Google sparks online outcry after its currency converter goes haywire for third time this year

What's that old saying? Ah, yes, it's right here in Google's corporate handbook: never apologize, never explain. The online ad giant has expressed its regret to the government of Ghana for a software bug that made it appear last week that the country's cedi currency had collapsed. According to the country's Ministry of …

[Claptrap314]

I don't think that smell is from the fish...

I'm having a really, REALLY hard time imagining a scenario where this happens absent malfeasance. They are slurping data from a small set of exchange houses. If that data goes bad, it affects many currencies, not one.

Unless someone targets a particular currency.

[Mark 85]

Re: I don't think that smell is from the fish...

Are you thinking it's intentional for perhaps corporate money laundering or some like that? Ah the smell of dead fish in the morning... it smells like profit!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I don't think that smell is from the fish...

Google likely gets its data from scraping other companies websites.

Which is all well and good until it doesn't work, either due to a change or error on the remote site or your scraping not working quite as you expect.

I'm more surprised that people are using Google rates for anything serious. Or are they scraping Google's results who are in turn scraping someone else's rates and it's GIGO all the way down?

Malfeasance or ignorance/stupidity? I'm sure using a trustworthy information provider would be important for small transactions and essential for any regular or significant investments.

I'm sure AI will fix it...

[Yet Another Anonymous coward]

Re: I don't think that smell is from the fish...

>I'm more surprised that people are using Google rates for anything serious

Why not just go to the source that sets the rates? illuminati.org

[arthoss]

Nice ref to the Pentium bug

In the subtitle of the article

[brotherelf]

This is not the currency you are looking for

So just another cedi mind trick then?

[Chris G]

Contrition?

"Oh! It's that thing that other people have when they screw up! We don't do that kind of thing here."

[Anonymous Coward]

Once upon a time...

Decades ago, I wrote a bit of code. About 30 feet long. Overnight, after a week of planning. Every subroutine module first checked its inputs, then performed its function, and then double-checked its outputs before returning. The code didn't even trust itself. The code muttered to itself, by storing status strings in a huge array.

It's not difficult to write paranoid code. In fact, it's easier. 'Mic drop', walk away perfect.

Google could adopt this approch here. Check the numbers from several sources. Check the history, compare sudden changes to the News. Throw error messages and cry for help. Not difficult to avoid major errors, if your code is paranoid.

[Barry Rueger]

Re: Once upon a time...

Throw error messages and cry for help.

The problem being that involving an actual human is seen as failure since the goal is to have all decisions made by algorithm. Unless you mean that Algorithm A will pass the error message to Algorithm B.

This juvenile determination to avoid human supervision is why Google and Facebook fall on their face over and over, and never seem able to see the problem.

[MiguelC]

Why trust Google?

"Google's currency conversion widget includes a disclaimer that says the company cannot guarantee displayed exchange rates are accurate"

It's alright then as everything Google is always in beta stage. Until it's scrapped.

[Tromos]

Only buys a quarter as much

Google was probably just giving the rate you get from a foreign exchange desk at an airport.

[S_W]

Nigerian Naira currency drop to 184 per dollar

while the official exchange rate remained at about 306.

"Drop" is an interesting choice of word to describe it appearing to double in value.

[DropBear]

So basically it was scraping that rate from four different sites, averaging them, and when three of those suddenly returned 404 it just went with zero for those...?

[Paul]

Google apologises by buying Ghana

Google apologised and, somehow in the process of paying compensation, accidentally ended up owning Ghana.

"We're not sure what to do with it" said Sundar Pichai. "We're thinking of bulldozing the entire country flat and covering it with photovoltaic cells set at 30 feet above ground level, giving free shelter from the sun to the inhabitants. It will pay for itself in under 15 years and make us the largest energy supplier in the world".