Head Of Google Kenya Fired

We recently mentioned the Mocality scandal in which Google Kenya had been illegally accessing and using the database of a Kenyan firm in order to sell people into their GKBO offer to Kenyan businesses, as well as misrepresenting their association with that firm. Google responded quickly to the allegations by Mocality when they were first made, offering an unreserved apology by the Google VP for Product & Engineering in Europe and Emerging Markets, Nelson Mattos, who promised to investigate the allegations and take the appropriate action.

Kenya Head Of Operations Fired

Today, in the wake of the Mocality scandal and presumably the associated investigation, Google appears to have terminated the contract of Olga Arara-Kimani, Google's head of operations in Kenya. According to the report, another, as yet unnamed staff member in Google's Zurich office has also been let go. Mattos released a brief statement today, saying that appropriate action had been taken against the people involved, and that their operations had been changed to ensure that no recurrence of the event would occur.

Acceptable Outcome?

With Google under fire already for various changes, including the apparently preferential treatment Google+ seems to be getting in the search engine results, and the latest consolidation of user data across products embodied by the new unified privacy policy, Google seems to have done the right thing here. A definite positive blip on the search giants reputation radar, which is definitely facing a bit of fluctuation at present.