Google Accused Of Fraudulently Undermining A Kenyan Startup

We decided to find out. We made some changes to the site:

- For visitors from the 41.203.221.138 address, we changed the code to serve slightly different content 10% of the time.

- Instead of the real business phone number, we served a number that fed through to our call centre team, where the incoming calls would also be recorded. Our team were briefed to act like the business owners for the calls.

We switched the new code on December 21st. When we listened to the calls, we were beyond astonished.

Google Kenya employees were apparently calling up businesses they found on Mocality, trying to get them to sign up for a competing product by lying about a partnership with Mocality that was supposedly in place, and spreading misinformation about Mocality’s business model.