KENYAN FARMER TO SUE GOOGLE

A Kenyan farmer requesting for payment for destruction of his crops from google. 

Project Loon a Google programme sited at Joseph Nguthari’s property in Nthambiro, Igembe Central is a  global netwrok of high attitude balloons that reaches the stratosphere, about 20km above the earth, the majorly act as mobile phone towers and provides 4G internet.

 

Nguthari says the device was radiating a lot of light attracted many people who entered his farm without caution  trampling about seven acres of his farm and Google agents did not access damages on the farm. He now says he wants an agricultural expert to assess the damage to his crops so that his lawyer can file a suit against the US-based tech giant.

The damage was made worse after police officers shot in the air to disperse the crowd that was keen to see the device. People were running in all directions destroying my farm produce. My farmhand also left on that day,” he added.

The device was one of Google’s 10 balloons deployed for testing in Nakuru, Nanyuki, Nyeri and Marsabit in July last year. It was being navigated remotely to land in a less populated area but strong winds led it to Nguthari’s farm.

In a statement Google said “I can confirm this was a Project Loon balloon. Our hope with Project Loon is to beam Internet access to rural, remote, and underserved parts of the world. Following a routine research and testing flight, we coordinated with local air traffic control to manage this balloon’s safe and slow descent to an area in Meru,” .

 

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