itself used to catch Bing “borrowing” search results last year.

What a fucked up situation. Google has fessed up to it, but is distancing themselves — “a team of people working on a Google project” sure is a funny way of saying “Google employees”. Not good.

This really isn’t getting enough attention online. There’s a good article over at Ars, but as usual the apologist come out in the commentary. “If it was a small group that found a way to use the company to run their own scam? No, I’d blame the employees.” Right, because if there’s anything an upstanding, civic-minded company that does ‘no evil’ wants, it’s plausible deniability. Pfeh.