Google shares news: Tech giant announces US data centre expansion

Google shares ended higher in the US Friday, as the global tech giant announced a US data centre expansion plan. In a news release, Google said it plans on hiring ‘thousands’ new staff to work in new or expanded data centres and office across the country.

Google shares closed 0.38% higher at $1,095.50 in the US on Friday, after a generally positive week.

Google to open/expand data centres in 14 US states

Google currently has offices and data centres in 21 states. The tech behemoth will invest some $2.5 billion to open new or expand existing data centres in Alabama, Oregon, Tennessee, Virginia and Oklahoma.

In addition to the data centre expansion, Google is creating new or expanding existing offices in California, Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas and Washington, over the next few years too.

“Our goal is to ensure that information serves everyone, not just a few,” said Google CEO, Sundar Pichai. “To do this, we want to hire people to develop our products in the widest possible range of locations, around the world and throughout the United States.

Google already directly employs 1,900 staff across the US in its existing data centres and this expansion will likely see that number rise significantly.

Dublin-based Google moderators complain of click-farm work

However, while Google announced its US expansions plans, an article in the UK’s The Sunday Times paper suggests that all is not as it should be with some ad moderating staff.

Speaking to The Times, Dublin-based moderator staff told how they were encouraged to approve content as Family Safe, even when it was in a language they couldn’t understand.

They also said sometimes the backlog of work was so large they approved around 3,500 ads per day and couldn’t carefully review each one.

“In case of emergency, like if the queue was full of old ads that were about to expire, in order to meet the service-level agreement and make Google and Accenture happy”, a former Italian worker at the Accenture run, Dublin-based moderator centre in Dublin.

“We would jump on those queues and work super quickly with the ads. This means we did not have the time to properly review the ads and apply the policy,” she said.