Comments on: “Children of a Lesser Google”

By: Colin

Colin — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 05:07:45 +0000

Tax implications for both google and the winner is probably another reason for the discrepancy. Sure the optics look bad, but with the little knowledge I know about foreign taxes, there might have been more thought and discussion before awarding this combination of prizes.

By: Padrons

Padrons — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 03:39:02 +0000

Ohh how unfair that is. But I sure do love Chrome.. and google has been good to all of us, yes? Who can say no to the free navigation app?

By: cocopuffs

cocopuffs — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 21:51:26 +0000

i don’t entirely agree with cicatrix, but she has a very valid point. its almost pointless to comment at this point since there are so many flamers on this site~!

By: Cynicalguy

Cynicalguy — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 18:56:57 +0000

So giving less to one person compared to another person is considered “evil” now?

By: KBC

KBC — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 18:23:03 +0000

In other news, the Indian franchise of who wants to be a millionaire has a top prize of only ~$200000

Not ~$200000, but ~$400000. Inflation catches up with everything.

By: Google Lover

Google Lover — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 09:48:10 +0000

If Google US never gave 15 grand + NY Trip as the first prize, no one would participate. Easy to reason.

By: Rid1

Rid1 — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 06:50:37 +0000

What kind of attitude is this? You can’t ask a company to raise the value of the prize for a competition… Its like you win a lottery and ask them for twice the money… if the money doesn’t pay your effort, don’t compete… Competitions are meant to be fun… not a place for greed for prizes!

By: Akash

Akash — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 02:06:09 +0000

Just because the Canadian market is less important to them, Google thinks it can not run a contest for children there.

More than marketing Google has a R&D center in India which will grow in future, this is probably to keep the young folks interested. Many under grads in India put lots of effort to get into their 'dream company', Probably Google wants to be the first dream company for all the Indian kids.

By: Dean Casalena

Dean Casalena — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:24:19 +0000

I don’t understand. Why do people think it needs to be in any way equal? We don’t even need to adjust according to all kinds of things. Its simply NOT evil in any way to have two competitions with two different prizes. Are either of the kids’ doodles WORTH $2000? No, they are competition entrants. Its like saying all lotteries should have the same prize. For the Indian leg of the competition, $2000 was what they had to offer as a prize to generate enough interest in the competition. For the US, it was much higher. Now I’m not saying Indian kids deserve less than American kids, or that no-one would have entered if they offered less in the US. I’m saying its Google’s money and they deemed these prize values per country to have the highest promotional value per dollar spent on prizes. Its a business, not a charity, and they’re NOT making value judgements on the children of different nations. I assure you, big companies know that everyone’s money is still money. Damn, does anyone else get SO SICK of people playing the race card, and worse yet, it being played on other people’s behalf.

By: John T Meche III

John T Meche III — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 20:37:07 +0000

India’s GDP is approximately 8.6% of that of the US…so if you adjust for that, it’s like is school got $24,400 and if you figure that each winners laptop was worth $2000 in the US, then it was like he was getting a laptop worth $23000