Confusion over the zloty exchange rate. Gawkowski on Google’s reaction: I am not satisfied
The New Year’s confusion over the zloty exchange rate had serious consequences, also at the political level. Google had to explain itself to the ministries of finance and digitization.
After Google incorrectly displayed currency rates on January 1, which might have suggested that the Polish zloty had lost its value by about 30 percent, the ministries of finance and digitization demanded explanations from the technology giant. He sent them, but their content raises many doubts.
Gawkowski on Google’s response
Google’s laconic announcement, which states that the company is not directly responsible for the error, caused a lot of controversy. Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Digital Affairs Krzysztof Gawkowski commented on the matter on RMF FM.
– I’m not satisfied. Content should be checked, and such a simple and laconic answer, indicating that Google does not check it but only provides it, shows that no one takes responsibility for it. If large streaming and internet platforms say that they provide content from some source, but do not fully check it, it will end even worse in the future. Here we had a case where there was no great market confusion, but I can imagine other data that may affect the economy, people or society – Deputy Prime Minister Krzysztof Gawkowski said on RMF FM.
The state doesn’t have the tools
The Deputy Prime Minister from the Left admitted that the biggest problem is that governments currently do not have the appropriate tools to respond to this type of situations.
– Today, we do not have legislative solutions that would allow us to force an economic partner, in this case Google, to verify data, but there are provisions that will change this. In Poland we will implement, among others: Digital Service Act (DSA), i.e. the Digital Services Act, which will concern, among others, the issue of disinformation. This is the first step to prevent such situations from occurring. We will have a regulator who will be able to turn to the company and say that its algorithm does not work and that it should improve it – said Krzysztof Gawkowski.
– Considering large Internet giants that generate billions in turnover, there are no regulations in the world today that would regulate what is happening. Countries are very far behind in being able to respond to what tech giants are doing – added.
