Not that I don't think that Google is evil as fuck, but to give them the benefit of the doubt, that particular case just sounds like a rogue team has got a bit over enthusiastic.
Ecommerce in Africa is heavily based on largely independent and poorly managed outsourcer teams that tend to have quite a shotgun approach. I doubt that that strategy came from Google head office - more likely it was a gungho African boiler room team trying to hit their Christmas bonus.
Not that Google isn't one of the top 2 most evil internet companies out there (the other being Facebook of course).
