When an engineer at google comes up with a great idea during work hours not sanctioned by google, google still owns that idea and its success. Not the individual.
Same should apply when shit goes bad.
Same should apply when shit goes bad.
I would say Google's reply has been a lie(dare I say "utter bullshit") - an idea like this doesn't accidentally become implemented. It wasn't even implemented in a small way, both being executed from inside google and google finding it worthwhile to pay a separate company to expand the program for them. (A company doing exactly what google has asked of them, to the point of google having to approve the scripts used by callers.)
This is incredibly bad of them, and while "HQ" might not have fully understood the methods being used they wouldn't have not known nothing about it. It's about on par with News Corp executives pretending they didn't know about voicemail-hacking.
Sorry it's one or the other.
I know I like to say, we're IT and if anything goes wrong it's not our fault, but if anything goes extremely well, we'll take the credit--but then I know I'm being facetious :)
You know, why not think of Google (or Microsoft, or any other Zaibatsu-pretending-to-be-one-brand) as companies resident within a start-up incubator? Treating Google's Adsense team as the same "culture" as Google's Search team makes about as much sense as treating Sony Pictures as being the same company as Sony Computer Entertainment, or Virgin Airlines as being the same company as Virgin Mobile.
So, don't say "Google did this to GMail today" or "Google's search is amazing" or "Google merged their Page Creator into Google Sites"; instead, say "The GMail team launched this today" or "I love the Google Search folks" or "Google Page Creator got bought out by Google Sites."
This idea that Google can't be held responsible for bad employee behavior is borderline religious. Praise Google when it does something good, let Google off the hook when it does something bad.