Helping people instead of business: Google’s actions after the Japan earthquake

Google Street View cars drive through the streets of European and American cities, but they have not enjoyed a good reputation for a long time. I also remember the story of the theft of private data from open WiFi hotspots , and in general very few people would like such a high-tech spy who slowly hovers around the house.

Especially big problems were in Japan, because the Japanese especially value privacy. The authorities of nearly a dozen Japanese cities demanded that photos be taken away or the legality of such photography taken.
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But after the earthquake in Japan, panoramic shots of Google Street View streets came in handy. A project is being developed in which Street View cars will periodically patrol the streets of cities for continuous monitoring of the reconstruction process. Surprisingly, many municipalities agreed to participate in this project, even those that previously demanded to remove Google cars from the city. Google Street View is not the only way Google used its technology to help victims in Japan, writes the NY Times .

In the first hours after the tragedy, Google launched the Person Finder website for Japan - this service helps people find out about the state of their friends and relatives who have been affected by a natural disaster. It is said that it was very actively used by the Japanese in the first days and was almost the only place on the Internet where people could get the latest information.

Analysts point out that it is too early to talk about increasing advertising revenue and the search share of Google in Japan, but it must be remembered that this country is the second online advertising market in the world after the US. And this is one of the few countries in the world where Google is not the search leader (with an indicator of 39.6% it ranks second after Yahoo Japan, although Yahoo Japan recently switched to Google search, but at any moment can change its mind). In addition, Google in Japan had some problems with its public image, so that increasing brand awareness can greatly improve the company's position in the market.

It would be the height of cynicism to assume that Google’s humanitarian efforts are due to the desire to improve its public image. Moreover, this is absolutely not true. First, the same Person Finder was launched back in 2010 after the earthquake in Haiti (Google was hardly thinking about improving the image in Haiti), and its Japanese version was opened less than two hours after the earthquake . This was done by the developers of the Tokyo office of Google, who themselves were close to the epicenter. Immediately after that, they abandoned their usual projects and started to create a new website.

Everyone shared ideas: one made support for local phones, another implemented a layer for Google Maps. When the evacuation centers began publishing lists with last names, they asked people to take photos using their mobile phones — and upload them to Picasa. Approximately one hundred sales managers of the Tokyo office engaged in photo processing, so that current lists quickly appeared on the site. However, very quickly people sent almost a thousand pictures and Google employees could no longer cope. Then, unexpectedly for Google, anonymous users connected to the case: in a few weeks, about 5,000 people helped transcribing over 10,000 photos, and the Person Finder database was replenished with more than 140,000 names.

Soon, the Tokyo office began calling around government organizations and regional authorities to replenish their base. For many Japanese officials and politicians, this was the first experience with Google - many were surprised to hear this name. But the answer was always the same: everyone instantly agreed to help and shared the available lists. One by one, all Japanese agencies, the largest newspapers and even the usually closed headquarters of the police - they all provided lists for the Person Finder, all in the database 616,300 records were collected and it became Japan’s largest resource for missing people.