How Google uses that information, save for any misrepresentation that may occur after the data is indexed, is their business. If you don’t want your site indexed by Google’s army of link-following bots, block it in your site’s robot.txt file. Google willingly shares the directions on how to do so.

With that in mind, the recent story concerning Google and the Kenyan business directory, Mocality, which was covered extensively by The Next Web and on the Mocality blog, is the very loud noise of potential Google improprieties drowning out the very simple signal — disregarding an issue of misrepresentation — that, at the heart of the matter, the data in question was acquired the same way Google gets all of its content?

A simple content scrape of, in this case, a very public web directory?

Google apparently crawled Mocality’s business listings and contacted the business owners directly, promoting the Google-sponsored Getting Kenyan Businesses Online (GKBO) program. So far, so good, right? How Google got the data should not be an issue. What happens with it, especially if Google representatives are claiming a coalition where none exists; well, that’s another story entirely.

Unfortunately, both subjects are at issue, when only one of them should be. If the following stanza from the Mocality’s blog post about the situation is true:

…you can clearly hear Douglas identify himself as Google Kenya employee, state, and then reaffirm, that GKBO is working in collaboration with Mocality, and that we are helping them with GKBO, before trying to offer the business owner a website (and upsell them a domain name). Over the 11 minutes of the whole call he repeatedly states that Mocality is with, or under (!) Google.

Then Google has a lot to be mortified about (more on that in a moment). However, if there’s an issue of Google’s scraping of the content, something made apparent in the conclusion of Mocality’s post:

Since October, Google’s GKBO appears to have been systematically accessing Mocality’s database and attempting to sell their competing product to our business owners. They have been telling untruths about their relationship with us, and about our business practices, in order to do so. As of January 11th, nearly 30% of our database has apparently been contacted.

The misrepresentation, or, “untruths,” are indeed an issue, but Google’s scraping of the content is not. Again, robot.txt their bots out of your content if you don’t want Google accessing your hard work. As for the misrepresentation, the following statement was issued by Nelson Mattos, Vice-President for Google’s Product and Engineering, Europe and Emerging Markets:

“We were mortified to learn that a team of people working on a Google project improperly used Mocality’s data and misrepresented our relationship with Mocality to encourage customers to create new websites. We’ve already unreservedly apologised to Mocality. We’re still investigating exactly how this happened, and as soon as we have all the facts, we’ll be taking the appropriate action with the people involved.”

Now, were these employees informed to deceive the businesses they were contacting or were they doing it on their own volition? Unless the guilty employees are examined, we’ll probably never know.

A post on the YouTube Blog is titled "Amid Violence, Kenyans Connect on YouTube," and Steve G. begins by going over the real-world, election-sparked situation.  "When sitting President Mwai Kibaki won over opposition leader Raila Odinga, claims of a rigged result sent hundreds of protesters into the street, sparking tribal warfare and governmental crackdowns on protesters.  The violence has killed hundreds of Kenyans and displaced over 350,000 citizens."

Then, in a suitably non-promotional way, Steve segues into a description of how YouTube has proven useful.   A Kenyan broadcaster created its own channel as a means of getting news out.  The National Democratic Institute began another one for a similar purpose.  We even came across a channel from the Kenya Red Cross Society.

It’s hard to say what effect the channels are having; no one can stop a riot by virtue of having watched a two-minute clip.  Still, if the videos manage to influence any voters, and thereby influence politicians, that’ll be an accomplishment.  There’s also the matter of individual aid donations to consider.  And whatever the end result, at least YouTube is helping with the spread of information.

We can begin with the keynote, which was given by Gonzalo Alonso, Google’s General Manager for Spanish-Speaking Latin America.  Search Engine Roundtable has provided a transcript, and, according to Alonso, Latin America is “[g]rowing faster than the US, most of Europe and places in Asia.”

Also, in the event you’ve noticed Google building in Kenya, Israel, and China – just about everywhere other than the countries to America’s south – Alonso continued, “In the last 12 months, Latin America has become a number one priority for Google.”

And thus began the conference.  Later on, speakers at one session outlined the importance of mobile search in the Spanish-speaking market.  “61% of US Hispanics own cell phones,” announced Sarah Carberry, Google’s Sales and Marketing Multicultural Development Manager.  “Mobile searching, and therefore advertising, is on the rise.”

Rafael Jimenez, the General Manger of Yahoo Hispanic America’s Advertiser and Publisher Group (and also the holder of another really long title), agreed, listing several contributing factors.  “Mobile data plans are getting cheaper,” he pointed out, “[a]wareness is increasing,” there is an “[i]ncrease in mobile content/applications,” and “[c]ellular networks are getting faster.”

Jimenez also emphasized the importance of social search in Latin America.  “The good thing about social search is that you’re leveraging the knowledge of the collective, rather than relying solely on the machines,” he stated.  “A lot of people are looking at alternative ways to find the answers they’re looking for on the web.”

And a lot of people, as the very existence of SES Latino 2007 proves, live within the Latin American market.  Businesses who keep that in mind will probably do quite well.

My surprise at this move shouldn’t be construed as an insult; it’s just that Kenya isn’t widely viewed as a technological hotspot.  In an article posted on allAfrica.com, Russell Southwood made a similar point, writing, “Google is moving outside of the continental comfort zones for most global investors, North and South Africa, and is opening its first operation in Sub-Saharan Africa.”

Then again, we have seen Google’s name associated with Kenya at least once before -the search engine giant came bearing Google Apps – so this shouldn’t come as a complete shock.  And we should remember that Google’s move to North Carolina raised some eyebrows, as well.

In any event, Southwood continues, “Kenya has been chosen as the base camp for what is likely to turn into a sub-regional business.”  He then notes that Joseph Mucheru has been chosen to head up the operation.

This detail could be treated as a story in its own right.  African Path celebrates Mucheru’s past accomplishments (he is “one of the true leaders in the ISP space”), and then reveals, “This is Google’s first sub-Saharan Africa employee, not counting a couple sales guys in SA.”  There’s even a picture of Joseph Mucheru sitting with Russell Southwood (I’m thinking that Southwood is the chap who looks like Colin Mochrie).

And if Kenya’s newly situated Mucheru has any questions, he can always call up his fellow Googlers in Egypt and Israel.  Together, those locations may put Google a few steps ahead of Starbucks and McDonalds in that part of the world.

According to Google, African students (and some government officials) will receive Google Apps, which might be described as a sort of Google prize pack: “free communications tools including email, shared calendars, instant messaging and word processing under their institutions’ domain names.”  70,000 people should gain access to the technology in its initial rollout, with more to follow in later stages.

And good old Google is more than happy to help.  “Google has a simple ambition – to help organize the world’s information, making it universally accessible and useful,” stated Shona Brown, Senior Vice President of Business Operations at Google.  “For us, universality is crucial because we believe everyone should have access to the same services – wherever they live, whatever their language and regardless of income.”

On that note, I should reiterate that Google struck separate deals with Rwandan and Kenyan representatives, and point out that only Rwandan officials will get access to Apps.  Still, there aren’t likely to be many complaints about the company’s generosity.

Albert Butare, the Rwandan Minister of State for Energy and Communications, seemed happy enough, at least.  “This partnership will be a boost in terms of services offered to our Rwandan Academic Institutions, allowing them to collaborate in their learning activities,” he said in a statement.

Speaking of boosts, Google’s stock has risen a significant amount so far today – apparently due to news of its deals in Africa.